Mother's Day

Mother's Day was fabulous! Rich and I went to church together, came home to change, and headed to Smithville to celebrate at mawmaw's. It was a wonderful day. I love getting to be with all of my family. I was a little low on energy and felt kinda out of it that day, but I had a great day. I woke up to the sweetest card from Rich! Here are some pics from Mother's Day.

The life of the party!
Mawmaw's cake!

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Sophia and Destiny

Mamaw listening to her card from Justin and Christy.

She was so touched by all of her cards. I love you mawmaw!

You really have to know my Aunt Donna to understand this picture, but she is SCOLDING my grandmother's dog in this picture. LOL!

Prego Pics

I am showing a little bit. This shirt shows "the bump" a little better than most. These were taken at 14 weeks on Mother's Day.

8 week ultrasound

This poor blog has been neglected. It is my first day off in a few weeks so I am going to be doing updates galore. Stay tuned! Here are pictures of Baby Hall at our approximately 8 week ultrasound. The heartbeat was 178. This ultrasound was done on April 14th, and this is the day that we heard our baby's heartbeat for the first time. I must admit that I got emotional. The realization of how great God really is hit me all at once when I heard that. This pregnancy has made me question how anyone with a baby or that has gone through a pregnancy could ever doubt if God existed. I already know that God has such special plans for our baby, and I pray every night for the call on this child's life. I'm overwhelmed with joy all the time for this little miracle growing inside of me.

Little arm and leg buds

The 3-D ultrasounds

WE ARE PREGNANT!

This is in my kitchen above my cabinets and every morning I pray for a healthy baby. I love this quote! It has helped me through this whole fertility mess.

As of right now, we are almost 7 weeks. We go in to our next appointment on Tuesday, April 14th. I found out that I was pregnant on Thursday, March 19th. I came home from school that day kind of suspecting that I could be, and took two tests. They both were instantly positive. I only had about an hour to figure out what I was going to do for Rich, and this is what I came up with. I had to think of something that I could get on video of course. I will try to download that when I find my usb cable for our video camera.

I borrowed one of Rich's old shirts and made Bentley a shirt. He did NOT like having to wear it so I had to make Rich call me 5 minutes before he got home so that I could get it on Bentley before he tore it off! He doesn't look happy, but he was so cute! It says, "Big Brother" in case you can't read it.

He kinda looks like a ghost.


I liked Bentley's shirt so much that I decided to make one of my own. This is what Rich saw when he walked in the door. Only I was holding a video camera!

No I am not showing that much. I'm holding the shirt out so that you can read it.

The happy daddy!
This pregnancy has already been extremely stressful. I should have known it was going to be when I called my doctor the day I found out, and he said, "Can you get here tomorrow for bloodwork? Honey, you are as high-risk as they come." I went that Friday to get my blood drawn and got our results back the following Monday. My beta-levels (HCG) were 3,366, which is really high. They sent me in for an ultrasound that Tuesday. It was a terrible experience. The ultrasound tech basically told us that our gestational sac was not forming correctly, and was very negative about it. I left crying that day. The next Tuesday we went in for our 5 week, 3 day ultrasound. Here are the pictures from that day. Our gestational sac was fine, and we got to hear the baby's heartbeat (112). The low-stress didn't last long though, and I started spotting Tuesday night. I didn't worry too much about it because they say that it is normal.

5 weeks, 3 days ultrasound picture. The little circular ring is the yolk sac. Our baby is snuggled up next to the wall of the sac.

You can see the baby snuggled up against the wall here just hanging out in between the yolk sac (the circular thing) and the wall.

They measured the baby. It measured 5 weeks, 6 days.

Well, on Sunday I had TERRIBLE cramps and major spotting/clotting. I was SO upset. I called Monday morning and they had me come in for another ultrasound. We were 6 weeks, 2 days. Apparently, I have "placenta previa" which means that the placenta is blocking the cervical opening. They are 90% sure that it will "migrate" as the uterous grows, but if not we will HAVE to have a c-section. This has been the cause of the bleeding though. If there is anything positive about having to be this stressed out during a pregnancy, we get to hear the baby's heartbeat quite a bit, and we get lots of pictures!!! It is amazing how much the baby grew in just 6 days. I can't wait to see the baby again on Tuesday! Please pray for us. We desperately want this baby to be healthy. I have tried to keep my faith strong, but I can't help but be nervous about everything. Please pray for my sickness as well. I am sick all day everyday!

Look at how much bigger the baby has gotten. You can see the curser where they are measuring the baby.

There's little baby Hall.

The baby is still so tiny.

The Hungry Beast

I came home from work the other day to let my sweet puppy Bentley out to take him for a walk. I walked upstairs to find this! This is the THIRD bed that he has eaten so now he is stuck with a towel. Ahhh the life with a puppy. I still wouldn't trade him for the world!

The Kentucky vs Vandy Game.

Our brother-in-law, Aaron, is a season ticket holder for Vandy for basketball and football. He was so kind to GIVE Rich the KY/Vandy tickets for his birthday. I met Rich at his office at 5:30. I surprised him by wearing UK gear. I am a UT fan, but I root for UK if they are not playing UT. I usually don't wear KY stuff though. I feel too much like a traitor! This is Rich as soon as I saw him at his office. He's excited. I think he may be a little shocked that I'm wearing KY stuff.

Once we got all settled in his car we headed straight to Rotiers. This is a hole in the wall burger joint downtown that is INCREDIBLE. They have the best cheeseburgers that I have ever put to my mouth. They come on french bread and are so good. We also always get their cheesesticks. This is one of our special secret getaway places that we LOVE! Here is a picture of us at Rotiers. We had to sit at the bar because it was PACKED!

Warming up! Maybe they should have warmed up a little longer considering they were completely discombobulated during the game.

Here are a few of us right before the game started! It was a great night even though KY got masaquered!

Red Velvet Cake Balls!

For our Valentine's party at school I made these red velvet cake balls. They were pretty good. A little rich for me, but they were good. You can use any kind of cake mixture for these and any icing. Being the southern gal that I am, I decided to use Red Velvet cake and cream cheese icing. I got this recipe from Kelly Stamp's blog. Here is all that you need for these:

All you do is bake the cake mix according to the directions on the back of the box. When it's still warm crumble it up in a bowl and mix in the frosting. IMPORTANT: Refridgerate the cake and frosting for about an hour before you start making the balls.

I just used an icecream scoop to scoop out the balls and my hands to shape them a little. Melt almond bark (either vanilla or chocolate-depending on your cake) and dip balls in the bark. I used tongs to dip them. Kelly used an egg seperator, and it seemed to work a little better.

Voila... A yummy and EASY dessert. This is good for parties, potlucks, etc. My first graders LOVED THEM!