I’m taking the next few days away from the blog to spend time with family & friends! I am so excited and really enjoying our vacation!

Friday – My brother, his wife & my precious niece Taelyn are coming to my parents to spend the day.  We haven’t seen Taelyn in 6 months and I can’t wait to love on her!! So bummed that the other niece, Tallie can’t be here

Saturday – FOOTBALL FOOTBALL FOOTBALL!!! Gooooooooooo POKES! Spending some quality time with Brook’s brother, sister, & bro in-law.  Going to dinner with Lee & Wes Jackson…so thankful for great friends!

Sunday Part 1 – We’ll be making our grand appearance at an OKC area Lifechurch.tv Campus.  Haven’t decided which one yet.  It’ll be like Where’s Waldo. Be on the lookout!

Sunday Part 2 – Baby Shower!!!! I’ve never had one of these before for me! Kinda excited! So thankful that we were able to make it to OK and our amazing friends/family put this together for us.  Can’t wait to see everyone!!!!

Monday – Probably a little shopping with mom & then off to the airport! Home to the OC and pick up our first born.  I sure miss that little guy!

Going to be a great weekend and I’m looking forward to all the amazing time with friends and family. Be on the lookout in a few days for plenty of pictures!!

(Skipping a week on the Friday Belly Shot…I’ll still post one on Twitter & Facebook )

Hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving!

Thankful that I have a healthy beautiful little baby girl growing inside of me. I’m going to take good care of her this Thanksgiving and feed her all kinds of yummy things!!

Thankful for my husband and best friend.  I couldn’t ask for a better man and everyday is an adventure with him. (yes baby…i DO like adventures with you!! )

Thankful we get to spend this Thanksgiving with family. (We’ll miss Brook’s parents & Reagan!)

Thankful that we have some amazing friends/family throwing us a baby shower in OK! We’re so excited to bless our baby girl.

Thankful that I’m pregnant and no one will think twice when I devour an entire pumpkin pie by myself. 

Thankful for pumpkin pie.

Happy Thanksgiving my friends.  I hope it is a day filled with blessings and joy!

Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain!

Today we are off to Okie-homa to spend Thanksgiving with the family (minus the in-laws and reagan. bummer!)  This is my first trip to Oklahoma as a pregnant woman. I have been craving things that you can only get there. So here is a list of stops we must make while there.

Braums: cookies and cream shake

Chicken Express: chicken, okra & sweet tea

Raisin’ Cains: chicken, Texas toast, yummy sauce & sweet tea

Steve’s Rib: gooooood okie BBQ & sweet tea

McAlisters: sweet tea

Hideaway: Little Kahuna Pizza

Rodney’s Pizza: pepperoni pizza

Janets: Baked Potato Soup

Teds: about 20 tortillas & queso.

Now I’m hungry! Can’t wait to be there!! And interested to see if I can actually fit all of this yummy food into 5 days with Thanksgiving dinner.  Stay tuned my friends.

I’m a very social, extroverted person.  But I like to be alone.

I need “me” time every once and a while to be alone and just be. To pamper myself.   To spend time with Jesus. To pray. To watch Grey’s Anatomy or whatever girly movie just came to Redbox (that seems very opposite ends of the spectrum…well i’m random like that).

I haven’t gotten to the point of putting cucumbers on my eyes, but maybe one of these days.

I looooooooooooooove spending time with my hubby more than anything in the world, but I also need my me time. He’s been playing basketball with some friends on Tuesday nights for the last year, which has opened the door for a night at home alone.  I almost always beg hubby to not go, and I still miss him a ton when he’s gone.  But I still love my time.

I’m getting even more thankful for this time as I prepare for my Baby Girl to come in a few short months.  “Me” time will happen very rarely.

What do you do for your “me time”? Especially if you’re a busy mom, how do you make time for just YOU?

Another “downfall” of being a pastor’s wife is Sunday Mornings. Yeah, that’s when we go to church. But church for pastor’s wives is different. We don’t get up on Sunday Mornings as a family and make breakfast and watch cartoons with the kids in our pjs. My hubby rolls out of bed around 4am or something insane to get to the church. It’s a work day for him. Which leaves me at home alone on Sunday’s. Lately, since our church went portable, I’ve been getting up and going with him to help with set up (because im that nutty supportive wife). However, in a few months I will be home getting a baby ready all by myself.

I love to hear people talk about their Sunday mornings as a family. Coffee and donuts. Homemade pancakes. Cartoons in pjs. Getting ready and going to church as a family.

My children will never know this. Sundays will likely be a morning of craziness with mom.

I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Because we are changing lives. It’s what we do. I’m so proud of my husband and happy to support him. Even if that means no Sunday morning routines as a family. I’m proud that my kids will see my husband dedicating his life to serve the Lord and lead others to Him.  What a great example he will set for them!! (Plus, they’ll LOVE getting to watch dad on stage!)

Pastor’s Wives – What does your Sunday routine look like with the kids or just you and hubby?

Church Attenders – What does your Sunday routine look like?? I encourage you to make it a fun family day if you aren’t already!

Baby Girl is about 1 pound and 4 ounces & about 12 inches long. She’s quite the kicker and loves to jump around on mommy’s bladder. Fun for her…not so fun for me.

I really can’t believe how fast it’s flying by!! And how fast I’m growing!

24 Weeks

About 113 days to go!!!!! Can’t wait to meet my baby girl!

Hi, I’m a pastor’s wife. 

A downfall of being a pastor’s wife…I sit alone.  Well, I worship alone. One of my favorite things is standing next to my hubby in worship. Mostly because he has an amazing voice and I like listening to him sing.  But my hubby is a Worship Pastor. I can’t tell you how many times people look at the poor girl sitting by herself and give me that “you poor thing look”.  Especially when they see the wedding ring.  Then they really feel sorry for me because they think I have a dead beat husband who is at home watching football instead of being at church with his wife. And add in the pregnant belly…it’s even more entertaining for me!

A pastor’s wife that I follow, recently wrote a blog about this topic.  She says that she sits on the front row b/c that is where she is most supportive of her husband.  This is not the case for me though.  Honestly, I think my hubs is way to sexy and if I sit that close, I’m more engaged in him during Worship than my #1 love.

Because, my hubby is my #2 and always will be. 

I hide in the back, in the dark.  Another reason I do this, is for my husband’s sake.  He gets distracted very easily.  I fear that if I’m right in front of him I will be a distraction to him when his purpose is to lead people to the feet of Christ…not to check out his wife on the front row.  That’s just why I do it.

Pastor’s wives: what is your preference on where you sit if your hubby is an “on stage guy”?

Church Attenders: what is your honest view of pastor’s wives and how we should encourage our husbands? Seriously…I’m curious!

Welp it’s officially been a year. We love this state.

LOVE IT.

Can’t beat the beautiful weather, the beaches, the yummy frozen yogurt on every corner.  Our dog, Jack Bauer James, loves it too. His allergies cleared up when we arrived in CA.

After Brook and I got married we fell into the statistic of people who gain weight after marriage.  Yikes.  When I look back at pictures of us from when we left Texas, I cringe just a bit.  But once we arrived, we decided to jump into the healthy California lifestyle.  Brook dropped around 35 pounds, and I lost 15! Of course then I got pregnant and have gained all that back! 

  
 FAT  (Nov. ‘08)                          SKINNY (June ‘09)

So thank you California for helping us get healthy again. My husband is SEXY!!!!!!

 A year ago today we said goodbye to our first home at 9200 Nightingale Drive.  It was hard to say goodbye to our home that we started out in, but we looked forward to what God had ahead for us in our move to California.

We were never big fans of Texas, but we loved our church and our friends. Not a day goes by that we don’t think of Todd & Wendy and wish they still lived down the street from us! Especially now that we both preggers!

I can’t believe how fast this year has flown by and all that has happened and God has blessed us with.  We pulled out of Texas the morning of November 17, 2008 not knowing what was ahead.  Now I look back and am amazed at how the blessings poured out over the past year.  It hasn’t always been easy, but we have been following the path God has laid out for us and it’s been the best thing for us!

Biggest blessing of all…losing all that weight! Yikes we are HUGE in these pictures!

Cheers to a year in California! Many more to come??

I’ve always had crazy dreams. But then I got pregnant, and my hormones made my dreaming even more out of control.  I’ve started having dreams about the baby a lot.  The most common, reoccurring dream I’ve had is that the baby is born and can talk.  It seems to be a pretty normal thing in my dream and no one seems concerned by the fact that I have a newborn genius.  I guess people expect that from me & my husband. Right.

In a recent dream, not only did my sweet little girl talk…but she had the entire bible memorized by the time she was born.  Yikes.  It’s pretty sad when a 2 day old baby is smarter than you. In my dream we were at my parents house and our baby corrected something her Mimi said by reciting Numbers 1:7.   I thought wow this must be a sign from God or something and this verse must mean something really great! So we went and looked it up.

Numbers 1:7 Of Judah: Nahshon the son of Amminadab.

Yup that’s it.  Be impressed, it’s very deep. I guess I better not put my bible (aka iPhone…YouVersion) next to my belly when I’m reading just in case she’s studying up.  Can’t have my infant be smarter than me.

What crazy dreams did you or your wife have during pregnancy?