April Showers

Russell told me to get the pictures ready for the blog so he could write tonight and then he gave me permission to blog since I was really there for the big event and he was playing the longest round of golf with his dad. I mean like 5 and 1/2 hours of long golf. Not the most fun he has ever had playing golf, but he was excited about what he came home to. Let me give you a short run down of the weekend. Friday night my sister flew in from Kansas City and we ate dinner and went shopping. Saturday was my church shower thrown by some really great girls! It was such a fun and exhausting day. Russell and I really felt great with the show of love from our friends and family. Here are just a few pictures from the shower!

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Here I am with my amazing hostesses. Some of these girls I have known for years and some of them I have just met since we started going to Prestoncrest. Thanks so much for everything girls!

This is all of the Smith family that was there. It was so good to see everyone!
These cookies were so good and all of them were homemade and decorated by the fabulous Jill!

This is my good friend Jennifer. We have known each other since 3rd grade and she is having a baby boy at the end of May. Our kids will be only be about 2 weeks apart.
Some more of the Smith clan.
I hadn't taken a belly picture with Alli lately, but here we are.
This is my Mimi!
Just a few of the Deans and my granny. I think this is the only picture I got with my sister all weekend. Sorry Bekah, I meant to get more.

Katie and me with our future cousins. I can't wait for them to meet.
Two of my roomates from college. It's been a while since we had all been in the same place. I love these girls.
Aunt Rachel
KK was my personal photographer for the day. I wouldn't have gotten all of these great pictures if it wasn't for her!

This is where all of the presents landed after the shower. I am so thankful for everything we received. There has got to be a better word out there than thankful to express how I am feeling right now. Thank you for the outpouring of love that was shown to Russell and I on Saturday. I can't wait to watch our baby boy grow up and he is going to have some great examples to look up to.

Well, this is where I sign off and let Russell take over. I am sure he has a few things to say.

Nope, I got nothing to add.

A Rumble in the Belly!

About 10 to 12 weeks ago Sarah and I went to the doctor for just the normal fun doctors appointment. You know the one I'm talking about, where you show up, sit in the waiting room for a good 30-45 minutes, then get called back and Sarah gets weighed and has her blood pressure checked, told the doctor will be "Right in", and then wait another 20 minutes to spend a solid 2-4 minutes with the doctor. (On a side note, can't they put a TV in the exam room so that me and Sarah have something to do besides just stare at each other for 20 minutes.) Anyways, during our 2-4 minutes with the doctor, she asked Sarah if she had felt the baby move yet. The answer was no. The doctor said not to worry, and that it would happen very soon. I was for some strange reason very excited about this. I suppose that with movement, this would signify to me that we were having a healthy baby. So for several days after this visit I would ask Sarah if the baby had moved yet. And every day I would get a no. And every day I would be disappointed. I guess I realized that when that day came Sarah would tell me, so I stopped asking. I got a call from Sarah at school one day, and she excitedly told me "The baby moved! I felt the baby move!" My response, "You sure it wasn't gas?" I felt it was a logical question. I learned the hard way that excess gas was a very real side effect of pregnancy. Sarah assured me that it was not gas, and I felt very happy that my baby boy was alive and kicking, literally. It took a couple of weeks until I was able to feel him move around, but was pretty cool when I could. All this brings me to last night. Sarah had been telling me that he was having some big kicks, and I hadn't been able to feel them yet. Well, I guess he was in a big kicking mood, because I felt him a lot last night. And this morning before we got out of bed. It is so amazing how much you can feel that little 4 pound ball moving around inside her belly. Aside from the seeing the sonograms, this has been the coolest part about being a future daddy.

That could all change this weekend though. Sarah has her baby shower this Saturday, and depending on the bounty she brings home, the whole baby shower idea may prove to be my favorite part. I will let you know how it goes on Saturday. Sorry there are no pictures with this post, but none have been taken in the past couple of days. Hopefully Sarah will get some of her shower and I can post them this weekend. Until then.

Hot Springs...or not...or Yep!

Well here we go. Sarah has been trying to get me to take over this wonderful blog, and I have finally given in. In all honesty, I've been wanting to do some writing and I think this is a good way to get started. Hopefully those of you that enjoy reading Sarah will also enjoy reading Russell/Sparky. I will do my best to make sure everyone is kept up to date on our little boy that will be joining us soon. For those of you keeping score at home, we are exactly nine weeks away from our due date, June 16th. I wouldn't mind him coming 3 days late. See if you can figure out why.

Last Thursday, April 3rd, I left school headed for Tyler to stay the night with my parents and then head to Hot Springs Village in Arkansas for a weekend golf outing with my dad, uncle and 13 other guys. This trip had been planned for several months, and was something that my dad and I were both looking forward to. I got to Tyler around 7:00 and my uncle Bruce was supposed to arrive around 10:00. Bruce was the ringleader of this trip and was coming to Tyler from College Station. Around 9:00 my dad called Bruce to see when he would be arriving, but had to leave a message. Around an hour later, Bruce called my dad back and said he would be there in about a week. The next couple of minutes were a bit of a blur to me, but I do remember my dad's face going white, and him saying "WHAT!!! You're joking!!" Bruce wasn't joking.

Somewhere, somehow, someone dropped the ball on the communication. To say that me and dad were upset is underselling it just a tad. We both took Friday off and had been really been looking forward to the weekend. Instead of golfing in Hot Springs Village on Friday, we settled for golfing in Wolfe City. It still turned out to be a good day.

These three pictures though, are not from Wolfe City. They are from Hot Springs Village. Luckily, Dad and I got to go on the trip, just a week later than we thought. It was a great trip. Four rounds of golf over a three day period makes for a great weekend. The courses were a little wet on Friday and Saturday, and the wind blew as if we were in North Texas, but the courses, and the company made it a whole lot of fun.

While I was out of town, Sarah's mom came to Dallas to spend the weekend with Sarah. I'm not really sure what they did, but I would imagine it involved the baby. On Sunday morning Sarah's dad and Granny came up and the four of them went to church and then came back to the apartment.
Finally, here is 31 week pregnant Sarah. She said she felt big today. I don't claim to be an expert, but I think when you are pregnant you get big. But I think it is a beautiful big.

Well, that's about it for my first blog post. I promise to have at least 2-3 of these a week. Some will be long, some will be short. Hopefully all will be enjoyable.

Baby Stuff

***Sorry about the pictures before. I posted them off of picasa and they just didn't show up today. I hope the problem is fixed now! Enjoy the whole blog this time.***

Hello out there in blog land! It's been a few weeks since I have been on. I just had a few things I wanted to post about and show you some cute pictures. I don't include myself in the "cute" portion of this blog though. Since I am in week 30 I have decided to take a belly picture every week until the baby gets here. I have taken random belly pics here and there, but I have a feeling I am about to get really BIG. I have been feeling fine. I am sleeping ok if you count getting up 4-5 times a night to go to the bathroom sleeping ok. It definately hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be though. I have no problem going back to sleep. I just feel like those nightly bathroom breaks are getting me ready for those nightly feedings. Hopefully I can go to sleep as easily after those! Here are a few pictures for your viewing pleasure.
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This is me at 30 weeks. Only 10 more to go!

My mom and dad were kind enough to bring up the crib we are using when they came up for a few hours last Sunday. Russell and I put it together on Saturday. For the most part it was pretty easy. The only mistake we made was putting the mattress holder thingy in upside down. We both missed the sticker on the right side of it that said, "IMPORTANT this side up!" Oops, but it was an easy fix. I can't wait to get my bedding and put it all together. It is going to be so cute.

Since I am not really using a theme for the babies room I have decided to incorporate a few sports things here and there. We got the baby mobile in the mail this week. It is super cute and Russell is so excited about it. If you can't tell what it is from this picture, maybe the next one will help.

This boy is destined to be a Texas Rangers fan just like his daddy. Russell already informed me that they will be attending opening day next year. That ends it for the pictures and baby talk.

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Russell has finally decided that he would like to take over the blogging responsibility. I for one am definately ok with that. I mean let's face it, if you get our Christmas letter you know that the same person does not write on this blog. I teach music and not writing or math for a very good reason. Russell hasn't decided if he is going to let me post anything from here on out, but I promise you will know the difference without us even having to tell you. So for now it is farewell from Sarah and hello Russell. He promises to write more often than me and I promise it will be funnier. Can't wait to hear what you think of the change!