tear jerker.

When I saw this P&G commercial on the tube a few weeks back and bawled my eyes out, I thought that it was just my pregnancy hormones raging. I typically burst into tears for no specific reason once or twice a week. This is normal, right? Throw in a tear jerker like this and it's hard to turn the water works off. Today I stumbled upon this video on Pinterest and thought that it was too good not to share with those of you who haven't seen it yet. I don't care if you're single, married, a mom, or soon-to-be mom...get out your hankie.

Yep, I'm crying again.

lady a.o.k.

John and I had a really great time at the Lady Antebellum concert on Thursday night. How can you not have fun at a summer concert? Especially one where Thompson Square, Darius Rucker, and Lady Antebellum took the stage. Shall I add that the weather was perfect?! And, of course, the company.

The only downside of the entire night was the timing of events. We knew that Lady Antebellum wouldn't take the stage until about 9:00 p.m., but we didn't realize how tired we would be at this hour. Talk about feeling like an old fogie. By 9:30 I was yawning. By 10:00, I was ready for bed. Can't keep up with the Thoroughbreds anymore. Sad day. Sad revelation. We still sang and danced and loved every minute. 

Darius Rucker! He was awesome.

Lady A getting ready to take the stage. 

Thank you so much, John, for an amazing anniversary present! Not to mention...what a great first concert for baby Bryant! Can't wait until the next one!

photo op.

This past Father's Day weekend (Shout out to my old man! I LOVE YOU, DADDY!) was chock-full of family time with the Bryants and Moores. Lea, Bradley, and the boys came in town for John's cousin Stephanie's wedding on Saturday and, of course, to celebrate Pops. We had a lot of fun spending time with them, as usual, and are looking forward to adding to that time at the beach this weekend.

On Sunday, Lea asked if I could take a few pictures of Bennett and William together in the Bryant's barn. Umm, YES! My lens loves these two munchkins. I love them too. Unfortunately, Bennett did not want to cooperate. Lesson #58 of parenting (yes, I'm taking notes): do not wake a toddler up from his/her nap. I still managed to get a couple of good ones of the two of them together and a handful of great ones of sweet baby William. Total cuteness.

In other news, John and I are going to the Lady Antebellum concert at the Oak Mountain Ampitheatre tomorrow night to kick-off our weekend! I am super excited. LOVE LOVE LOVE, Lady Antebellum. Darius Rucker and Thompson Square will also be playing so I have no doubt it will be a good time. Thanks again for the tickets, JB! What a great husband you are. 

Be back next week!

the prediction.

This morning I had my 14 week appointment and everything looked and sounded great. Praise God! Little baby Bryant's strong heartbeat was music to my ears, my blood pressure was "on time," as John would say, and I am at a healthy weight. Speaking of weight, I have gained FOUR pounds since my last appointment 4 weeks ago. Sigh. And so it begins...

I have another appointment at 18 weeks and then we will schedule our next ultrasound at 20 weeks. So, in approximately 6 weeks we will be finding out whether our little peanut is a boy or a girl! We cannot wait...literally.

On Saturday morning I took the IntelliGender Gender Prediction Test. Now, I wouldn't say that I took it against my free will--I was just as curious as John--but, it did take him a few days to ultimately persuade me. To be honest, I had no clue that this test even existed until John came back from the hunting club last weekend and told me all about it. (HMMM...hunting club and baby talk?! Weird.) I did a little research and although it is a bit on the pricey side, I decided that we really didn't have anything to lose. Well, except $45.00.

We concealed the test for the big reveal! 

So what did the test predict, you ask?

Umm. I do believe I see an orange tint and a green tint...

That we are having a...

Well, I think. It really depended on what angle you looked at it. I was definitely hoping for a more clear result. Would I recommend the IntelliGender test? I'll let you know in 6 weeks...

good things.

John and I found out that we were pregnant on the 5th of April...just one day shy of Good Friday. Oh, what a wonderful day. I was going to try to hold off from taking a pregnancy test for at least a few days, but my curiosity got the best of me. Figures. So, as soon as I woke up that morning I ran to the bathroom, ran back to the bed, buried my head into my pillow, said a prayer, and held my breath...

3 minutes later...

Faint line, but a line nonetheless!

I can't really describe what I felt at that moment. When we first found out that we were pregnant in January, I felt a rush of emotions and burst into tears. Happy tears...and anxious tears. This time was different. I felt pure joy and pure peace. 

Of course, John was the first person that I called. I already got to see the expression on his face the first go around so I was not at all concerned about waiting all day to share the news until he got home.  To be honest, I couldn't! I'm pretty sure the first thing that escaped his mouth was, "Nuh uh!" He was just as shocked as I was, but ecstatic! 

I went to my doctor that afternoon to confirm the pregnancy and to have blood work done to check my HCG levels. Everything looked great, but they wanted to see me in 48 hours to make sure my levels were increasing. Unfortunately, 48 hours meant Saturday, so we had to schedule my next appointment for Monday. Talk about a long weekend! Although we didn't have the "official" confirmation of the increased levels quite yet, we were traveling home to Atlanta to spend the Easter weekend with my family and I could not wait to share the good news with them.

Friday night when we arrived, John and I visited with my mom and dad for a bit. I ran upstairs to grab a little something out of my bag and came back with this...

...a teeny tiny Easter basket...

...that contained some BIG news!

It is safe to say that they were both shocked--more so mom than dad! Dad was a giddy school boy! This will be his 9th grandchild! It was so great being able to share the wonderful news with them in person. I will never forget that moment. NEVER. 

The next day, we had a cookout at my brother Jeff's house and gave the basket to him and Katye. They were so thrilled, as well! One of the best parts was telling Abby Grace that there was a little baby inside Lala's belly. She was so gentle and sweet...and thinks that baby Bryant is going to be a girl. HA. 

Now, if you are wondering how we spilled the beans to John's parents, it wasn't quite as creative. John pretty much told them over the phone WITHOUT me! What can I say? He's an excited daddy-to-be. 

(P.S. Thank you everyone for your excitement and prayers! We feel honored to have you experience this journey with us.) XOXO.

the cat's out of the bag.

Let me go ahead and admit: I'm not a good secret keeper. If something is going on in my life that is out of the norm in either a good way or a bad way, I want my family and best friends to know. I am sure I am not alone here. SO, I will go ahead and preface this big announcement by saying that it was extremely hard and taxing to keep this secret in for approximately 91 days.

You do the math...

YEP, 91 days = 13 weeks

I'M PREGNANT! WOW, that felt so good. John and I are expecting a little one before the new year, on or around December 14! We are so incredibly humbled, blessed, thankful, ecstatic, and frankly, still in awe. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. THANK YOU, LORD!

As most of you know, we experienced the heartache of a miscarriage in February so this tiny blessing is just that, but not so tiny. He or she is a HUGE blessing. God is so good. Our hearts are full.

Now that the cat's out of the bag, I will be sharing some more details for my own personal recollection. My apologies to those not interested. Next up: how we spilled the beans to our family. Stay tuned...

one fish, two fish, three fish, four.

WHEW! It is safe to say that it has been a busy work week, which has in turn forced me to postpone the recap of our beach trip last weekend with the Owens. Thank goodness for Fridays!

I will attempt to sum up our weekend as quickly as possible:

Friday afternoon we headed out of town and arrived in Grayton Beach around 8:00. Unfortunately for us, the wait at the Red Bar was two hours long! Oy! So, we headed over to the Red Bar's brother restaurant, Louis Louis instead. By the time we were finished with dinner we were all pretty worn out so made a quick trip to the grocery store and called it a night. We had a BIG day of fishing ahead of us!

On Saturday morning we got up bright and early. Well, John got up brighter and earlier...and was able to capture this beautiful picture of the sunrise over the bay. Breathtaking!

We loaded up the cooler, slathered on some sunscreen and made our way over to the one and only "Black Gold." Our first stop was around the bend where we successfully caught most of our bait. Then we cruised on out to the deep blue to catch some snapper!

I would say that over the next few hours we were quite successful. We caught several snapper, grouper, and triggerfish. Brandon took home the title of "President" for having the biggest catch of the day and John took home the title of "VP" for being in a very close second. Katie Beth did awesome too! She was right on up there with the gents. My fish weren't too shabby either. Overall, it was super fun. We enjoyed every second!

Later that afternoon, we took it to the pool and beach for a swim and some bocce ball! It was so much fun! I can't wait to play some more in that beautiful new backyard of the Owens' very soon (HINT HINT, KB). For dinner that night, we went to the always delicious Harbor Docks. Due to the long day on the boat and in the sun, we called it another early night.

On Sunday we slept in and then grabbed breakfast at the Donut Hole. YUMMY. It did not disappoint. Afterwards we spent a little bit more time at the pool and on the boat, packed up and cleaned up, and made one last stop at Harborwalk for lunch before we hit the road.

We hate that it seemed like a short, fleeting weekend, but we love love loved spending time with Katie Beth and Brandon and getting the opportunity to take their boat out and do some fishing. Thank y'all so much for an amazing beach weekend. We can't wait to do it again soon.