20 weeks

How far along:  20 weeks
Total weight gained/lost:  12lbs
Maternity clothes:  I pretty much only wear maternity pants now but I can still fit all my regular shirts
Stretch marks:  nope
Sleep:  It's already starting to get annoying.  I've read that I shouldn't lay on my stomach (which is uncomfortable anyway) or my back so that leaves me having to always sleep on my side
Best moment of the week:  Making it to the 1/2 way point
Movement:  Some days I feel a lot of little "flutters" other days he's just chill and keeps still  
Cravings:  I've kinda been on a milkshake kick the last week or so
Gender:  Boy
Labor Signs:  nope
Belly button in/out:  in
What I miss:  My champagne toast at midnight tonight for NYE
What I'm looking forward to:  20 week appointment this week where they will take all his measurements

Christmas 2012

Christmas 2012

 The dogs were very curious about what was in their stocking

After J and I opened presents from each other we headed over to the Parks' house for breakfast and gifts with J's side of the family.

Later in the afternoon we headed to the Nicholson's house for Christmas with my side of the family.

 The aftermath...we prefer to clean up at the end rather than while everyone opens presents.

Merry Christmas!

J turns 30!

On 12-12-12 my man turned 30!  Now I can say that I am not longer older than him because we are finally BOTH thirty.  We had a big dinner at the Parks' house to celebrate the occasion.
Lorelai did not have such a great evening because somehow she got left outside alone in the rain while we ate dinner.

 J got a new rain jacket.  The first one his mom bought was too small but she didn't realize that until she got home.  She forgot to take the original jacket back so just bought a second one with plans of returning the too small one.  Come to find out it was just the right size for Jeremy so he got an early Christmas present.

 J with his new Nexus 7 tablet.

 Happy Birthday my love!

Baby reveal party

So by now I'm sure that everyone knows the gender of Baby Parks, but for the sake of the blog I've got a lot of back-tracking to do.  
We went in for our 16 week appointment and were able to find out the gender of little Baby Parks.  We had the nurse write the gender on a card and seal it up.  I then took the card to Publix and had the bakery make a cake with either blue or pink icing in the middle.  The next night we had a gender reveal party at the Parks' house so everyone could find out at the same time.
We had our family choose pink or blue to wear for their guess at what we were having.  Kristin and Aimée were the only ones on Team Pink.

After dinner it was finally time to cut the cake and find out!

 It's a BOY!

Then, of course, it was non-stop texting and Facebook posting for the rest of the evening.

Bad blog!

So I apparently messed my blog up pretty bad.

This is why you don't try to figure out computer things yourself when the husband is not home.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some of it fixed, but it won't be this week...crazy busy December schedule.  

Sorry guys for the ugliness.

16 weeks

I finally felt as if my little bump was picture worthy...although it was the end of the day so maybe its still more of a food baby than Baby Parks.


How far along:  16 weeks
Total weight gained/lost:  Gained 6-7 lbs
Maternity clothes:  The Bella Band has been a wonderful thing because I can still wear my regular jeans, but I did purchase a pair of preggo jeans the other day because they were on sale for $21
Stretch marks: nope
Sleep:  The same...except for the extra trips to the bathroom
Best moment of the week:  We hopefully will find out if Baby Parks is a girl or boy on Friday
Movement:  I think Baby Parks is still too small for me to feel anything
Cravings:  Not really...but I never turn down pizza
Gender: ??
Labor signs:  nope
Belly button in/out:  in
What I miss:  cold deli sandwiches
What I am looking forward to:  the gender reveal party on Friday!

Apothecary Jars

Awhile back I got together with some girlfriends and had a craft night.  We made a cute craft I found on the Uncommon Designs blog via Pinterest.  They are called Apothecary Jars and you can decorate them for any season or time of the year.  Almost all the supplies were found at Hobby Lobby and were fairly simple to put together.  We did have an issue with the glue because the craft really needs Gorilla glue to make it all stick together.

 Here's a little glimpse at the fun we had painting and putting the jars together.  Crafts are always more fun with friends.

New wheels

About a week or so ago a terrible thing happened...my little VW Passat, Bella, died.  We had a feeling it was coming.  I had stopped driving her to work because I drive so far to work compared to J's drive each day.  Well as luck would have it he was driving home from work and she just died.  The engine gave out.  Poor little Bella.  She was such a good car to us.  I enjoyed driving her because she felt so zippy and easy to drive.

So we spent the last week on a quest to find another vehicle for us.  Fortunately J's parents were out of town all week so they lent their car to us which was a huge blessing.  Buying a car on a schedule (and budget) is no fun but we found a great little car for us and our growing family.

Meet our new-to-us Ford Escape.  I haven't come up with a name for this car yet so suggestions are welcome.  I wanted something kind of "stealthy" since she's a sleek black car but I already nixed J's suggestion of naming her Lara Croft.

Taco Soup

When I was in college my good friend Sara had this amazing recipe for taco soup.  Her mom used to make it for her growing up in Oklahoma.  So on cold nights she would make a huge pot of it and our little group of girl friends would eat soup and watch Gilmore Girls.  It was the life!  
We've had some cool weather here the south recently so I thought it only appropriate to whip up some of Sara's Taco soup and share the recipe with ya'll. 

Sara House's Taco Soup

2lbs of ground beef
1pkg of taco seasoning
1pkg of ranch dressing mix
2 cans of corn
2 cans of Mexican stewed tomatoes (or if you can't find those you can use tomatoes with green chilies)
2 cans of ranch style beans
2 cans of pinto beans
4 oz of green chillies
1 or 2 T of garlic powder
2tsp of chili powder

Brown the beef in a big pot, drain it, add in cans of stuff and seasoning, cook until nice and hot. Eat with Fritos and Cheese

(side note: I usually use black beans and kidney beans instead of pinto-Lauren)

Road to baby

I was very conflicted about posting this post.  You see, you are about to read the most personal thoughts I have ever posted on the blog.  I used my blog to kinda journal some thoughts over the past year but never posted them.  They just sat in my drafts folders.  I was trying to decide if I ever did want to share these thoughts with you and just wasn't really sure.  But, I figured that if my random ramblings could give encouragement (out of the handful of people that read my little blog) to someone it would be worth it.



November 30, 2011
Some things are easier said than done...
As of now J and I have to been trying to get pregnant for six months.  I know, I know, that's really not a lot of time...but to me it is.  It feels like such a long time when, weekly, I find out another person I know is expecting. "You're still young" "you have plenty of time to start a family" "just relax, drink some wine, and it'll just happen"
These are all things I hear people saying and its just not that easy.  I really feel like God is teaching me a lesson here...possibly on patience, or jealousy and coveting, or just a lesson on trusting His plan for me.  I once read a blog post written by someone who had been trying for a long time to get pregnant.  I didn't know this girl, just stumbled across her blog while blog surfing once.  She wrote something that really stuck with me.  She said, don't think that when you see someone browsing the baby section at Target that they are just shopping for a baby gift...that girl might be browsing and thinking about how much she wants a baby of her own.  It's so true.  If find myself looking at people's nursery pictures or belly pictures and just wondering when will it be my turn?  I have friends who had to wait years to have a baby of their own so I know I'm not the only one but...
waiting is no fun.

March 6, 2012
This past month was really hard on the non-prego front.  I had gotten to the point where I didn't even take pregnancy tests anymore, I just waited to find out that I was not pregnant.  I had more hope for last month though because I was on my second month of taking Clomid (a fertility drug) and just knew it would work.  It did not however and it was really difficult for me.  I went to school the day after I found out we were not pregnant and was just having a rough day.  One of my sweet little four year old boys randomly came up to me at lunch and gave me the biggest hug!  I truly had to make myself not tear up...I just felt like through this little boy God was telling me it was ok and that he had a plan that and that I needed to have faith in His plan.  I've been trying really hard to not think about how "I'm not pregnant" and rather to think about what I do have in my life right now.  A wonderful husband who loves me, family and friends that care for me, a job with an amazing group of students to work with everyday and so much more.  Its difficult but I try very hard to be joyous for other when I find out that they are going to have a baby.

May 11, 2012
It's been about a year since we started trying to grow our family.  I can't really say there have been a lot of ups and downs, because really its been mostly downs with a couple of flat-lined "whatever" feelings.  I do have to say that I feel as if I have changed over the last year.  I don't feel like some super-holy person whose got prayer all figured out, but my my prayer life has definitely changed over the course of this year.  When we first started out in June of 2011 my prayers where just "please let me have a baby" "please let me be pregnant."  Now they are more like "Lord, if it is your will let us have a baby" "please be with my heart and let me understand and trust your ways" "guard my heart from feelings of jealousy and coveting when I see pregnant friends."  I'm not perfect and it still hurts when, yesterday even, I saw another pregnancy announcement on Facebook.  I'm really trying to positive and stay faithful through this whole journey even though it can be very tough at times.


So there you have it.  We did end up going through a couple rounds of IUI (which is a fertility treatmeant) before we were blessed to have little Baby Parks.  All this to say that you really can't plan and map out how you want your life to go.  It's totally up to God and His timing for you so trust in Him no matter how difficult it may be.  

On that note...Happy 12 weeks Baby Parks. Many, many prayers have been lifted up on your behalf by so many people.

Birthday Girl

Happy Birthday Sister!

Oh Baby...

Carolina Kick Off for a Cure

Once again we helped out at the Carolina Kick Off for a Cure to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.  As always we had such a stellar night!  Unfortunately the Gamecocks did not bring home a win, but the event did raise a lot of money for the Foundation.

We even got to meet Chad Holbrook, the new head coach for the baseball team.

NEEDTOBREATHE and Switchfoot

At the end of September we were able to see two really great bands.  Way back in the spring we bought tickets to see NEEDTOBREATHE.  The awesome thing about this show was that it was completely different than the show we saw back in March.  They totally changed up the entire set list and played a lot of their older songs that we love.

The following week we got to see Switchfoot at a "secret" concert.  It was actually just for USC students and you had to have an ID to get in, but some friends of ours from church are really good friends with the band so they got us in.  It was super fun but we were definitely some of the oldest people there.

Even Cocky showed up since it was a USC concert!

Golden Blues

BG is in her senior year of high school which means her last year of Golden Blues.  She had the privilege the past two years to be one of the choreographers for Golden Blues and this year she added Chamber Choir to her chorus schedule.

I seem to be the only non-musical one in the family because back in the old LHS days Aimee and Kristin were in chorus and Josh and Jeremy were in Golden Blues (I'll probably get in trouble for mentioning that on the internet).