My favorites...

This is my view most days! I love seeing our nest of three painting that Karen painted as a shower gift and I love seeing a peek of Molly Caroline's nursery.


That's Hot! Pink nail polish from OPI. My toes are currently this color thanks to a much needed pedicure (after I got an Ok from my Dr. of course).


Seeing our little piles of hospital goodies ready and waiting. Eeek!

How could we resist the "Molly" delivery gown?? Here is the sweet polka dotted pattern!


We finally decided on a diaper bag. It will be great for football season! The name, ruffles, fact that it matched our stroller, and price helped sell me. It is the Miss Prissy bag! Matt said he is proud to carry it. I will also have my large gold purse that my Poppy Bill got me to use as my "Mommy bag"!!



Nautical everything!!! Yes, Molly Caroline's first birthday party will most likely be a nautical theme! I just can't help myself!



This windex cleaner. Oh my. It makes me so happy!!


Snow cones!! I wish I could have two a day!


Publix frozen yogurt. Strawberry and Peach flavors.


PB mixed with chocolate.


Watermelon, cantaloupe, and peaches. Noticing a trend here?


Maxi dresses and skirts. I live in them. I love my white linen pants too...but not quite as much! Gotta love maternity style!! We made a quick stop into L and D the other day. Gotta love a small town where they have your baggie of goodies waiting on you. And your nurses all know you because you taught their children.


Love it or List it...and Property Brothers.


The amazing Be Loved message by my very favorite Christy Nockels on Mothers Day. You can watch her speak and sing on the Passion City website. It was great and made my sleepless night better!!


The new Bible Study that I'm starting this summer...Gideon. Beth Moore sparked my interest. I researched what the study was about, because y'all know I love Priscilla Shirer. I told Matt I think this is going to be the perfect study for me to do as a new mom. I have a feeling it will be just what I need!!!



I'm sure I'll have lots of posts coming soon! Sitting at the computer is my break from laying down!

From normal to resting...

I'm so glad we got so much done this weekend and ended it with hospital packing, Red Elephant, and a back porch date! Turns out we won't be getting out as much!


It started out as a normal week. My babies graduated on Monday morning. It was very sweet!! I love the picture of me, Molly Caroline, and Caroline. :) I am good friends with Caroline's mom and her Mimi is actually going to keep MC next year!!! I could cry thinking about how I thankful I am for that!


Matt installed MC's car seat and we topped our night off with frozen yogurt with our neighbors! Thomasville finally got a yogurt place, Yoburst, and it is soooo good!


I was so excited and ready for my ultrasound bright and early on Tuesday morning!! See?? :)


We found out that Molly Caroline is almost in the 50th percentile. She weighs about 5 1/2 pounds. She has a tiny bit of hair!! And she is doing well!!! Our ultrasound tech, Christy, doesn't think that she will be much more than 7 pounds at birth. We will see though!! We are so ready to meet her!! She even turned on the 4D camera for us!! Our pictures aren't great because she is so big and squished in there!

Then the fun started. I went out to the car to get my "thank you for being my favorite Dr. ever gifts/we've almost made it through an entire pregnancy together :)" for Dr. McCollum because I still had an hour before my regular appointment. I was so excited because I knew she was going to check me for the first time!! I just feel so thankful to be so far along in pregnancy and to have a Dr that is wonderful at what she does, compassionate, caring, gives me all the time in the world, is extra precautionary, and truly knows me! I love that we have a lot in common too!


I realized that her nurse, Ashley, was texting me to come on back. So I went in early, they checked my blood pressure, and it was sky high!!! Yikes!!! I could hear my Dr. in the hallway saying "What is going on with her blood pressure!!!??" and I knew that it wasn't going to be good. It ended up being a great appointment...other than the BP thing. She read my ultrasound, measured me...seems I'm back on track with that, checked me (1 cm dilated...but in her words, "not anywhere near ready to have MC yet"), and we talked about going to Sweet Grass together after I deliver. Then she got serious. SERIOUS. She said my BP was scaring her and that we needed to check it again. Well, it was still high. I guess I thought she was joking, but she told me that she wasn't going to let me go back to work because she figured that it was higher while I was teaching. I really didn't believe her the first five times she told me that I couldn't work anymore. I felt fine and never imagined that I wouldn't be able to finish out 8 more days of school. She decided that I needed to be sent to Labor and Delivery to be monitored. I asked her to go with me since she had on her scrubs...lol. She said she would check on me just a bit. :) I was very proud of myself for going over to the hospital by myself to get admitted. My view..


It turns out that my BP is nice and very low when I'm resting. Of course, when my Dr called, she said that I still couldn't go back to work. She wants my BP to stay low without meds, so that is why I needed to rest. All of my bloodwork and urine came back fine too...like it always has....thankfully! She said that I could work from home, and that I would need to come up to Shaw 3 times a week...non stress tests and appointments with her. I will also do bloodwork and urine once a week.

Officially starting bed rest nice and swollen. This was after one last trip to my classroom.


After resting a little bit, I realize that I haven't slowed down one bit this entire pregnancy and that maybe now, with 3 weeks left I need to do what is best for my body and Molly Caroline. Of course I'm bored resting, but I'm thankful that I get the chance to rest. My body and doctor are going to make me...so I am finally listening. Our bags are packed. We have everything that we need. Our house is pretty organized. We're as ready as we can be!!! We just want Molly Caroline to be big enough and healthy! Please pray for us!!

Checking things off my list!

May is a always a fast paced month for me! I have so much going on and just stay sooo busy wrapping up the school year. Yesterday was the Mini Relay for Life that I organize. Our theme this year was Spring...April showers bring May flowers. :) I'm thankful to Matt for helping me like always! Our kids donated around $300!

After relay set up, execution, and take down, grad practice, book fair preview, mother's day, a state scores deadline, and a long week I was exhausted. EXHAUSTED. I came home around 4, put on my pj's and slept until 6. Y'all my feet and ankles were truly swollen for the first time this week and they were huge!! It hurt to walk! (Thankfully I can see the bones in my feet and ankles this morning...they seem to be normal again.) We ordered supper and ate it while we watched Les Mis. I cried the whole time and told Matt the movie hurt my soul. I hated it. It was awful. Surprisingly, I didn't have nightmares last night like I thought I would.

I'm just enjoying a low key Saturday morning...playing with Blakely and sitting out on the back porch, and organizing a little bit in the nursery. Matt is playing golf with one of his doctors....so I know he is loving that! We are having a date tonight which I'm excited about!!

I am thankful that we really are ready for Molly Caroline if she decides to come early. There are still things I would like to finish, but nothing is pressing and it won't matter if I do get them done.

Here are the things that I plan on working on this weekend, this week, and next weekend:

The only thing left to do in the nursery is to put up scripture and pictures in the frames. Then I can share pictures of her sweet room!!

I need to wash her clothes and blankets. Tomorrow maybe?

There are also several organizational projects in the works...one is her cabinet in the kitchen...for all of her cups, bottles, spoons, bibs, etc. I also want to label some little medicine drawers for our laundry room.


We have some gift cards to use and I have a few last minute must haves that I need for my hospital bag. So that is what we are doing tonight before our date.

We are going to install her car seat. We decided to wait until after all of our family was in town last weekend so they would have room to ride with us.


And we are waiting on our shutters to be put in. Hopefully they will put them in later this week!

One year ago...

Today was a very different day than exactly one year ago. I had my baby shower at school. :) It was a beautiful thing to celebrate Molly Caroline on this day.


I remember EVERY LITTLE DETAIL about last year. At different times today I would think back and imagine what I was doing/feeling last year at the same time.

I remember...
Waking up and the dress that I wore, even the earrings. I took a really long shower and sat on the tiled floor of our shower praying. Tricia Brock blasted through our speakers.


Walking into the waiting room. The people sitting in there. The new north tower of the hospital had just opened the day before.

My nurses.

Someone coming and telling me that Dr. McCollum had already been by looking for me.

Matt coming back to wait with me.

The meds that were supposed to "help relax" me. I wondered if I'd ever fall asleep because I didn't feel any different.

Meeting the anesthesiologist.

Dr. McCollum coming and checking my chart and the sweet, kind words that she said. I remember noticing that we had the same phone cover. I remember being so thankful that she was my Dr.


Becky was working surgery that day and seeing her walking towards me through the hospital chaos and kissing my forehead reassured me.

Getting wheeled to the OR. How cold and metallic it seemed. I remember getting on the operating table. The bright lights. I remember them covering my nose and telling me to take deep breaths.

The next thing I remember is waking up and looking straight at Dr. McCollum. Instantly, everything became clear. My throat was a little sore from the tube, but I wasn't in pain. Dr. McCollum told me a few things which I don't remember, asked some questions, then told me she was going to find Matt and would see me in one week.

How nice my recovery nurses were. Being handed the plastic Archbold bag with my clothes and shoes in it. Being wheeled downstairs where Matt pulled the car around.

Stopping and shakily walking downtown to get a new "soft" shirt to wear to recover in. It was so expensive and Matt couldn't believe I was buying it, but at the time, it felt like a necessity. I was desperate for that shirt.

My dress being ruined by the time I got home and sweet Matt helping me. Such a good husband!

Eating a late lunch with my in-laws. Then resting and talking to friends on the phone that called wondering why I wasn't back at work. Eating dinner and sitting on my back porch furniture all night long. Not resting, but feeling really good...considering.

I remember how I couldn't wait to get into bed that night. I also remember begging Matt to tell me every single detail about what Dr. McCollum said to him while I was in recovery. One thing that I remember is that she called me a worker bee. :) How true!



Being surprised by my thoughtful friends.


Wow, what a difference a year makes!! Thank you, Lord, for being with us every step of the way. I'm amazed at His faithfulness.

Full Heart

My heart is full as I write this post. We had a beautiful shower this weekend. It was my favorite thing ever...having so much family in town and also great friends that are like my family! Matt, Molly Caroline, Blakely, and I are so blessed!

Now that all the fun is over, it is back to reality. It has been a whirlwind of a week...conferences every night, pre-k screenings, meetings, appointmnets, etc. I felt bad too and ended up finding out that I have bronchitis again. I'm thankful to be feeling a lot better right now though. And this week will be packed full too. I started to feel overwhelmed! So much goes on at the end of our school year!

I realized that I was singing this song in my head. The desire of my soul is for these words to be true about my life and my faithfulness to the Lord.


"My delight is in you Lord. On your word I set my heart. You are peace, you are calm, for my restless soul. You light my way through the dark. I want to know you even more. Holiness is my desire. Purify. Burn in me. Come and make me clean. Refine me in Your fire. You're my LIFE. You're my REFUGE. My delight is in YOU."

Then I came across Psalm 1. You thrill to God’s Word, you chew on Scripture day and night.
You’re a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month,
Never dropping a leaf, always in blossom.

And one of my friends posted this about it. I think they go perfectly together.

"Delight in God's Word leads to meditation on it. Meditation on God's Word leads to delight in it."

I am going to be doing this all week long. Along with another shower, graduation prep, and relay for life!!! Have a great week y'all! I'll be posting pictures very soon!