some new pics...

i told you they were cute! here are some updated pictures of brady. yummy!!! oh and if you need a great photographer, please let me know. he is awesome!

a new perspective on mother's day...

it's funny ... i've spent my whole life celebrating MY mom on mother's day. i thank God for my mom. she is an amazing woman with a huge faith and a beautiful spirit. i am blessed beyond words to have had such a great influence in my life. i cherish celebrating this day with her. it's a tradition and i hope it never ends!

this year was even more special for all of us. for the first time i realized that someone (although he is too little to know it) will be celebrating ME on mother's day. wow. what an honor! all the mom's at church on sunday morning received a standing ovation and i just sat there, holding my baby in one arm and billy's hand in the other ... with tears in my eyes. it seemed so surreal. i can only hope and pray to be HALF the mother to brady that my mom has been to me.

billy and i are both truly, truly blessed with strong and honorable mothers. it was an incredible day. happy mother's day!!!

the worst blogger ever...

i admit it ... i am officially the worst (or laziest) blogger on the planet. i have no excuse. i mean besides the fact that i am a wife, mother, daughter, friend, tennis player, house-keeper, full time employee, cook (well, um, sometimes), laundry doer, etc., right? my friend brooke and i laugh about how much our lives have changed over the past 23 years since we first became friends. it's been an amazing ride. we went from being kids with no responsibilities ... to high school students with a little responsibility ... to college students with a little more responsibility and now we are moms and wives with tons and tons of responsibility. neither of us would trade it for the world!

brady is SEVEN months old now. he is an adorable lump of love and sweetness. he is a chunky little thing (18 pounds!) and is laughing and gigglilng a lot. he smiles at familiar voices and faces ... and is FULL of joy. he has two teeth with a third one breaking through and is finally sitting up (although still a bit unsteady). he is actually getting some hair and has a nice, natural military style at the present time :). he still laughs at his daddy the most, and thinks he is super funny. he is paying lots of attention to toys now and is grabbing at everything he can get his hands on. of course then he wants to put them in his mouth! he is babbling and making lots of noises. he is still a great sleeper and always wakes up happy. billy and i usually hear him "talking" in the morning around 7:00 a.m., and we watch him on the monitor until around 7:30 when it's time for his bottle. he is eating three meals a day, with one extra bottle, and still eats like a champ.

our little man has grown and changed so much since the last time i blogged. we have survived yet another round of shots and 2 really bad colds (so pitiful!). in march brady was dedicated at church with his best friend levi. in april we had our first easter as a family and are now looking forward to our first family vacation over memorial day weekend. time really does fly! we are blessed beyond words. brady is such an amazing addition to our family and it brings tears to my eyes to think about how incredible our life is!

we had some 6 month pictures of brady taken that i will post soon. they melt my heart! oh ... and i will try to be better at this blogging thing, i promise!

Me? An NFL fan???

so i am a southern girl through and through. i LOVE college football and will watch it (and enjoy it) ... no matter who is playing. i am a georgia fan because we grew up as georgia fans (go dawgs) and i cheer for vanderbilt because they are usually the underdog, AND my brother played football there. i love the SEC, and like most southerners, believe it is the best conference out there. i love all the bowl games, watching college game day on espn, seeing sacks, fumble recoveries, hard hits and upsets. but i have NEVER liked the NFL. NEVER. the closest i have ever come to being an NFL fan was when i was in college and thought troy aikman was cute ... go cowboys! i have been to some falcons games, but have always spent my time people-watching, eating snacks and watching the cheerleaders. it has always bored me like crazy. those guys are out there playing for millions of dollars ... and a lot of them are only playing for the money. but since marrying my sweet husband i have been forced to become a steelers fan. for the past 3 football seasons i have sort of rolled my eyes as he acts like one of "those" NFL fans, waiving his "terrible towel" around before, during and after the games and spends lots of money on steelers sweatshirts and gear for himself ... and now for brady. i recently made fun of him for driving to nashville to see the steelers lose to the titans and REALLY made fun of him for driving TEN hours to see the steelers clinch their division against the ravens. i mean who is crazy enough to drive 20 hours round-trip, spend over $100 on a ticket, spend 2 nights in a hotel with 2 other men, and sit in 15 degree weather to watch a PRO football game??? BUT ... i HAVE to admit that when troy palamalu intercepted the pass against the ravens and ran it back for a touchdown to pretty much assure the steelers would win and go to the super bowl, i got really excited! i jumped up off of the couch and cheered while brady and the dogs looked at me like i was crazy. brady was all dressed up in his steelers outfit, which was probably the cutest thing i've seen in a long time (see pic), and i was wishing that i had a "terrible towel" to wave myself. so now the steelers are going to the super bowl and for the first time in my life, i will actually CARE about the outcome. gooooooooooooo steelers!!!

i'm a slacker!

it has been over a MONTH since my last entry. i am such a slacker. i have no idea how time flies by so quickly, but it really does. brady is already 3 1/2 months old, i'm back to work and january (my least favorite month) is already half way over! it's been an eventful month! our pediatrian strongly encouraged us to put brady in his crib as soon as possible, but since i really liked him being close, i put it off as long as billy would let me! finally on christmas night, i bit the bullet and hesitantly put him in that BIG crib all by himself. he did great (much better than i did, of course). he only woke up once to eat and went right back to sleep. then on january 3rd, his 3 month birthday, he started sleeping through the night. that boy is a champ! i swear he's the perfect child. i know he's mine, and i'm biased, but he really is an amazing little boy. he is smiling like crazy, cooing, giggling and kicking a lot. he loves when we talk and sing to him ... and he always seems very interested in what we have to say. he still struggles a little to hold his head up, which provoked us to affectionately call him "bobble head brady". he is adorable. i'm a proud momma, what can i say? it was TOUGH for me to go back to work, since i literally spent every minute of every day with him for 14 weeks. but we are SO, SO, SO blessed to have found a family that welcomed him into their home and are taking such good care of him. God is so good to have brought us all together. brady is happy and well taken care of, which made it a little easier to get back into the working world. i cried a lot the first day ... and a little every day the rest of the week. maybe this week will be easier. being a mom is a bigger blessing than i deserve!

life really is good!

is there anything cuter than a little boy in his very first pair of "real" pajamas? i don't think so! yesterday brady and i went to lunch and shopping with a good friend of mine (shannon) and her new son (charlie) and i found these pajamas on sale at jake's house. i just couldn't resist ... and they were 50% off! even though brady is 9 pounds now, it is still a little bit of a challenge to find clothes that fit him. he's kind of in between newborn and 0-3 months. the plain 'ole 3 month clothes are still too big, bless his heart. but he's growing! we went to the pediatrician for his first set of shots the week after thanksgiving and he did GREAT. i am not ashamed to tell you that mommy waited in the car while daddy held brady's hand. supposedly he only cried for about 15 seconds until billy picked him up ... and then he was FINE. i think i was MUCH more of a whimp than brady was. yikes.

it's been a while since i've had a chance to blog. how does time pass so quickly?? we had a great thanksgiving ... billy's brother, sister-in-law, nephew and mom were here from pennsylvania, which was such a blessing. we had so much fun being together and introducing brady to his cousin, evan for the first time. oh how we wish they lived closer! the other exciting news is that my best friend (since 6th grade) officially adopted a little boy that was born on december 3rd!!! we were friends through middle school and high school ... we were college roommates and even roommates after college ... we have been by each other's sides through lots of drama, good times and bad ... and now we get to raise our sons together. it's been an incredible journey for their family (if you are a blogger, feel free to go to http://www.cowenadoption.blogspot.com/ to read all about it)! just one more blessing to remind us all how good life is!

four more weeks until i have to start back to work. i am still cherishing every moment with brady. today billy is out of town and there were a million things that i wanted to accomplish. but somehow i found myself napping on the couch with brady on my chest, savoring every moment because i know i will LONG for those moments when i go back to work. those thank you notes will get written at some point and my checkbook can be balanced later. in that moment i just wanted to snuggle with my boy. those are the most priceless moments in the world.

i love this time of year ... i love receiving christmas cards with letters and pictures of family and friends sharing what is going on in their lives. the holidays somehow make this world that we live in seem a little less crazy. they make the problems with our nation and economy seem a little less important. and they remind me that family and friends are really what make life so enjoyable. i've spent a lot of time thinking over the past 10 weeks that i have had off of work. perhaps the "quietness" of not being in the hustle and bustle of the working world has made me reflect on life in a different way. but i have become a much more thankful person, one who truly cherishes family and friends more than ever before.

so yes, life is good and i thank God every single day for the blessings. until next time...

the best thanksgiving ever...

wow ... do we have a lot to be thankful for! this time last year i was thankful to have an amazing fiance, and we were planning our december wedding. little did we know that in less than a year our family would be expanding and all of our dreams would come true! billy and i got married on december 29th (what an AMAZING day) and found out on february 21st that little brady was on the way! we were 4 weeks along and were filled with joy. God has been so good to us! brady is doing great ... he is eating like crazy and has started sleeping almost 5 hours at a time. i am in my 8th week of maternity leave and am already dreading the fact that i will have to leave him in january. BUT, we are thankful for an amazing lady that is going to be taking care of him during the day. God really answered that prayer in a mighty way! more things that make us thankful: old friends and new friends, family that is close to home and family that is far away, our health, a roof over our heads, jobs, benefits, freedom, our dogs, the simplicity of a lazy saturday morning, a cozy warm bed, prayers, marriage, love and a hopeful future. when i look back over the past several years, i realize that things, however crazy and hard they may seem, always work out for the good. that is not just a cliche' to me ... it is so true. i think we've all been through tough times where we could not imagine WHY we were going through those things. but to be able to look back and make sense of it all REALLY makes me thankful!