It's a...

GIRL!!

 

We are thrilled that we will be welcoming a sweet baby girl into our family in just a few months!! Because Joseph has so many brothers, I have always pictured us having all boys, but I guess I was wrong! The Lord knew I needed a little girly-girl shopping buddy :)

 

Last Tuesday, November 20th, Mom, Joseph, and I went to our 20 week ultrasound. Baby appeared to be growing and healthy. She weighed about 11 oz and her little arms, hands, fingers, legs, toes, and body parts appeared to be there! It was difficult to see on that little screen so I am excited to get the 4D ultrasound soon. When the doctor wrote the gender on the screen, Mom was the only one to look. She was sworn to secrecy for the next 2 days until Thanksgiving!

Joseph and I went to Sumter Wednesday afternoon and ate dinner with my family before heading over to Lauren and Chris Locklear's for a little Friendsgiving get-together. It was SO much fun being with the girls. We don't get to see each other often so we had a late night of talking and catching up.

 

 

Thanksgiving arrived and we were anxious for the reveal but waited patiently until after lunch. My entire immediate family (minus Robin) was in town so it was fun to celebrate Thanksgiving with everyone...even all 4 kids, 3 and under :) Can't believe we're about to add another to the wild mix!!

 

 

After our "real" family picture, everyone guessed if they thought baby Jones was a boy or girl with a balloon:

 

With everyone gathered around us, Mom gave Joseph and me each a cupcake. We quickly took big bites of the cupcakes looking for pink or blue icing in the middle, only to discover green icing!! Mom then handed us a package wrapped in green paper. We carefully unwrapped the green to find pink paper and then blue paper. She definitely kept us in suspense for as long as possible!! When we opened the box, there was a small package wrapped in tissue paper and, of course, that was in 3 layers of different color tissue paper! When we finally got to the bottom of all of the colors, we pulled out two adorable pink and white gowns :) They were so sweet and we were so excited to finally find out that we will have a little girl!

 

We headed back to the beach Thursday afternoon to reveal the gender to Joseph's family. When we arrived, they had all made gender guesses along with name suggestions:

...my speech kids at school also made some predictions:

 

We quickly handed out cupcakes and Grandma was the first to bite in and say "It's a girl"! It was so much fun to share it with everyone and watch their reactions.

 

Mckenzie came to the beach Thursday night and we promptly started our "Black Friday" shopping at 9:30 PM at Target. We did wait an hour in line but it was very organized and fun to get some good deals for gifts! Friday we woke up early to head out again and we shopped all day long!! This pregnant girl was tired but was excited to head straight to the baby girl section in every store!! I did contain myself and only bought her one sweet little outfit, but get ready because Aunt Mckenzie is ready to spoil this baby! I love spending time with my sweet sister and am very grateful for her!! I pray that Baby Jones will have a sister and best friend just like I've been fortunate enough to have. Mckenzie stayed until Saturday afternoon and even helped us decorate for Christmas. I love Christmastime SO much and I love when our house is decorated!

 

We ended the weekend with a Gamecock victory over Clemson for the 4th year in a row!!!! Kim and Zach came over to watch the game and the guys had fun cheering for the cocks while Kim and I discussed all things baby because they're expecting twins in June!! We're so excited that Baby Jones will have lots of sweet friends :)

 

What a wonderful Thanksgiving break! We have SO much to be thankful for and it's wonderful to have a day set aside to recognize all of the rich blessings God has poured out on us over the past year! "Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting." 1 Chronicles 16:34

 

P.S. Joseph has officially felt Baby Girl kick multiple times now and thinks it's really cool!

19 Weeks!

Counting down the days until we find out BOY or GIRL!! We will go Tuesday for our 20 week ultrasound and then the reveal will take place on Thanksgiving day so a little less than a week before we find out. I'm ready to buy some pink or blue :)

19 week pic:

 

Joseph still hasn't felt Baby kick because he/she stops every time Joseph puts his hand on my stomach but I can clearly feel the kicks from the outside now. Hopefully, Joseph will catch it at the right time soon!

This week has been good but longg!

Monday: Supper club at the Nobles house. We had a Thanksgiving feast and everything was delicious! It's always fun to spend time with good friends.

Tuesday: Bible study with sweet girls. We had a great study this week and all got to know each other a little better, which was great! Can't believe we're already halfway done with our Esther study.

Wednesday: Sweet little Wells turned 3 years old!! Here he is after his little bday party, finishing off his candy cake. Boy loves candy!!

 

Thursday: Joseph's last day as the FCL at the Surfside branch is today so last night his sweet staff took us to dinner at Abuelos. It is bittersweet that Joseph is leaving because he has had a great experience at Surfside with a wonderful staff but we know that his new job is a great opportunity. Please pray for Joseph as he transitions into this new phase in his career!

Joseph always takes pictures of people with mullets so his staff gave him his very own mullet wig (and they even had one for me to wear too!):

The great Surfside branch staff (+me):

Today: We are heading to Columbia when I get off of work to celebrate the marriage of Joseph's good friend, Charlie, and his new bride, Meredith! They were married 2 weeks ago and took a nice, long 10 day honeymoon to the Dominican and tonight is their "reception" party!

We are thankful for another great week!!

18 Weeks!

18 weeks = 2 weeks away from finding out if sweet baby Jones is a boy or girl!! Baby is now the size of a sweet potato and I'm feeling a lot of movement, which is so much fun!

18 Weeks pic:

This week recap:

Joseph and I went home to Sumter this past weekend to babysit our sweet nephews and niece! I just love those wild little munchkins :) It is quite the handful having all three of them at once (Caroline, I don't know how you do it every day)! We had fun playing and spending time with them while Taylor and Caroline were involved in activities for Caroline's sister's wedding.

Joseph getting in some practice with the two babies:

When the kids left for their wedding, Joseph and I hurried off to Meg Saunders' wedding in Columbia. Meg was a beautiful bride and it was fun catching up with Natasha and Lyndsay at the wedding!

Sunday, we returned to Sumter to pick up Hippy and spend some time with Mom, Mike, and Kenzie! I love spending time with family!!

Monday was a BIG day for one of my very best friends! Rebecca and Branford got engaged!!! We've been waiting on this day for a longgg time now and I'm so excited for them! Looks like we'll be celebrating shortly after Baby J arrives...the big day is tentatively set for June 1, 2013! Isn't her ring gorgeous?!

Last night was Joseph's Mom's birthday so the family girls and some of Charlotte's friends had a get-together to celebrate. Charlotte always makes the party fun!

Another great week! Can't wait for the next week and a half to fly by so we can find out the gender! Yay :)

Happy Halloween and 17 weeks!!

Happy Halloween!!

Kim and Zach came over for steaks and pumpkin carving on Sunday! Here are our creations:

October Halloween Supper Club = last minute costumes :)

Super Mario Bros sporting Joseph's Dad's overralls.

The group

 

This week brings us to 17 weeks!! It's going by quickly! Here is a pic where you can see the little baby bump :)

 

 



Some fun things from the past week:

• Baby Jones started kicking last week!! It is such a neat feeling. Baby J likes when I sit still and am quiet...he/she just kicks away. Joseph can't wait to start feeling it too!

• We went to Columbia for the Carolina game this past weekend. Joseph went to the game while Macky and I shopped around town. After the game, Joseph and I went to visit the new little Gulledge family :) Summer is so sweet and tiny!! It made us even more excited about April!

1 Year Anniversary and 16 Weeks Pregnant!!

This time last year we were saying "I Do" and celebrating our marriage! We had a blast at our wedding and are thankful to all of our family and friends who made that time so special! We have thoroughly enjoyed our first year of marriage and thank God for contining to bless us and our family with a sweet baby on the way!

It's hard to believe a year has already passed but we had a fun celebrating today! We decided to share the news of our anniversary and Baby on facebook today so I posted before I left for work. It was fun to read all of the sweet posts and "likes" throughout the day. Here's the announcement we posted:

Joseph was off work so when he got out of bed, he was greeted by some "Happy Anniversary" signs around the house ;) When I got off of work, I met Joseph at the doctor's office for our 16 week appointment! We heard the baby's heartbeat again, which is always comforting. The doctor said the heartbeat was really easy to detect so it must be a girl, but she quickly changed her mind when she noticed how active the baby was. She thinks it's a boy...along with most people! Joseph and I still have no clue but we will be happy with any healthy baby!!

16 Weeks: (still hard to tell in clothes, but I can tell by my hard-to-button pants ;)

We exchanged sweet cards and Joseph gave me flowers before we headed to Frank's in Pawleys Island for dinner. It was delicious!

After dinner we changed into our pjs and enjoyed the top layer of our one year old wedding cake. It surprisingly wasn't that bad!

 

What a great year it has been! We are so grateful for one another and for all of God's blessing in our lives this year! We had fun at dinner going through the highlights of the past year and what we're excited about for this next year: that answer, of course, was easy...Baby Jones!!

Welcome and a little history...

Thanks for stopping by to Keep Up with our growing family!

Let's rewind to catch up on the past few months...

August 1, 2012:
Baby Benjamin had his cranio surgery so Aunt Morgan went home to Sumter to babysit sweet Sarah Sloan and Wells! We had a great time playing and were glad Macky could come play and spend the night with us! The next day I left Sumter to head back to the beach for a dinner with Joseph's leadership class. On the way home and at the dinner, I simply did not feel "right". I told Joseph after the dinner that my back hurt and I felt like I'd been hit by a bus!

August 3, 2012:
Joseph left for work and I stayed in bed because I was still off for the summer ;) . I woke up still not feeling "right" so decided to take a little test (that cost $0.88 from Wal-Mart). Not thinking much of it, I took it, set it on the bathroom counter, and went back to lie in the bed. A few minutes later, I checked on the test and couldn't believe what I saw: two little lines! It was an indescribable feeling. A little nervous about the cheap test, I had one First Response left and when that came back positive, it was confirmed! All I could do was look at Hippy and say "oh my goodness!!".

Joseph and I had been praying about this for some time but it's still quite a shock when it actually happens! I had no idea how I was going to tell him but wanted it to be a surprise when he got home from work. Having nothing to do all day, I went shopping to find a little craft. I ended up with a bandanna on which I painted with puff paint "I'm going to be a BIG sister" for our sweet first born, Hippy!

 

Joseph couldn't believe it:

August 17, 2012:
Some abdominal pain and reflux sent me to Doctors Care to have a few tests run. Little did we know, we would end up in the Emergency Room for the afternoon because of the possibility of an ectopic pregnancy. It was quite a scare but after ultrasounds and multiple tests, everything checked out great and we had a growing baby at 6 weeks! What a blessing :)

August-September:
The next few weeks were filled with announcing our exciting news to family and a few close friends along with morning/night sickness and terrible headaches! Thankfully, I started feeling much better by the end of September!

October 5, 2012:
It felt like I waited forever for this day to arrive. I wanted to tell my college girlfriends SO badly but knew we would all be together this evening for Natasha's birthday celebration and the UGA/USC football game weekend. At dinner, I handed Natasha a white envelope with a bow tied around it as one of her birthday gifts. She opened the envelope to find a 5x7 ultra sound picture. When she was finally able to speak, she turned it around to show the table. It was such a fun way to tell them and they cannot wait to be aunts!! We also shared with Joseph's college friends that night as they were eating at the same restaurant. Their table of about 20 erupted into cheers and applause, which was exciting! We are so incredibly blessed to have such close family and friends and can't wait for Baby Jones to meet every one of them :)