100 days- unbelievable!

Today marks the 100 day count down until our baby boy makes his public debut!

Can you believe it?

It seems like it was just yesterday that we found out that we were expecting, and now we are signing up for parenting classes and registering.

I have to say that being able to carry this baby is one of the most amazing experiences that I have ever had in my life; I feel so blessed to be able to have this experience. I am trying really hard to not stress and instead treasure everything that is going on in our lives at the moment. Have you heard the song by Sanctus Real, Whatever You're Doing? Chris and I have pretty much declared this our theme for the semester...sometimes it is amazing that God will send you a song that explains everything that you are feeling at that moment.
Here are some of the lyrics:
Whatever You're doing inside of me. It feels like chaos but somehow there's peace. It's hard to surrender to what I can't see, but I'm giving in to something Heavenly.
Time for a milestone. Time to begin again. Reevaluate who I really am. Am I doing everything to follow Your will, Or just climbing aimlessly over these hills? So show me what it is You want from me, I give everything, I surrender...



Things here are pretty crazy these days. Chris and I are getting back into the swing of school; back into the late night and weekend study and homework routine. I have officially put in my application to graduate and take the big comprehensive exam in May, and Chris will be starting the application process for registering for the bar soon.
I am preparing for all of our October breast health awareness month activities at work, and Chris just started his new job this week. He works here in the OMU with me in the office of Student Affairs. He works with other law students reviewing student group constitution and bylaws, making sure that they are in line with university policy, and also mediates meetings between professors and students accused of plagiarism or cheating. So far, everything is going great and he is enjoying it.

As far as our breast health activities go, the Women's Outreach Center's team, Walk with the WOC has raised almost $1,000 for Komen. We have 28 team members! I am so excited and I think that the day will be a ton of fun!
We are still in the middle of getting things resolved from our wreck a month ago, and we are still both seeing a chiropractor. Hopefully, all of the issues will be resolved as soon and as painlessly (figuratively and literally speaking) as possible.


Tuesday was my dad's annual PET scan to check to see if his lymphoma has come back. Everything in the scan looked fine, except for a red spot on his left chest. He had a mammogram done and the results of the test were inconclusive. He will be going to have a sonogram done in two weeks. Please keep him in your prayers. We are trusting that God is working in the situation and that everything will be okay.

In happier news, we are happy to announce that Brad (Tif's twin brother) and his wife, Alison are expecting a baby girl on Feb. 16th. I was totally hoping for a girl because I think that it is neat that Brad and I are twins, I am expecting a boy and he is expecting a girl just a little over a month a part. The timing is perfect because I am a minute older! Pretty crazy!
We wish them a happy and safe pregnancy!

Birthday-paloooza!

We were excited to head home this past weekend to celebrate three very important birthdays!

First, Teresa (Tif's mom) turned 53 on the 9th, next was Nanny's (Tif's grandmother) big 80th on Sunday and finally Gloria's (Chris's mom) 65th which was today. We started off Friday night celebrating Teresa's birthday at Dyer's in Pampa...unfortunately, we didn't have our camera, so no pictures! Nelson, Teresa, Brad and Alison were all there. We love visiting with them because our time together is always filled with laughs...and there is never a dull moment...you never know what the topic of discussion will be!

Saturday morning we left White Deer to go to Amarillo to pick up a rental car (long story involving our wreck a couple of weeks ago), and then we were off on secret agent missions...i.e. picking up the surprise birthday cake for Chris's mom and delivering it to the Amarillo Club.

After our secret agent missions were complete, we headed to Canyon to visit Richard and Gloria. After a few hours of chatting we dismissed ourselves to Mamaw and Grandy's to get ready for the big dinner party celebrating Gloria's 65th birthday that she had no idea about.

(On a side note...we started dating the February before Gloria's 60th birthday, and I still remember that surprise party. It is neat to think back and see how different everything is now, just 5 years later!)

Here is our table at the Amarillo Club...Gloria was very surprised!




Richard and the birthday girl!




Mamaw and Grandy...



Tim and Amber...



The new family of four- Jacey, Brooks, Hudson and Derek...




just us....and baby p.



Gloria and Mamaw...


Chris and the b-day girl!


It was wonderful to have everyone together to celebrate Gloria's special day.

Sunday after church we were off to Amarillo for Nanny's surprise party at Hoffbrau. The look on her face said it all! It was really nice to see so many members of our family! We were very excited that uncle Max, aunt Sue and Stef came into town!

The birthday girl with the cake!

We had a great time at the party! Unfortunately, we could only stay for about an hour before we had to head back to Oklahoma. We made a very short stop in Bricktown to say "happy birthday" to miss Alta.


Here we are with Alta! She is one of Tif's co-workers and fellow GA in Student Life.

Other than that, we are doing well! We are both feeling better from the wreck; we have found a great chiropractor here in Norman (thanks for the referral, Kaci!). L'il P is doing well and kicking like crazy! We have our next visit with the doctor next Tuesday, so we will let you know how it goes!

Happier News!

Amazingly, Chris and I aren't feeling too much worse than we felt yesterday. I was dreading waking up this morning and feeling like...well, like a truck had plowed into us.

Just to elaborate a little more from what Chris said, we were at a red light close to our house. When the light turned green, I started pulling out to turn. All I remember hearing was Chris saying "I don't think that...". I turned and saw that there was a car stopped in one lane on the cross-street, and a huge Dodge in the next lane (the one furthest from us) that was not slowing down. Because I hadn't taken off quickly, I was able to slam on the brakes and we came to a complete stop before we were even in the path of the truck.

When the truck saw us though, he slammed on his breaks and turned his wheel...right into my driver's door. By that time there was nothing to do but sit there and wait for him to hit us. I braced myself on the steering wheel, and turned my head back facing forward and closed my eyes. I have never been in a wreck before, so it was really weird- kind of like an out of body experience.

I remember hearing his tires, but I don't remember the sound of the impact. When it was over the only thing that I could think about was getting out of the car in case it caught on fire (one of my childhood fears of cars being in a wreck and then exploding). I even turned the car off because I thought that would help. Then I told Chris to get out so that I could climb over the seat and we could escape before the impending explosion....

Of course the car didn't catch on fire. Luckily, someone else was paying attention because I didn't even look when I jumped out of the car and ran across the road to the curb.

There was glass everywhere...even in Chris's house shoes that I had thrown on before heading out the door (my parents were asleep in our room and I didn't want to wake them up to get my shoes....they didn't know that we had gone to get breakfast).

Chris called 911 and requested that an ambulance come for me because of the baby. They were there in what seemed like seconds later and were very nice. I just about lost it in the ambulance, but I was able to keep it together while calling my dad to tell him that we had another wreck in my mom's new car and while talking with the police and paramedics. Then my mom came to pick us up in my car and clean out her car since it wasn't drivable.

When we got back to the house we called my OBGYN and they said to go directly to Labor and Delivery (So, here is the first "bright-side" moment: we have become very acquainted with Norman Regional, where all of the baby action will happen in January).

I got in very quickly and soon they were monitoring L'il P. I was so relieved when we heard the heartbeat and heard that he was kicking like crazy still. Now is the second "bright-side" moment: Chris got to feel his son kick for the first time! While the nurse was tying down the heart monitor, she felt one of L'il P's kicks and looked at me and smiled. She told me that she had felt it and I said "Awww, that is sad because my husband hasn't been able to feel him kick yet." Wasting no time, she told Chris to get over there and hold the monitor. He got to feel some pretty powerful kicks before all was said and done.

After they released me from Labor and Delivery, we (Me, Chris and my parents) made our way to the Emergency Room to have both of us checked out for lower back pain. Chris was taken out of the waiting room first and I was taken to another room for more critical injuries (I am guessing because I was 5 1/2 months pregnant). Everyone was super wonderful, from the doctor, the nurse that did all my blood work, and the technician that came to give me a sonogram. "Bright-side" moment number 3: We got to see L'il P again! The tech was amazing and took a long, good look at my uterus to make sure that it wasn't torn and then proceeded to confirm our little boy's manhood, along with other measurements and explanations.

About 5 long hours later and another trip upstairs to Labor and Delivery, we were released to come home! We know that we were being watched over and that we are very lucky.

If you had made it this far in the post, thanks for acknowledging me. I am very wordy…much more so than Chris; writing is therapeutic for me! Thank you for all of the e-mails, calls and prayers. We are very cognizant of how just how blessed we are to have people like you guys in our lives! Mostly, I am thankful for my awesome God who protected all 4 of us: me, Chris, the baby and the other driver. I am also thankful for my husband who is my rock. It is such a relief to have someone in your life that you can go to and let your guard down. I can tell him exactly what I am feeling and how scared I am, and he is always there. I am so glad that I married him and more in awe every day that he chose me to call his wife.

On to other happier news:

In true game day spirit, we suited up the pups in their Sooner gear earlier this week...
Don't they make your heart just melt???





Here we are at Big Red Rally. Chris and I are all about checking out everything that OU has to offer us our last year here. We have season tickets and plan to go to everything that we can so that we have no regrets when we leave Norman in a year...

We met up with Darcy!!! I know what you are thinking...that was totally Chris's Coke Zero in my hand...I promise that I only had a few sips of caffeine!


Here we are at the first game of the season...in the student section.

A word of advice: Get there early if you are going to be sitting in the student section.

Because we were not early to the game we ended up cutting our losses in the student seating and packed onto the ramp. We had a much better view, could feel a breeze, and there weren't as many people that hadn't bathed in the last week...

A couple of Chris's pics from the game...

Okay, now I am really impressed if you have made it this far! Yay!

For those of you that care, go down to the "We're Having A..." post. I have edited the video more and posted more pictures from the night!