7 months old!

I can't believe it, but my darling baby is 7 months old! Last Tuesday he was official. It seems like only yesterday I brought him home from the hospital! He started sitting in his high chair last month and we have stopped taking him inside restaurants in his infant carrier because he is getting so big. I estimate him to be around 19.5 lbs, but I won't know for sure for another couple of months at his 9 month checkup. He is a great baby, and I can't imagine our lives without him! Here is a pic on his official 7 month birthday. I will start posting the professional photos I have taken of him from now on too.

We spent last weekend with his Aunt Becky in Charlotte. We had a great time visiting with her, and I got to go to my first Coldplay concert! It was a blast. I love hanging out in North Carolina, and I miss the burning hot weather (believe it or not). We also got to see Brandon's college baseball friends and had a good time catching up with them all! This week, Brandon and I are going to head to Blowing Rock for a dinner with friends at The Gamekeeper. I can't wait to have the bread pudding again....yum! Just 11 days left until vacation time! I hate the summer is almost over and can literally feel it slipping through my fingers!

Where to begin? I have been a terrible poster on the blog since October (I think?) before Brady ever came into our lives! Well, I have a lot to catch up on! I won't be going over every little detail because there is obviously months and months of stuff to talk about. As you all know, we were blessed in January with a beautiful little boy, Brady Benjamin. He is a sweetheart, and he will be seven months old on August 6. Today was actually a big day, he got up on all fours! He swayed back and forth for a long time, and I was just sure he was going to move forward, but nope. Haha, soon enough. I will dread him being mobile, because then I will just have to chase him around even more!! We will need to start baby proofing the house soon:) Brady comes to work with me everyday and Nana watches him. He has been such a blessing to us. I will try and post more pictures when I have time. Anyway, I just want to say hey, and that we will try and be more diligent from now on with posting blogs! Hope everyone is having a great summer!!

Well, this weekend was a very busy one indeed. Brandon and I drove to Roanoke for my 27-28 week checkup on Friday. I had bloodwork done and a flu shot, measurements taken, etc., so I was ready to rest when I got home. BUT, I couldn't, because we had the carpet fixed downstairs for our 2nd guest bedroom and Mom came over and helped me fixed the baby's room. His room is adorable, here is a pic of the almost finished product.

I am going to put his name above the crib when we concretely decide on it. Although I am sure it will still be Brady, we haven't really definitely decided on it. So, I'm going to wait and order the letters when I know for sure. We worked on the room all day until Friday and finally finished around midnight. Saturday we shopped a little and fixed up the downstairs second guest room. Whooo, I am still tired from all of that, but at least the house is completely finished now, and I couldn't be more thrilled with the results! My Mom passed a great milestone this week...15 years being cancer free! We went to Boone yesterday to meet my sister and eat and shop to celebrate. After a nice meal we went to the outlets and shopped for Christmas, although I couldn't really get anything because I'm so big right now! I still picked out some things at my fave store (J.Crew) for after the little guy arrives and I no longer have a stomach ;) Here is my most recent picture (27 weeks, 28 tomorrow wow!).
We had a great day and were able to see plenty of the beautiful fall leaves. This week proves to be another busy work week and the weekend should be very fun, because I get to judge the Miss Virginia Teen USA pageant this year! I'm extremely excited to see everyone I used to know and be on the other side of the fence this time. I can't wait! Well, that's all for now!

Well, we finally did it....we painted the baby's room! It's adorable, and I'll post pics of it soon!

After battling a rather fierce head cold for the past 2 weeks, my family and local friends suprised me with a beautiful baby shower honoring our soon-to-arrive little boy. Here are a few pictures.

The party was a complete surprise to me, but everyone else, including Brandon, had known for quite some time! My family lured me out of the house under the pretense we were going to eat for an uncle's birthday. My sister had called earlier and talked me into wearing a blue and white outfit, because it really was the only maternity summer clothes I had. So, after plenty of coercing under false pretense, they successfully kept the wool pulled over my eyes until I walked outside and saw a sign for the shower with blue and white balloons they had posted in my yard pointing me down to my subdivision's clubhouse. Looking over, I saw all of the guests standing there waiting to surprise me! It was a great and very welcome distraction from house work, colds, and every day life in general. Baby Blake got plenty of wonderful presents to help welcome him upon his arrival in January. Plus, it's always nice when my family can get together like that, considering we're a pretty large group and it's hard to bring everyone around on the same day. Here are a couple of pictures of Brandon and me and our diaper cake (kudos to Aunts Karen and Melissa, and Mom!) and some of the women in my family minus a couple who had to leave early. What a great day it was!

Hello everyone! Well, we went for our 23 week ultrasound on Friday. Everything was going great, according to Dr. Keene and the baby is currently in the 50th percentile of growth. He is crammed in pretty tight, however, so it was very difficult getting good pictures this time. Here are a couple. I have also gotten quite a bit bigger in the past 2 weeks, it's crazy. Here are my pictures from just a little over a month pregnant to 23 weeks pregnant, I'll be 24 tomorrow!

We also went to Chapel Hill to visit my best friend from dental school, Lindsey E who has a birthday tomorrow (happy birthday!), and also to watch to VT vs. UNC game. I naturally cheered for VT even though I went to both. I was happy to see us pull out another win, even if it was late in the game. Can't wait for the next home game! Here is a picture of my sister and me at the VT vs GT game last week.

My shirt says "future Hokie" :) We got to see Brandon's parents this weekend which was nice. We hardly ever get to go to Marion anymore, I wish we could see our friends there a little more often, so any time we get to drive through there is great. I wanted to go visit Heather and baby Addison, but that didn't happen this trip. Yesterday I broke down and decorated for the fall season even though it was in the 80s! It's another warm day here in Johnson City, and I'm not going to complain, but it's nice to get in the fall mood this time of year. That's about all for now!

Well, it has been another eventful few weeks for us. First, I want to congratulate Heather and David on their beautiful new arrival! Addison is gorgeous! We have been trying to get our 3rd floor guest bedroom moved down to the 1st floor. So, last Saturday we attempted to clean up our "junk room" which was full of things we never bothered unpacking when we moved in, Christmas decorations, extra dining room chairs for when we put our table wings in, assorted junk from dental school, etc. You name it, it was in there. After several long hours of cleaning and unpacking and reorganizing the garage to accomodate some of these items, we were finally down to the end. To our great dismay, however, Brandon stepped into the back half of the room to pick up a random tv stand and discovered the back of the room was flooded! We quickly moved things out and recognized it was really the whole back half of the room! SO, we spent most of the weekend ripping up carpet, throwing away padding and wet/dry vacuuming the room up. Needless to say, even though our baby furniture is ordered, we cannot move the room down stairs until our carpet has been reinstalled. But, we have received all of the bedding! We decided to go with a Pooh theme after debating over safari for a long time. I saw it and loved it so we went ahead with it! I can't wait to paint the baby's room too, right now we're thinking yellow or pale blue, we might go this weekend and actually pick the paint out. In other news, I'm going to VT tomorrow with my parents to see my sister and support our Hokies against GT. I also get to eat at one of my favorite Blacksburg restaurants, Backstreets, and I have been craving it a lot lately. The baby definitely isn't lacking even now on Hokie and Tarheel wear. We have beanies in both for him to wear in the hospital! So exciting :) Well, that is about all for now. I will try to post some pictures on here in a day or two. Have a great weekend!