17 weeks, 4 days

Finally, we had another appointment with our doctor. It seems like it has been forever!
We are happy to report that everything looks good: the baby's heart rate is perfect, along with my blood pressure and weight gain.

We will be having the big sonogram to find out if we will be decorating in blue or pink on August 18th...we are going to ask the technician to not tell us, but instead write the gender on a piece of paper so that we can find out with our friends and family later that week.
We love the idea of all of us finding out together!

Thanks for all of the thoughts and prayers!

Here is our invite for the big unveiling...everyone is invited to come- let me know and I will send you our address.

Best Summer Ever.....Again!

As if this summer hasn't been filled with enough blessings (our pregnancy, Tif's stellar performance in her spring and summer classes, Chris' great grades and completing his writing requirement, and a great internship for Chris...just to catch you up), we just found out about something else that will effectively change the rest of our lives. I was offered a job at the law firm where I interned! The internship was such a great experience and I was able to meet some of the greatest people. It was as if there was an instant friendship with many of them. We are very excited and are looking forward to our move back to Amarillo next summer. This next year will bring so much change, and we are cognizant of how much God has blessed us and how much he continues to bless us. Here are some pictures from my internship and just a handful of my new friends/colleagues.

For now Tif and I are enjoying our time away from school, although Tif is still having to work. We are taking our summer vacation/babymoon to Denver next week and hope to have a ton of fun to get plenty of rest. So, if any of you have any ideas of must sees in Denver, please let us know. I don't know how bored we might get taking advantage of the resort/spa at the hotel for a week.

This past weekend we were able to go home and spend time with our families, go to the White Deer Rodeo and parade, have Nelson's birthday party (55), and go to the annual Britten Reunion in Groom.

Here are some pics from this weekend, starting with the White Deer Rodeo Parade.

and I don't care who you are, this is cool . . .

Dr. Kaci giving Teresa an adjustment . . .

Hope this post finds all of you well and hope to hear from each of you very soon. Take care and God bless!

The big wedding....

Finally! Here are the wedding pictures from Brad and Alison's wedding on May 24th.
All of the pictures were taken by Chris and between his summer internship and pampering to his needy pregnant wife, he finally had time to edit all of the 900 pictures from the day.

Here are just a few!

The best man, matron of honor and the groom...




bride's maids...


I love this one!



Mr. and Mrs. Brad Britten...







The Campbell family...


The Britten family...


Bridal Party...


Brother Alan!


Brad's awesome groom's cake...




This is an awful picture...8 weeks pregnant and very nauseous and sick, but trying not to show it!
We were both exhausted!

Week 15

Just wanted to post a short blog about how everything is going with us!
Chris is home and is busy taking care of the yard, cleaning grout, laundry and cooking! It is so wonderful to have him back! I am working and will begin my second summer class today...yuck.

The daily nausea is almost completely gone...something I am very thankful for. I am still waiting for my energy to return however! We have our next appointment in two weeks...I can't believe that 15 weeks have already flown by. In just a few more weeks we will find out if we are having a boy or a girl and 20 weeks is the half-way mark! I think that we are both in a little bit of a shock to think that we are almost half-way through.

Officially everyone knows now that we are expecting. I just have to say that everyone here at OU has just been so supportive and wonderful. All of my friends here are so excited to become "aunts"! I am pretty much one of the only grad students that I know that is married in our program and for sure the only one pregnant, so it is nice to have such a wonderful support system.

Finally, I just have to share a small little blessing that reminded me that God is still watching out for us. I was a little down Friday night because if you know anything about our financial situation you know that it is tight and very calculated. Are we poor? Not by any stretch of the imagination... however, I will say that we have a very basic budget that is very conservative; we choose to live on my small GA stipend.
My point is that I knew that we didn't have the money for maternity clothes for me. There was no way...I was astounded by the prices.
Needless to say, God still provided and we happened upon a huge sale at Target where I found dress pants for $7.00. I ended up with 6 or 7 pairs of pants. The total came out the exact amount that we had saved for clothes. I felt so stupid and heartbroken that I had gotten so upset and down and that in the end, God had provided everything that I needed.

Anyway, just a small little glimpse at how God provides. How much more trivial could my problem have been and he was still there, with an answer before I even had a need.
We are so blessed.

Fourth of July!

We love the Fourth!
Every year we start the day off in Canyon at the pancake breakfast, parade and Fair on the Square...

Here are a few pics from the morning...

Richard and Chris...

Gloria, Morg and Addy...

Addy before the face painting...

during...

and after! What a cutie!

After the parade we headed to the big WD for a cookout and the fireworks...

Papaw Campbell, Nanny, Brad, Kaci, Alison, Marci, Nelson and Papaw Britten...

Finally it was time for the show...

Morg, Tif, Nelson & Brad on the back of the flatbed enjoying the show...

Morg, Tif and Stetson playing with sparklers...

Richard, Nanny and Gloria...

Morg...

Kaci...

Tif...

Stetson...

and Chris...

The big announcement!

While we have enjoyed having our “little secret,” we are excited to let everyone know that we are expecting our first baby!

We have been planning this big step for our family for over two years now, and we are excited that we are finally able to let everyone know our happy news.

We found out that we were expecting on Chris's 30th birthday, May 7th. Our baby's arrival date is set for January 3rd, 2009- the same day as our Mamaw's birthday.

We shared the news with Tif's parents on Father's Day. This will be their first grandbaby, so we wanted to make the announcement memorable. Here is a video of our father’s day gift... it just so happens that a couple of weeks before Father’s Day, I had suggested that my dad get a wagon for his new mower. His reply was that he only needed one of those when he had grandkids so that he could pull them around. We thought that the timing was perfect and had to get him one…





We have a habit of sending pictures to Chris's parents through Wal-Mart. We made sure to let them know to be expecting a set of pictures and to call us when they picked them up. What they didn't know was that among the random group of pictures were a picture of the positive pregnancy test and our "buns in the oven" picture. They were both happy for us and were very surprised.






Many of you know that Chris had an internship in Amarillo for 6 weeks, so he missed a lot of the first trimester, including our first sonogram... I really wanted him to be able to see it, so we brought the video camera!




Needless to say, I am very excited that Chris is back in Norman! Thank you to all of my wonderful friends here who kept me company while Chris was gone- you guys are the best!

Even though we are through our first trimester, please keep us in your prayers for a healthy baby and a safe pregnancy and delivery. We know that the fall semester will be tough for both of us, but at the same time, nothing can match the joy that we feel to have such a wonderful blessing from God.

Baby Pirtle- 12 weeks, 6 days

Prayers for Lanie...

I know most of you probably don't know my wonderful family from Kansas City, but please say a prayer for Lanie, my cousin Cortney's little girl. Lanie has JMML. It is a rare form of Leukemia, diagnosed in only about 1% of childhood leukemias. There are only around 67 cases in the US. The only treatment is a bone marrow transplant.

She had her bone marrow transplant a couple of weeks ago and everything was looking great until recently when she got an infection. She is now in ICU and completely sedated. Cort has been faithfully keeping an on-line journal. It is so wonderful to be able to know what is going on.

If you would like to check it out for yourself the link is: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/laniegardner

It is really inspiring if you ask me! Here are a few picture of this precious little girl!

Lanie and big sister, Halle

The family, Halle and Cort, Lanie and Andy