The Beach, new neice and my baby!

Its been a busy past month.  We headed to Charleston with Andy's family for a week at the beach.  It was a well needed trip that we sooo enjoyed.  Sullivan did amazing.  He slept like a champ in the car on the way there and back.  He is such a  laid back baby that goes with the flow so he makes things very easy for us.  We are blessed to have such a sweet little boy.  When we returned my sister and Patrick welcomed their sweet little one, Elizabeth Winifred "Winnie".  She is super precious and the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen.  She was so tiny and cute, she weighed 5 pounds but she is a great little eater and is now up to 6 and a half pounds.  We are so excited to have her around. 

We are looking foward to alot of "firsts" coming up.  Sullivans first Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So there will be alot of cute outfits and pictures to post this fall and winter.  He is growing up so much, he has already rolled over, he is starting to grab toys, he smiles and belly laughs all the time.  He is such a joy to be around, I look foward to all the new things he discovers every week.  We really cannot say enough how blessed we are to have this little guy.  He is such a reminder of the Lord's love for us. 

Here are a few pics of the Sullivan and the beach....

Two months old....feels like two years

Its amazing how fast the days go by but yet how slow they go as well.  I think if you have a newborn you know what I am talking about.  Sullivan is a little over 2 months now....crazy!  We are getting sneak peaks at his little personality.  For instance, once he has a full belly and a clean diaper he is the sweetest thing to watch.  He loves big facial expressions and will just smile away, coo and try to talk to you.  It melts my heart.  Of course when he does this I immediatly get the camera out and he shuts it down.  For right now alot of his pics consist of him and his favorite thing in the world.....his paci.  Its like a drug for him, we will hear him whining, crying, squirming and go into his room stick the paci back in his mouth and he will be OUT!  Thank the Lord almighty that he put it on somone's brain a long time ago to invent the pacifier! We will forever be grateful for that invention :).

Everything is going well, we have found a church that we really like.  Harvest Bible Chapel,  the people there have been so welcoming and kind.  The small group we are attending is lead by the pastor Mike and his wife Jamie.  They arranged for us to have a weeks worth of meals made for us from people in our small group when Sullivan was born.  We are really enjoying our time there and are excited about the relationships we are making.  Its just what we need being new to Chattanooga.  The Lord is definitly giving us direction.

We have an exciting couple months coming our way.  Patrick and Heather will be welcoming their little girl in September and Matt and Shannon will be welcoming their little girl in November or December :).  We are headed for the beach in two weeks, and are super excited!  We should have some family pics to post when we get back.  For right now, here are some pics of little Sullivan.

He has arrived!

As many of you know already Mr. Sullivan Andrew has arrived!  We are so thrilled and amazed.  Sometimes I can't believe he is ours, we find ourselves just staring at him all the time and thinking we are the weirdest parents for doing so. Here is how it started...the day before I was having some contractions and a backache but didn't think anything of it.  Andy and I went out to eat and when we got home we took a long walk.  As soon as I came in and layed down here came the contractions.  They were dull and the timing was all the over the place.  So I decided to go ahead and go to bed and they seemed to fade away.  At 11:30 I was woken up by a pretty stabbing contraction, so I got up and went into the bathroom and noticed water started running down my legs.  I yelled for Andy who was in the shower, had a moment of freaking out and then we gathered our things and headed over to the hospital.  My contractions started getting stronger and closer together but I was only dialated 1 cm.  They gave me some pain meds and I tried to get some sleep.  I got my epidural around 5:00 am and felt tons better but still was only 1 cm.  They started me on pitocin and that slowly started kicking in.  Around 1:30pm I could definitly tell we were getting closer, I had some pretty heavy pressure.  By 2 I started to push and an hour and a half later he had arrived.  I was beyond thrilled when he was out, first knowing he was healthy and second the pain was no more!  There really are no words to describe how we felt when we saw him, it was so surreal.  I don't think we will ever forget that moment.  We will be eternally grateful to our Father in heaven who blessed us with our beautiful son and kept him safe and healthy.  Here are some pics below of our little nuggett!

Anxiously awaiting

Hello everyone!  Andy and I are doing well and have been enjoying the warm weather and our last weeks of just us two before our little guy arrives.  We are 13 days away from our due date, hoping he will come before that but knowing we can see our due date come and go.  Whenever he decides to arrive it will be God's perfect timing.  It is easy to think, google, wish, amongst many other things to try to hurry him along but I believe this has been a time of teaching for me from the Lord.  I can very easily take things upon myself and try to figure out every little detail of how things are going to go and forgot that the Lord is anxiously awaiting, as I am, for me to place my complete trust in him.  What a major relief this is to us.  We are extremly blessed by him and can see his mercies being poured out to us daily.  I am once again reminded to a bible verse that always makes its way back to me and that is Isaiah 40:28-31.  It is a refreshment of how powerful his love is for his children.

We truely are over the moon excited to meet him and kiss his little face and toes.  During our wait I asked my sister to take some pictures of us.  She got a new camera for Christmas and wanted to try it out on us  for practice.  She did a pretty amazing job for someone who is new at it.  I posted some pics below that she took.  She has a good eye for it as well.  Enjoy!  Hopefully next post will be of Sullivan Andrew and his photo shoot! 

Baby shower and Sullivan's nursery

Hello friends and family! Its been a busy May so far with a couple showers and getting Sullivan's nursery completed.  Not to mention I am nesting like CRAZY.  I organized Andys tools the other day and I didn't even know what half of them were but I am enjoying this new side to me of organizing.  Hopefully it will pay off when my little man arrives.  We can't wait to meet him!

This past weekend my mom and mom in law threw me an amazing baby shower in Knoxville where I got to celebrate with my closest friends.  We were so blessed to recieve almost everything we need to get started with Sullivan.  We are so thankful that the Lord has gifted us with an unbelievable family and friends.  Sullivan has no idea the love that is surrounding him already and I can't wait for him to experience it everyday with our family.  The Lord is so kind and gracious and all glory goes to him for this little guy. 

Soooooo, his nursery is finally completed!  We just have a few loose ends to get together like one picture that needs to be hung and to purchase his changing table.  I am so excited how it came out. I cannot believe that in 7 weeks there is going to be a baby in there to occupy it. 

Here are some pics below of the shower and Sullivan's nursery, Enjoy! Excuse the sideways pictures, I could not figure out how to fix it :)

                                                  Sullivans nursery

 another view of his nursery

 Mom redid this rocker for me, she did an awesome job!

 Heather and I with her baby bump and my baby bowling ball stomach

 My mother in law, Diane, sister in law, Shannon ( who is also expecting in November) and my niece Libby.

 

Mom, Heather and me

Diane made the the diaper cake and Mom made the delicious food. 

Getting started

Hello Everyone and thanks for checking out our blog.  We are new to this and I am not much of a writer but we are excited to share what the Lord is doing in our life and what is to come.  We created this blog so family and friends can check out our life in Chattanooga and our soon to be addition to our family, Sullivan Andrew, who will be making his arrival at the end of June.  We can't wait!  We have been preparing his nursery which means throwing out alot of our junk (really Andy's junk) so he can settle in.  I have been taking pictures as we go so here is our starting point with his room and I promise there will be a finished product soon.  Enjoy!

We had to down size our stuff quite a bit and still working on it.

Mazzie thought we were putting together a new bed for her, little does she know whats about to come.

Andy putting our crib together we were able to purchase at Pottery Barn thanks to our dear family