Be back soon...

Hello Peeps! I will be returning soon. Originally I had only planned on taking a "break" for about a month but things just got entirely too busy for me to continue and since it was already 2 weeks on average in between posts I figured taking a little longer wouldn't matter :o) I hope to be back in the next week or two. 

Basically my family and I have been sick (alot), mostly Briley but it wears on everyone.  I am hoping once we are over our current "junk" we will be done being sick for a while. 
We are also in the process of buying a house, that we love! It needs a little TLC but nothing major and nothing compared to our last fixer-upper house.  We will close next week! Excited about the house, yes...excited about moving, no! lol
We just celebrated Briley's 2nd birthday! I have lots to share from that as well! I can't believe my baby is 2! So hard to believe!! She is just so precious!
And of course my pregnancy.  It was rough in the beginning and pretty much until I got out of the 1st trimester (hence another reason I layed off the blog) but all is good now minus the major back problems I am having. Maybe once life slows down a bit I will make it to the chiropractor. I am officially 20 weeks as of last Saturday which is very exciting! I am really enjoying being pregnant this time around, more than last, probably because I have already done it once :o)

Until next time...

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope everyone out there has had a wonderful Valentine's Day!

We had a relaxing night at home since today was sort of rough! I felt horribly sick for most of the day and extremely tired.  I am so thankful to be pregnant but I am certainly ready to get some energy back.  Most days I feel like I can hardly function much less keep my eye lids open while i'm trying to work. 

As soon as I got off of work, I took Briley to the toy store. Probably her favorite place on earth, and then we headed home where "dada" met us with take out from an Italian Restaurant.  It was super good.  I picked up some yummy cupcakes for dessert to top off our dinner!  We literally layed on the sofa the rest of the night.  Briley just loved her Valentine from mommy and daddy.  She got a little telephone, a few books, a coloring book and some new crayons, and some little dress up shoes.  So that kept her pretty entertained thoughout the night! Pics to come soon!!

Tomorrow I am headed to Nashville for my 12 week OB appointment (eventhough I am only 11 weeks).  I am still trying to decide what I want for lunch and which mall I want to stop by before coming home! I miss the "big city" so much! At least I can count on going back every month for the next 7 months and a little more than that towards the end!   Can't wait to hear my sweet pea's heart beat tomorrow!

Please pray for a good report!

Happy Heart Day! <3<3<3

Sick & Snow!

So, i've been MIA because someone and, at times everyone has been sick in our house for the last month! I think we are all finally on the road to recovery now.  Let's just hope it stays that way.  I'm not sure how much more of it I can take! lol (seriously)

Here is a little timeline to show you what I mean...

1st week of January - Briley gets a terrible sinus infection

2nd week of January - I catch the sinus infection that I just knew was the flu or strep but was not

3rd week of January - Briley is feeling better but Michael now has the sinus infection and I still have it too

4th week of January - Michael and I are feeling better but I start to get terrible morning sickness and by the middle of the week Briley is sick again

1st week of February - Briley is diagnosed with RSV, she finally started feeling better by the end of the week

2nd week of February - We are all healthy! We are still watching Briley closely because the doctor said her cough and congestion could last 4-6 weeks but we haven't had to do an albuterol treatment since Sunday the 6th which is exciting news considering she hates it!

I have felt so bad because it has snowed several times over the last month but she has just been too sick to go out  in it.  I was very excited today to take her out.  She really doesn't care that much about the snow but its fun to see her all bundled up and to take a few pictures.  She is most certainly a warm weather kind of girl.  She loves the grass between her toes, the sunshine, and most importantly the pool! If she knew how to countdown, i'm sure she would be counting down the days to spring.  Not too much longer sweet girl!!!

Here is my little snow bunny.  She didn't want to walk in it so she just sat. lol

Good News...

That is right...we will be welcoming our 2nd child into the world sometime at the beginning of September! We were probably just as shocked this time as we were the 1st time but still very excited!

We actually found out the week of Christmas, December 20th to be exact.  There were a few complications in the beginning so we tried not to let ourselves get too excited but everything turned out to be just fine! Thank You God!

My 1st doctor's visit was last Tuesday, the 18th.  I actually ended up being about a week and a half later than I thought, I should have been about 8 weeks and 5 days at the appointment but I was only 7 weeks 3 days going off of the gestational size of the baby.  We ended up being there for almost 3 hours which was a little nerve racking but it was totally worth seeing our little peanut and getting some Five Guys Burgers and Fries before heading home! So good! Baby Dodd's heartbeat was a strong 170 and he or she was measuring just perfectly! 

I am 8 weeks and 4 days today and the nausea is defiantly starting to kick in.  I have had a little here and there for a few weeks but the "real stuff" started Saturday morning and hasn't really stopped since.  Please say a prayer for me.  It is hard enough being pregnant and tired with a toddler but morning sickness on top of that pretty much makes me feel worthless. lol I pray that it doesn't last long :o)

So far, we think its a boy.  Just going off of the majority of our family members, most females (my mom, Michael's mom, Michael's aunt, and my grandmother) have had a girl then a boy. Plus I have 3 brothers and boys just run in my family.  Either way I will be equally excited...after having a scare in the beginning I just want a 100% healthy baby! We want 3 kids so if we don't get a boy this time around, maybe the 3rd times a charm ;o)!

Here is our sweet little baby's 1st photo!

Here is a photo from Christmas Eve...we told the family on Christmas just because we had to tell a few people! ;o) We wrapped Big Sister pajamas (very last minute) for Briley to unwrap...that didn't really work out as planned since she was not into unwrapping gifts this year so at my parents house my grandmother helped Briley open them and at Michael's house his mom opened them.  Only a few people got it at first but it quickly caught on.  I think everyone was pretty surprised.  We definatly got an array of reactions this time around (as we did with Briley, just different) and thats all I will say about that ;o) We had told Michael's dad and step mom a few days before when we celebrated Christmas with them (we didn't have the pajamas then, so we just told them).  I will say they get the award for being the most excited for both baby #1 and baby #2! Way to go mamaw and papaw!



Papaw's B-Day

Michael's dad's b-day is on Jan 3 so we celebrated after church on the 2nd.  We all went in together to get him a grill and he was very surprised! He was also very surprised to learn he had to grill steaks for lunch! lol
He thought we were having another dish that Becky had made before hand but we were really having steak! I think he was the most shocked at how she hid it from him for almost a week! A pretty large gift to hide I will say but it worked! Yeah!

Here are a few pics from the day!

Sweet Briley taking a nap in the car ~ a miracle!

Shes going through a shy faise right now

Boo Boo ~ her favorite dog! She says his name at least 100 times a day!

Surprise!

Pretty Pretty Reagan! Love those dimples!

New Years

So I am playing catch up once again...we have had alot of sickness in our house over the last 3 weeks! Defiantly not my idea of fun, let me tell you...

Anyway, this is going to be a short post because we didn't do a thing this year for New Years, which was perfectly fine with me. :o) We didn't get in from the Music City Bowl till about 4pm-ish.  My parents had kept Briley so we headed straight over there to get her when we pulled into town and then headed over to Michael's mom's for a little bit.  Briley and Reagan had a sleep over at Nana's house that night.  Michael and I went to eat and Chilli's and then came back to hang out a little while longer.  We ended up heading home around 12ish and going to bed.  Real eventful huh? lol
At this point I don't even remember what we did the next day besides sleep in.  I got a pretty good nap that day as well so that was nice!

Music City Bowl

The hubby and I decided a long time ago, if TN went to a bowl game even remotely close we were going to go (this actually ended up being what I gave him for his b-day since his bday is in November) So it was exciting when they went to the Music City Bowl, 1) because Nashville is only 2 hours away and 2) because it's our "old" home.  We LOVE that place.  I miss so many things about it but I don't miss the traffic, having to work full-time and not getting to spend time with my sweet baby girl, or having a sick baby 24/7 because she is stuck in a daycare.  :o)

So we headed up around noon on the 30th and went to check on our house (we just had a deck put on so the tenants are loving that) and then it was time to head downtown to meet up with the guy we were buying our tickets from.  On a side note, it was like 50 degrees and here was my attire for the game, leggings, blue jeans, 2 pairs of socks, a long sleeve undershirt, a long sleeve t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a rain jacket, and a winter coat...oh and lets not forget the 2 pairs of gloves, hat, and scarf.  lol  Michael thought I was crazy and

I could barely move but I am so COLD natured!  I was still freezing even with all of that.  But anyway, we didn't park as close as I had hoped but thats ok.  Lord knows I need the exercise. lol  The game was fun minus the fact that we were sitting smack dab in the middle of the UNC fans and they were pretty obnoxious.

brrr...

So in the end, we thought they "had it in the bag" and we had dinner reservations at our favorite restaurant, Ruth's Chris so we ended up leaving a few minutes early.  If only we knew what was going on while we were gone.  We ended up jogging to the car and rushing to the restaurant so he could see the end.  Low and behold we were sitting next to half of the Tennessee Titans football team.  Michael seriously stopped breathing for a few minutes.  He was freaking out, lol.  His favorite player, Chris Johnson was sitting closest to us.  So we barely talked the entire night.  Michael just wanted to sit and stare and listen to what they were saying.  Sounds like fun, huh? lol, maybe for a guy but not for me.  It was fun seeing him so excited though! I've definitely never seen him like that before.  Michael was able to get his picture made with Chris so that completely made up for TN loosing!  I am so glad, because he probably would have been in a bad mood the rest of the night. lol

All in all it was a great time and Michael said it was the best Birthday present ever! Whoot Whoot!

Christmas Fun!

Well Christmas was great as always.  It feels so magical having a child running around.  I really tried to soak up every minute I could, because it was over far too quickly.  Eventhough this was Briley's 2nd Christmas it almost felt like her 1st.  I think it was because she had no idea what was going on last year since she was only 8 months old.  She was MUCH more in tune with everything this year.  I was surprised that she had no interest in opening gifts, though.  For some reason I thought she would be into that a little more.  Next year I'm sure she will be into it all ;o)!  We plan on doing elf on the shelf next year as well so i'm very excited about that, we will see if it helps with her "tantrums" a little before Santa comes to visit, ha!  We defiantly had a time with the tree this year...she loved pulling all of the ornaments off and throwing them.  she thought they were "balls".  Technically she was right I guess, lol. 

Briley's Tree

Wednesday the 22nd kicked off our Christmas fun at Michael dad and step-mom's house.  They have a farm in Henderson so we headed that way to celebrate Christmas with them.  We had a non-traditional dinner which was great since we would be eating alot of  turkey and dressing in the days to come :o)!  It was a great night.  The girls got the cutest little tutus, Briley's was orange for the Vols and Reagan's was purple for LSU!  That was by far one of my favorite gifts she got!  Briley acted a little shy that night and she didn't want to eat anything.  She just wanted to play and run around.  Guess who was hungry as soon as we got ready to leave?!? lol. 

Thursday I didn't feel great so I sort of layed around most of the day and started cooking around 5pm and lets just say I didn't finish until about 1am.  I was pooped.  Guess I shouldn't have layed around all day, huh? lol I made, 3 hashbrown casseroles, 1 squash casserole, 1 sweet potato casserole, 2 apple pies, and 1 caramel pie.  I also layed stuff out for the overnight breakfast casserole I put together on Christmas eve night. 

Melt-down mode...Someone was ready for bed ;o)

Friday around 1pm we headed over to my parents house to celebrate with them.  Everyone was running late as usual.  I think we finally ate around 2 or so (we were supposed to start at 12!).  Briley was so tired by that point so we ended up laying her down for a nap.  Unfortunately we had to wake her up to head to the next stop.  Around 4:30, after my grandfather read the Christmas story from the Bible, we headed over to Michael's moms house.  Briley had a "costume" change there.  We have so many Christmas outfits, I wanted her to be able to wear them all, lol.  We ate dinner and all opened gifts there.  It was a very fun day! I guess we headed home around 9:30-10pm to get ready for Santa.  Santa came to visit Reagan at our house this year so Stephanie and Jeff stopped by too :o)!  Again, we were up till about 2am.  Santa couldn't decide how he wanted to display all of the toys and we had some last minute cleaning to do and I had to put together the breakfast casserole.  Busy, busy, busy...non-stop! lol

outfit 1

Sweetness!

outfit 2! we coordinated their "fun" Christmas outfits for Christmas Eve! They are so bright and festive!!

Saturday morning, 7:15am came far too early.  Stephanie, Jeff, Reagan, Nana, and Jeff's mom arrived around 8ish or so (everyone was supposed to be there at 8...go figure my family were the late ones, lol :o) We ended up letting Briley sleep till the food was ready, which was about 8:45. She probably would have slept half the day if we would have let her.  She was pooped!  My grandparents arrived around 9am.  My grandfather came dressed as Santa which was a nice treat!  I don't think the girls knew who he was and they really didn't care much for him either, lol. Reagan is scared of Santa and Briley just wanted to play her her toys, or should I say Reagan's toys.  Yep, Reagan was more interested in Briley's toys and Briley was more interested in Reagan's toys.  It was pretty funny actually!  They got a few of the same things but mostly different.  I think Briley's favorite Santa gift was her kitchen, she loves to "cook", her play make-up, and a little elmo etch a sketch doodler.  Anyway Santa went back to the North Pole to rest up for next year and my parents trickled in (they got to see santa for a few minutes before he left).  We all took a break to eat.  Our menu included Overnight breakfast casserole, hashbrown casserole, blueberry muffins, sausage squares, fruit salad, and Panera Bread bagels and cream cheese.  It was all so yummy!  The girls must have been extra good this year because Santa sure was generous! They got lots of goodies to keep them busy for the year ahead! It was defiantly a fun and memorable morning!   Can't wait for next year ;o)!!

After getting some rest we headed over to Michael's moms house to do gifts with her and to eat leftovers for lunch.  I wasn't feeling too great that day so we ended up coming home around 5pm or so.  Briley and I were able to get a good nap in.  After she was fed and bathed, my grandparents came to pick her up.  We let her spend the night with them because all they wanted for Christmas was to take her to Church.  So we let them ;o).

cookies and milk for Santa

Briley's toys!

Playing with Briley's new make-up case

Santa!

horse-back riding in the living room ;o)

riding her mini princess 4-wheeler before heading to Nanny and Maw's house to go night night!

Sunday, we had planned on going to our church like normal but we were both so tired that we slept straight through the alarm and didn't get up till almost noon.  I haven't slept that late in years it seems like.  The sad thing is I still felt tired :o/ We got ready and grabbed some lunch at Rafferty's and headed over to my parents house.  We were told Briley did great at church which was nice.  After church she also got to meet her great, great, great aunt! Yes, that's 3 greats, she is 95 years old and my dad's great aunt. She lives nearby my parents/grandparents church so they went to spend some time with her for Christmas.  We let Briley finish opening gifts over there.  There were several things she didn't get to open from my grandparents because she fell asleep on Christmas Eve and 1 big gift from my parents.  My parents ended up getting her the cutest little table and chairs which was a nice surprise. It wasn't out on Christmas Eve because it wasn't put together yet! Apparently my dad had a time getting it together and we actually had to finish one of the chairs on Sunday because he was too frustrated to finish. lol We actually ended up having to drill one of the holes where the screws went because it just wasn't lining up right.  We finally got it!  She is almost tall enough to sit in them by herself too!!  I think her favorite gift from my grandparents was a Disney princess keyboard! She loves to play the keyboard and piano.  I hope think she is going to have some musical talent!  Her daddy has a great voice, so how cool would it be if she sang and played the piano in the Miss Tennessee Pageant?? lol, just saying...ha! 

All in all it was a great week! We defiantly spread things out a little more this year but it wasn't as hectic and as compact as the years past, which was nice.  It was also nice to have all of my shopping done and wrapped this year several days before Christmas!  I hope everyone out there in blog land had a great Christmas!  I feel so blessed to be surrounded by the ones I love during the holidays!