Rainy is having mental issues right now. She is being needy. I think that she thinks she is fat, maybe b/c we tell he she is fat. Don't think that we are bad parents, we are just kidding with her. Is this how it starts though? Will she no longer want to eat? I don't think so. We are trying to retrain a 7 year old lab. Do you think that it will work? We will let you know. She has become militant in her old age. She wakes us at 5 with a dog food bowl to the head (literally). When we come home she yells at us to be fed. We are trying to change her internal clock. This is what happens when you do that. They become insecure and want to be in laundry hampers. We came home from a friends house and Worth put his puffy jacket in the hamper and Rainy decided that is where she needed to be. She has NEVER done this before. All we could do was laugh and then take a picture!

Atticus is doing fine. Lisser just wanted a picture so here you go Lisser. He is still pretty much oblivious and I so love him for that. He did have another kill this past week. Another rabbit out of our yard. Sweet boy, I think it really shocks him when he finally gets one. Have you ever heard a rabbit die? It is a terrible noise. I don't recommend it!

So I am a little embarrased by our water heater. This is what it looked like when Worth removed the shelves and we were really able to see what is behind it. He found many things, 2 ashe trays (we don't smoke), a phone book, paper cups, pot lids, just to name a few. We fear these have been there since worth bought the house. The back of the water heater was baiscally exploded. I wonder if this could explain all the water damage on the floor? This water heater is now gone. Replaced by a pretty white one that does not leak. It was laying in our yard waiting for trash day, I have to admit we looked pretty trashy, but this family came by and picked it up wanting to sell it for scrap metal. I hope they make money!

Our wood floor is down! No more wood floor to lay. I am thrilled. A lot of the tools are out of the house. I feel like we are getting close, but we are far from it. I have a false sense of security. I need to get over it. We still have to re-trim the whole house. Get a closet built so I have my kitchen table, bakery's rack, nursery, and guest room back. So we are far from done, but look at the progress!

29 weeks

29 weeks, 7 complete months pregnant, in my eigth month. Time is flying. In some ways I want her to stay in there as long as possible and in other ways I am ready for her to come out. I am starting to get uncomfortable, walking hurts a little bit. She has all of the sudden starting growing and my belly is really popping out. This may be the last picture I post of myself because I hated all the other pictures of myself Worth took, put me in a bad mood last night. I know I am pregnant and I have told many people this when they were pregnant, but it is still hard to all of the sudden see a stomach where there was not one before. I also know that something so wonderful will come from this. I also know that this is something every pregnant lady has felt. We are doing great though. I am so thankful that this pregnancy has been so simple!

On to this gorgeous little dress that came in the mail yesterday. This is from my most precious friend Katie who lives in Michigan and we met one summer at camp. We have not seen each other since that summer, but I still feel so connected to her. She made this dress for Bella Rose and it is the sweetest thing that I have ever seen. Look at the buttons. Thank you so much Katie!!! This dress is also washable and dryable. She is one of the most creative people I know. She has always been such an encouragement to me. Check out her blog. There is a link on here for her. I don't know how to make her name the link.

We have 1/2 the hardwood floor down. It looks awesome! It also looks so good with the color that I picked. Worth is doing such a good job. I wish that I could help him more, but I would have no idea what to do so I make him paninis! We have the living room, hall way, and nursery all done. The only thing left is the kitchen for flooring and then on to the trim.

Thank you Mom!

Thank you to my Mom!!! I went to Greenville for her Birthday and ended up with some gifts for Bella Rose. How fun. To the right is the sheepskin rug for the room. I got it yesterday and it is AWESOME!!! So soft. I think that Bella Rose will like some naps on the floor as well as Rainy!

This is the chandelier that I am so excited about. What little girl would not want a chandelier like this. My sister, Angela, has it up in Taylor's room and it looks so good. Thanks Angela for the idea. The fed-ex man just dropped it off!

And here is the bedside lamp that my mom got us as well. We decided on the pink shade. I was going to do the white, but my mom thought that the pink would be better. I think that I agree! This one is on back order until April though. What a bummer.

Hardwood floors are going down in my house as we speak. We are getting there. I promise I will have a belly shot soon. I just have run out of time for that. I can tell you though that it is getting bigger! Went to the doctor and everything is still going well. My iron is a little low so I guess I am going to be needing some hamburgers.

Ya'll have a great weekend. The weather here is terrific so hopefully we will get outside.

All ready Daddy's little girl!

Someone who is living inside of my stomach right now is already a daddy's girl. That someone would be Bella Rose, and that daddy would be Worth. My husband came into work yesterday with the biggest proudest grin on his face and laid these roses on my desk. I was on the phone with a client and did not pay attention to one word the client said. Worth told me that he got the last pink rose. Sweet right, well then he says that the pink one is in fact not for me but for Bella Rose. So the pink flower to your right is Bella Rose's first Valentine's day present. How sweet is that. This reminds me of my own dad and him ALWAYS bringing me a Valentine's. Whether it was chocolate or a stuffed animal it never failed that I had a valentine on that potentially very lonely holiday for a little girl! Thank you Dad.





(this picture is from my wedding day right before he walked me down the aisle)





On another note the kitchen cabinets are white and they are wonderful. So much better then the old stuff. It feels fresh, it feels clean, and I can't wait for the rest to be done!
What do you think?

27 weeks

I have no picture of me to show you, but this is the diaper bag that I saved for and bought. How pretty is that? I am actually looking forward to carrying it. I am 27 weeks today. Bella Rose is moving like crazy. It is still so wild for me to feel her in there. It is hard for me not to think that my stomach is just upset and not that there is a human in there. So wild! We are still doing great. My belly is getting bigger for sure. I am almost out of my pre-pregnancy pants, but the pair of maternity pants that I have are too big. What a weird stage to be in. I don't have that much longer so to buy a lot of maternity clothes seems strange to me.

The house is coming along. I am really excited. We painted the walls a peach color. In the day it looks bright, in the evening it is warm. My neighbor told me he does not like the color, but I won't listen to him. What does he know :). We painted the kitchen cabinets white. They look so much better and clean being white. They were terrible before. You can see that in other picturues. This is the wood floor that we are going to put down. Isn't it awesome!!!! I love it and can't wait for to be all down.

Progress

So we are getting there. I know it is hard to tell, but really we are. So we had the washer and dryer in the kitchen and it sounded like a helicopter was landing when the washer was on spin cycle. Not very condusive with a sleeping baby. So we moved those to the garage and cut a whole in our house and put french doors in. I know that the last picture is hard to see, but those are our french doors!! It makes it so much brighter in there. Now i just need to pick out a paint color. I am having a hard time with that though. I want a peach, but the one I picked looks pink, and I want it to be a bit darker. Any suggestions? I welcome them.

On another note I had a doctor's appointment this week and had to do my glucose test. The drink was not bad, but no one told me about having to wait for an hour. That was a little much. But we are all good. The doctor used perfect a couple of times, so that made me so happy. The weight gain is going well, although I still hate to get on the scale. I know I should not complain though. Bella Rose gave us a flip right before we heard her heartbeat so we got to hear how fast her heart was beating. The doctor again said perfect!

Thank you for loving us!

Welcome

I don't have a picture to post yet, but I would like to say welcome to the world Davis Benjamin Young. He made is appearance a month early and weighed in at 7lbs 12oz (can you imagine if he went full term). The proud parents, Ben and Jennifer Young are thrilled, although they weren't quite ready. Ben is having to put a crib together before Davis comes home. I can't wait to meet you Davis!!!

Pardon the Mess!

We are under major construction here. It seems fit
right, get pregnant, rip your house apart? Well
that is exactly what we have done. Here is the wall before. We had a wall seperating the kitchen and the living room. We wanted it out. It made the house feel so much smaller. I know the pictures were real crooked, but I was about to take them down anyway. It seemed like a daily chore straightening them.

So we enlisted some trusty to friends who had some anger issues and they kicked holes in our wall and punched the wall. Sorry I did not take pictures of the blood!! Yes I am serious, blood. Boys will be boys.








Rainy wanted to apart of all this action too. What a good dog!













So Worth and I worked on cleaning up the mess that the boys made. Worth took off the sheet rock and I vaccummed (how do you spell that word again Katie?).






Worth's dad came the next day and helped to take out the studs. We are getting there, but when you come to visit please pardon the mess. It has to look bad before it gets better right? We picked out our hardwood floors. They are beautiful. I can't wait for them to go in, but first we move the washer and dryer to the garage. That is Worth's project today, and then we must paint, and then the floors!!! Yeah! I will continue to update you on our progress. We have three months and counting before Bella Rose will grace us with her presence. We will be in overdrive getting it all done.

Another try

Okay so that last picture was terrible and I can't figure out how to delete it. This is a better one that Worth took. I think that you can see the belly better. As you can see he added some decoration behind me, his new lever action 22 rifle. He got it for his birthday, but not from me. I got him skateboards. Did I mention that he turned 32? Just checking. Well this picture is still me at 24 weeks, just a little later in the day :).

24 weeks

We did some nursery work this weekend. I hate that Worth has to do most of the work b/c he knows what he is do and I do not. I know that I can paint so that was my mission for the weekend. I painted and it wore me out. Who knew that growing a baby could be so tiresome. Now you have to have a vision when you look at the nursery. It is going to have a white chair rail seperating the pink from the brown, and Worth is going to put arts and crafts trim up around the doors and the windows. All the furniture will be white, and that is at the level of the brown, so essential the brown is an accent color. Do you see it? Also that green light will not be there. These pictures are the after and before. Not in the proper order, but figuring out pictures on this thing is really hard (i just previews this page and the pictures did come out before and after, but not how i had them arranged. i just don't get this thing). As you can see the deer heads are gone!!!! Score one for Sunday and Bella Rose.

This is me today, 24 weeks. I am in my last week of my 6th month, or on the last week of my 2nd trimester. In one of my books she is considered "viable" now if she were born. How scary is that. There is so much more to do here. I hope that she likes her home for right now b/c we are not ready. I will have house pictures to show you soon of the progress and the mayhem. Also sorry the picture is not so good, I have not figured out how to take tummy pictures yet.

Beauty

I know that we have already seen this image, but i want you to look really close. you see little Bella Rose's hand right? do you see below her hand and a little to the right? it looks like two fingers. they are really looking like worth's fingers. it took me awhile to see it as well. you have to look closely at it. worth picked this out as soon as he got the picture. it looks like a hand is holding Bella Rose. the hand of God? we would like to think so.

Joy

So prayer was answered for us and we could not be more joyful. My placenta has moved and our sweet Bella Rose has 4 chambers in her heart. Her heart beat is 177 b/c she was moving around so much, but she still managed to stay pretty curled up. We love the picture of her hand. Isn't that just so sweet. All other parts of the doctors appointment went really well. I have to do the sugar thing next month and we are going to sign up for a birth class for when I am into 30 weeks, so things are moving along quite nicely. Thank you all so much for loving us and Bella Rose and praying for us and with us. We love you!

Movement

So Worth felt Bella Rose move last night. He was so excited!!! I sort of cried, just a little, maybe just a little tear, I have been feeling her move for quite sometime and I know he was feeling left out. He also felt her this morning. We have an appointment tomorrow morning. We are going for another ultrasound and to hopefully get a better measurement of her heart. She was balled up pretty good last time so it was hard for them to see. Please pray that they can see everything and that she is doing well. She is moving like she is doing well :)

The snow coming down

so it is snowing here in Black Mountain, NC. I love it. this is what January is supposed to be. Needless to say that it was almost 70 this weekend and that this weekend maybe very much the same, but I will enjoy this while I can. Speaking of snow, it reminds me of my beach cruiser. I love this bike, and i love riding it. worth and i have not ridden our bikes in awhile, but we will be back on it soon. Maybe you will see me over the summer pulling Bella Rose along, now how fun will that be! Cheers on this wonderfully snowy day.

21 weeks

So this is the belly shot for 21 weeks. i am not really wearing the greatest shirt to show you, but i am showing a little bit. she is kicking right now, so she is there. It just feels like butterflies still and i love feeling her! i get so worried when i don't. we saw "pursuit of happyness" last night and she was moving the whole movie. i guess she liked it, which i did as well. i would highly recommend it!!!! so sweet!

So this is Christmas...

So I know it has been awhile and I needed to share my final bits of Christmas Joy. I cannot believe how fast everything happened. Our poor tree now sits in the front yeard waiting for a final resting place, which by the way will NOT be in a landfill. I just wanted to show one last picture of our tree in all its glory. I loved this one so much. It was a favorite for sure. Once the presents were gone though I noticed that it was always leaning to the left. I guess it gave it some personality right?

Rainy wants to say Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to you as well. She had a good one although there were no milkbones for her under the tree, that could be why she has a sad face.

This is where the nursery is going to be. As you can see it is in no condition for a tiny little girl to go in. As much as Worth thinks that the deer heads belong, they just don't. I have visions and plans for this room though. We are in the process of doing some cleaning and throwing out. We only have 4 more months. Can you believe it!!! Worth just took out his drum set yesterday. I told him he did not have to do that, but he did anyway. It was pretty sad watching him put them away. I guess we are really growing up!

This is my dreams sort of for the nursery. That is the bedding, and my sister gave us a gorgeous Italian bed that is antiqued looking that I think this will go wonderful with. Worth is going to build us a changing table that is white and I hope to have a white chair in there, but many people are saying a white chair is NOT the way to go. We will see if I listen. As I mentioned before the bottom half of the room will be chocolate brown. A chair rail will seperate the 2 colors and the top half will be "Tea Rose" which is like a real light baby pink. I know the chocolate seems a bit dark, but sun shines in the room all day and with all the white I think it will look fabulous!!! So what do you think ; ). PS- jessica i will work on a belly shot for you. There is starting to be a little bump there. It is pretty wild.

Rylie Jayne Carr

So I got a picture of Miss Rylie Jayne Carr via camera phone and I just had to post a picture of this baby. Look at those cheeks. She is SO cute!! Congratulations to Jessica and Myron. I can't wait to see more pictures of the little precious baby girl. She is going to have the good life. It seems that Colorado is about to be pounded by snow so we hope that they get home safe and sound from the hospital. We can't wait to hear more.

This is what 92 looks like

This is what a 92 year old woman looks like. This is Grandma and who Bella Rose is named after. Is she not the most gorgeous woman ever. I have a picture of the 2 of us from this weekend, but Worth has the camera so that will come later. I am pretty lucky to have this woman in my life. I love her so much!!!

I also want to give a BIG CONGRATULATIONS to Jessica and Myron. Jessica just had her first Baby girl, Rylie Jayne. I can't wait to get some pictures of her!!!

Here she is pregnant with Rylie. Oh I can't wait to see her. I am sure that she is wonderful and beautiful!!!

This is our "Bundle of Joy" Christmas tree. He has been keeping all our presents nice and warm until they go to their rightful owner. Isn't he the most sweetest fat tree you have ever seen. We did well this year!

This is for our most precious "Bundle of Joy" Bella Rose. This was given to us by our dear sweet friends Matt and Margaret. It was waiting for us when we got home from work wrapped in pink polka dot fabric with a chocolate brown and pink polka dot ribbon. It has inspired me for the nursery. I think that I am going to paint the bottom half of the wall chocolate brown and have a white chair rail dividing the room. The top half will have the lightest shade of baby pink. I was not too into pink, but then I saw this onsie and I am now convinced! It is a onsie right? See I am learning. The bedding I want is white with scalloped edges and a chocolate brown trim. So sweet!! I have a vision people, you better watch out. My poor husband :)

This is now my new favorite ornament! I bought it at my sister's store in Greenville, SC (rush right there and buy your Christmas presents). When I saw it I just had to buy it. I knew it was my new ornament for the year. We will be able to pass it on to Bella Rose when she has her own Christmas tree one day.

Well I am off to ATL (hip-hop nation) for the weekend to celebrate Christmas with my Dad and Grandma. I hope to have pictures off that beautiful woman on Monday. Much love and Chritmas Joy to you all. I so appreciate you all and all your support.

Back to the drawing board.

It is back to the drawing board on the nursery because we are having a GIRL!!! Bella Rose will make her grand entrance into the world on May 14th, or there around. We are thrilled. The name is very sweet to me and so I am especially glad to have a girl. My dad called me Bella growing up, it is "Beautiful" in Italian. My grandma's name is Rose and she is a Beautiful Italian woman so I am thrilled by all this. Grandma is 92 and will be able to meet the little girl that is named after her. Everything went really well at the doctor. I am 18 weeks and 3 days. I have to go back in 4 weeks to get a better look at the heart. Bella Rose was balled up pretty good. They said that everything else is looking really good. Our sweet little girl. She has given her mom no troubles thus far, prayerfully this will continue :). We have had a lot of friends have boys so they better watch out for Papa Grant. Well thank you all for your love and support. I am putting up ultrasound pictures so hopefully you will be able to tell what is going on. If they did not label stuff for me then I would have no idea.






She sort of looks like an Alien in this one or maybe of Asian descent :)

I still can't figure out how to put the pictures how I want them, but at least you get to see something right? I am also trying to get used to pink!!

Ode to Judith...

this is my ode to judith. she is our hairstylist here in asheville and she is wonderful. this is the updo she did for niki's wedding (the beautiful bride pictured above). she did 9 people's hair that wonderful day. i adored my hair. i did not want to take it down. i would still have my hair look like that if judith would do that for me everyday. you should have seen everyone else's hair. they were all gorgeous and different. the people who were with me can vouch for me for how much i talked about our hair. you may say i was a bit obsessive, but i tend to get that way when it is something i love. i want everyone to know about it. so this is why i share this post with you. if anyway needs a fabulous updo, or great color, or a terrific cut let me know and i will get you judith. people come from and near and far to see her!

Christmas Joy!!

Hello to all!! I hope you had a great weekend. Mine was filled with much Chrismtas joy. My sister came up on Saturday and we went to the parade in Black Mountain. The kids get more candy there then on Halloween. They love it!!! There are no hot air ballons or real big floats at this parade, but we love it none the less. On Sunday we (my sister, brother-n-law, mom, 3 nephews, 1niece, husband) went to Avery county and got our Christmas tree. The farm was amazing. The kids could roll down the hill (I wish that I could have joined them), the adults could walk up and down many times (not as fun as rolling). The wonderful tree we got is the one behind us. I have to say it is glorious. I told Worth this morning that I love it. Not as much as him or in the same way, but I am totally in love with our tree. We ran into a slight problem when we were decorating though, we ran out of lights. This has never happened to me before. The top of the tree is not decorated. We bought lights just for the tree, but as we were putting that strand up they started blinking. Well I thought this is not so bad I can figure out how to make them stop blinking. We my friends when the box says "Shimmering lights" on it you can't make them stop blinking I asure you. So at lunch I will be out shopping for Christmas lights to finish my part way glorious tree. I am going to try to upload a picture of it now. It may come before the picture of Worth and me at the farm. I have not figured out how to put the pictures in the correct order yet. Well Good tidings to you and yours. I hope you have as much fun I as I do with this time of year.

PS- okay i can't figure out how to put the pictures like i want them, but i will get there. As you can see the top of the tree is not done. There are lots of pretty ornaments on the rest of the tree, but it is hard to tell. Enjoy!!!

This is Dude

Dude is not from the Big Lebowski, but the horse I ride for this lady in Weverville. He has blue eyes, as all the men in my life do (Atticus and Worth). He is a thoroughbred/ quarter horse. He is about 16 hands 16.1. For those who don't know what that means, it means he is tall. He is a good horse and it allows me to ride which is nice, but I can't ride until June as being pregnant and horse back riding are not condusive. As snowboarding and pregnant don't go together either. Both make me sad since I won't be able to partake in it until next season/summer. It is worth it right? Of course it is, and then I will be able to teach the bambino both loves of mine!!! Have a great weekend. I will be back Monday with many pictures of joyful Christmas trees!