And Baby Makes Three

For those of you who don't yet know, we are expecting our first child in July! Baby Adams is **supposed** to make his/her debut July 6, 2011. After telling our family over the Christmas holidays (see the Christmas posts for how we shared the big news) at 12.5 weeks, we broke the news to friends and went "Facebook public" on January 4.

We are excited...nervous...slightly terrified and feeling largely inadequate and unprepared. All reactions I think are probably perfectly normal. It's funny how more real it all seems now that everyone knows. For a while there it was just Robert and mine's big, little, happy secret, which was hard to hide given my nausea, extreme fatigue, and sudden onset of sobriety.

I have a terrible memory, so I started a small pregnancy journal on a post-it note (not joking when I say small) at week 6 when we had our first ultrasound - mainly to chronicle how I was feeling in the first trimester cause goodness knows I won't remember the second time around when I'm trying to compare pregnancies. In the following weeks I added to it with a little more detail about how I was feeling. I'll probably post some very honest thoughts from that on another post. You're welcome to skip that read if it's boring or gross. It's primarily for my institutional family memory.

I do have to say that Facebook is extremely good at making you feel loved and part of community. Anyone who has had a birthday while on Facebook knows this. It's especially true when you post big news like expecting a baby. In all of 30 seconds 15 friends have liked and commented their overjoyedness at your big news. In 24 hours, more than a hundred friends have shared your joy. Definitely helps to get you excited about something that up until that point caused a lot of worry and nausea. :)

The short of it is that Baby A is doing great today at 15 weeks, growing on schedule, and treating mom much more nicely now that the second trimester has come and I have more energy and less nausea. Though I have to say I have been very fortunate to have such minimal morning sickness that seems to render some women incapacitated for three months.

That's all for now. More baby news to come with ultrasound pics, OB appointment stories, and the 411 on the first trimester as I try to catch everyone back up on where we are in this pregnancy.

We are thankful to God for the opportunity and privilege to be parents and for this special life. We pray he will claim Baby A for his own and use him/her in a mighty way for the advancement of his kingdom. Trusting in his promises, we know there are good things to come! :)

Julia's reaction

This is what happens when you tell a best friend (with the gift of excitement) that you are going to have a baby...

Julia & Joshua's Wedding

My precious friend Julia got married on New Year's Day (1-1-11!) in this gorgeous castle in Colorado Springs. Colorado's biggest snow of the year (at the time) fell a few days before and blanketed the Palmer Estate and Glyn Eyrie Castle in this gorgeous white setting. It was picturesque to say the least. Robert and I were so privileged to travel to Colorado and join Julia and Joshua in worship at their marriage ceremony. Julia is in many ways the sister I never had. We shared a room together in college for two years, and she was my maid of honor. What a privilege to be with her on her big day.

We flew into Denver on Thursday and had lunch at Duffy's Cherry Cricket. Highly recommended, it's one of the best burger and brews joints in town. We then headed south to the Springs in our trusty Ford Focus rental to Julia's parents house for her and Joshua's around the clock shower. It was great to tell her our baby news in person. And we had so much fun meeting and hanging out with her and Joshua's family.

They had some great shower games, including the make a wedding dress out of a roll of toilet paper game. Yours truly's team won with our stylish rosette design below modeled beautifully by Joshua's brother!

Friday Robert drove to Cooper to ski for the day. The wind chill was negative 15 on the mountain, but with the fresh snow fall he had a great, but cold, day on the sloops. Baby A and I stayed back at the castle, where we kept warm and helped Julia with some last minute things. I also got to take some fun pics of the family during the rehearsal.

The rehearsal dinner was so fun! Julia and Joshua sported their matching red leather patent shoes purchased especially for the occassion! They were one sharp couple.

I also loved, loved, loved meeting Julia's former roommate in Denver, Laura Beth Trucks. LB is a Birmingham native, and it was so good to have a kindred southern spirit on the trip. We became fast friends.

Ok, so I bought my dress for the rehearsal dinner before Baby A decided to pooch, which he/she randomly did out of no where that week at 13 weeks. Not quite as flattering as it was in the dressing room of Macy's a month earlier, but alas there were no other options.

Saturday - wedding day - was also Bama's bowl game. We found this great place, Phantom Brewery Company in the Springs, to watch Bama roll over the Spartans. All of Julia's recommendations for restaurants were outstanding. Then we headed back to the castle so I could help the bride get ready. Isn't she gorgeous!

The wedding was wonderful, such a great time of worship and celebration, and all the great dancing and partying afterwards was such a treat, though I have to say the being preggers makes you get crazy winded on a dance floor! You definitely can see the baby pooch in the family pic below.

With the beautiful bride and groom! Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Pheonix!

Adams Christmas 2010

The Sunday after Christmas we traveled to South Carolina for Christmas with Robert's family. I'm so glad we got a family photo. Sometimes we forget to do those when we all get together, and it's not very often we can round us all up in the same city! This was our first Christmas with our new nephew Tate. He has grown and changed so much since his birth in August.

His sweet big sister Tess actually had a visit to the emergency room Christmas Eve night after a rough fall from a bar stool that knocked out her front teeth and knocked some others loose. Needless to say, the family had quite an eventful Christmas Eve in the hospital, but Tess had a successful surgery and great check up appointment with her pediatric dentist. By Sunday, she was still a little swollen from all the trauma, but you can see from the pic above all her Christmas presents were helping her to feel much better.

Big brother Tallon got a present from Mimi and Pop that was almost as big as he is! He had lots of fun driving his remote control truck in the snow all weekend.

We also got to share the news with Pop and Mimi that they were going to have another grandbaby. We surprised them with a photo calendar like we did with my parents. Not sure if they suspected or not, but I definitely know Liz had a great inclination I was preggers. She and Mike stayed with us for Thanksgiving and I took a ridiculous four hour nap that day. Definitely not normal for me!

Tess loved the purse Mimi gave her.

Poor Tate fell asleep during all the festivities.

With Baby A at just over 12 weeks.

Summerville Christmas 2010

Christmas day we spent with my parents at their home in Clay and were surprised that morning by a fairly significant snow fall. I can't remember the last time I experienced a white Christmas morning in Alabama, if ever. It was beautiful. We took a nice walk to take in the view before Kyle, Allison, and Isabella came over that afternoon to open presents.

Ryan made his famous snow ice cream!

Dad's gift to mom this year was a new ring. She loved it.

Once Isabella arrived we had tons of fun playing with her toys. I think the pic below is so funny with dad holding up her compact mirror so she can put on her fake lipstick.

Between Cooper, Oscar, and Buddy, the house was definitely for the dogs! Oscar survived the weather by sitting on a heating blanket all day!

Isabella loves giving hugs, and passing out Dad's famous popcorn.

Haskew Christmas Eve 2010

This year was our year to stay in Birmingham for Christmas, so we were able to go to my Big Mama's house for her annual Christmas Eve shindig. All my cousins and family on my mom's side were able to come, and it was great to see everyone.

Big Mama was so glad my Aunt Cathy was able to come this year. You'll see she made a very special appearance....

Kyle and Alison had a special Christmas costume for Buddy. Poor guy couldn't sneak up on anyone all night. You could hear him coming from a mile away with all those jingle bells! As Kyle's dog (though Isabella claims he is her dog!), Buddy is the newest addition to the family, and everyone loves him.

Robert helped Dad fry a turkey to go with our cutomary ham, cocktail shrimp, and all the fixings! The shrimp is one of the traditions my Big Daddy started years ago for this family event. I remember going to their house with Kyle when we were little to help them peel the gazillion pounds he always bought and prepared. This year Robert and I handled the shrimp, and six pounds just covered what we needed for the crowd. So thankful to Robert, Dave, and Ryan for helping me peel shrimp for what seemed like all afternoon. I forgot how much work that was and what a labor of love my Big Daddy performed each year for us to prepare so much shrimp.

Presley is growing into such a big girl!

Maddie, Joseph, and Hannah...with Christian and Victoria below.

Even Santa made a surprise visit! Aunt Cathy did such a great job as Santa. I even believed it was the real deal! It was so hard not to with her great belly laugh and enthusiam. Since Victoria was little, her dad Clay always played Santa on Christmas Eve. She is getting old enough to recognize her dad, so this year we needed a less noticable Santa. Aunt Cathy was perfect!

The kids were so excited to get their gifts from Santa.

LOVE the Price family! Can't believe how grown up the boys are.

Victoria and Robert during our Dirty Santa game - another Christmas Eve tradition.

I swear there is a picture just like this of David from Christmas Eve two years ago and he is playing with one of Victoria's barbie dolls.

Of course, the best part of Christmas Eve for us this year was being able to tell my mom and dad that they will be grandparents in July 2011! We made a customzied family photo calendar for them. This is something I give my dad each year, so it wasn't out of the ordinary, only this time our ultrasound picture of Baby Adams was the photo for the month of July since Baby A is due July 6. I would say we did pretty well with the surprise, though mom definitely already had a hunch we were expecting. My brothers were so cute at how excited they got about being uncles, and Big Mama is excited to welcome her 10th great-grandchild into the family this summer. It was great to be able to share the news with all my cousins and extended family too. Below is the photo we used of Baby A for the calendar - at 10.5 weeks. He/she is now 15 weeks! More Baby news to come in a future post. Must finishing posting all of Christmas and Julia's wedding first!