Brad's Birthday Weekend

Whew, we've been so busy with blog-worthy activities that I haven't been able to keep up with them all! So hopefully today is the day to catch up on lots of news and photos from the past month.

Brad turned 33 on February 16, and it was quite the celebratory occasion! The weekend was extra special because for Christmas we'd given his parents tickets to the UT men's basketball game against Vanderbilt for the same weekend. We had a great time with Sonny and Marie in town, and UT won the game handily!

A view of the court from our nosebleed seats.

Neither Brad or Marie like heights, and though they were a
little nervous to be so high up, they did great in those seats!

Sonny taking in the action.

Here's Brad opening all his loot. He made quite the haul!

And yes, I did get him a Little Green carpet stain remover. When did birthdays go from being fun to practical?! At any rate, with new carpet downstairs, 3 pets and a little one on the way, I figured it would get a lot of use!

Here's a quick pic of me before we headed out to the game. I was 31 weeks along at this point, and still packing on the pounds. The little guy is doing great, and growing and moving all the time!

Cupcake-apalooza!

So my friends Carrie and Jen got this great cupcake decorating book over the holidays and decided that we gals should treat ourselves to a fun afternoon of catching up while simultaneously frosting, piping, icing and decorating cupcakes. Carrie supplied the location and the cupcakes (chocolate banana cupcakes...where have you been all my life?!), and the rest of us brought over decorating accessories. I'm not usually the crafty sort, but this was FUN, not to mention tasty!

We started off with the sunflowers, because they seemed fairly straight forward and simple.

Kat and Carrie making beautiful blooms.

Me and Kat show off the final product.

Next we moved on to the owls. I think these little guys were my favorite! But maybe that's just because I loved the chocolate frosting!

Such wise looking eats!

Up next were the insects. These were much more difficult, as they involved piping melted chocolate onto a bug pattern and letting it dry. Jen had quite the steady hands, so she took the cake (so to speak!) on making these guys.


Lastly we tackled the butterflies. These involved piping melted chocolate as well, but one step farther, we had to fill in the wing span with the pink icing. Kat was an art major, and she rocked on making these little guys!


All in all, it was a fun afternoon with lots of finger-licking, cupcakery goodness! Everyone brought a container and got to take home 10 or so of the cupcakes to enjoy at their leisure. I think mine only lasted a few days!

The Jasper Update

So as many of you know, our good friends Katherine & P.J. had their first baby on December 21, an adorable little guy they've named Jasper Joseph. Jasper clocked in at 9 lbs even and 21 inches long, with blue eyes and blond hair. We are so excited for them, and honestly, it's been great to have a good friend go through pregnancy, labor and delivery so closely before I will, as they have been a great source of information. We visited them a while ago, and I'm just now getting around to sharing the pictures.

Nom Nom Nom

And baby makes three!

As for my pregnancy, all is going well! I hit 26 weeks today, and have an appointment next week for my glucose testing. After that, we'll start seeing the doc every two weeks as opposed to once a month. Time is really starting to fly by! I've attached the most recent pic that we have of me, from four or five days ago. I swear, I think the little guy has grown more since then!


That's it for now, as I've got to head out for my pregnancy massage. Brad decided I needed a treat, isn't he the best?!

Christmas 2008

Well, about two weeks after the fact, I'm finally getting around to posting some of our Christmas photos. Brad and I had a great time celebrating Christmas with our families! We spent two nights in Smithville with my folks (the Nichols) and then drove on to Paris, where we spent the next three nights with Brad's family. Lots of extended family, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were in on the action, so it really made for a great holiday!

The festivities kicked off with the big Nichols family get together on the 23rd. This group started out being my dad, his parents, grandmother, sister and her three children. Over the years, we've expanded quite a bit, to where now I think there are a total of 23 of us, seven of which are age eight and under (and 5 that are 2 and under!). So needless to say, it is quite the circus!

Kerri with Abby and Avery

Ben tries out his new safety goggles that came with the tool set!

John Pierce and Jackson loved tearing into those new toys!

Jake can charm the cheerios out of anyone!

Lilly Kate isn't worried about keeping up with the older kids!
Daddy Glen and LaMurle browse through the 2009 family calendar.

Abby and Avery treated us all to a runway fashion show!

After the full family get together, we also did a small present exchange and stocking stuffers with mom, dad, Kerri and Adam. Mom's so thoughtful, she even had a stocking for the baby this year! Baby Wilson really racked up this Christmas, and we are so thankful for all the gifts people gave him.

Santa was good to the Nichols this year!

Here are some random gift-opening shots of mom, dad, Kerri, Adam and Brad. We had such a great time with everyone!

Moving along to the Paris portion of the holidays, we were lucky enough to spend time with Brad's paternal grandmother, aunts and their families, in addition to getting to see Brad's brother and sister and their kids too!

Aunt Beverly, Momommie, Sonny and Uncle Tony

Anna, me, Tammy and Carlo

Aunt Cathy and Aunt B

Brad's parents, Sonny and Marie

Sonny with his 3 children, Brad, Lisa and David

The grand kids, Megan, Chandler (front) and Tyler, Brandon and Zack (back)

Us and baby, at 23 weeks

All in all, it was a wonderful holiday and we had a great time with the family! After being gone for 6 days, it was also good to get home to see Woody and the cats!

Over the Hump

Well, I am officially over the halfway point in my pregnancy! Jeez, time is really starting to fly by. I'm 22 weeks along, with only another 18 to go. I had a doctors appointment yesterday and everything is going pretty much perfectly. I feel great, baby feels great (if the amount of time he spends somersaulting around in there is any indication), and we can't wait for his arrival! And yes, though we haven't officially announced it on the blog yet, most of you know by now that we are having a BOY! Here are a few of his 3D glamour shots from our last ultrasound.

Here's his lil face, I think he has Brad's nose.

Here you can see his right arm, sort of tucked behind his head.
Yep, he's a lounger.

He's showing off his flexibility in this one.
It's a good shot of his long leg and his foot right in front of his nose!

I also wanted to share the great card that all my friends and co-workers from UT gave me at my going away lunch. The card was hand drawn by Bob Longmire, who works at UT as a graphic artist. He's obviously quite talented!

Bob had never met Brad before, so he worked from a Facebook photo.
Spot on, eh?!

And lastly, a quick update on Woody. His 2nd surgery to remove more of the tumor went well, though the poor guy was in quite a bit of pain for a few days after. We're happy to report he's pretty much back to his usual self, and we expect to get the stitches out and cone off today. And best of all, the lab results came back showing that the area is clean, so we got all of the tumor this time, YAY!! Woody has been a trooper through the whole ordeal, and it has only made us love him even more. He's been very agreeable and will even help you by pushing his head through the cone opening when it's time to put it back on after a walk. We're so glad he's ok and hope that he remains cancer free for the long haul!

We hope that everyone has safe and happy holidays, and a happy new year!

Woody, railings and Kat's shower

I feel that we've been neglecting the blog a bit, so it's time for a big ole catch up post! November was a busy month, so I'm just going to dive right in.

I guess I'll start with the not-so-good news, so that we can get it out of the way. Many of you have either met or heard us talk about our black lab Woody. If not, here's a quick looksie:

Adorable, right?! Any who, Woody has had a bit of a rough time lately. We found a lump on his hip, and after determining that it was not a cyst, the vet thought it best to remove it and send it to the lab for analysis. The surgery was no biggie, he bounced right back from that. But the hard part is that the poor boy had to wear a cone on his head for 10 days to keep him from chewing and licking his stitches. It started off kinda of sad and cute, but as he started feeling more like his usual rambunctious self, it really limited his ability to fetch, which is Woody's mission in life.

Awww, poor boy, could he look any more pathetic!

Unfortunately, the lab results were not good, and it turns out Woody had a level two mast cell tumor. Based on the sample, the vet doesn't think she was able to get it all, so Woody is going in for another surgery this Thursday, with another 10+ days of wearing the cone to follow. The vet is fairly certain that she can get all of it this time, so there shouldn't be anymore surgeries for awhile. From here, we pretty much just have to watch him to see if any other lumps form, and if he starts acting like he doesn't feel good, we can take him in for an x-ray to see if anything else has developed. Our vet says there is a chance that it was just this one spot, and assuming we get it all, he may be more or less cured. Only time will tell. We're really bummed, but we're dealing with it. Any positive thoughts you want to send Woody's way are appreciated!

Moving on to more positive topics, we are making some progress in getting the house ready for our first baby, due in April. One project we've recently finished is installing new railings on the stairs. We'd removed the old ones when we did the floors awhile back, so it was time to get the new ones installed. We have Frank with Andy on Call to thank for the great results! Here's the before shots:

Notice no railing on the left, not very child proof!

And here's what we ended up with.


We still need to add a poly later and patch up and paint the old railing holes, but you get the idea. Ahhh, it feels good to cross something off the To Do list!

And lastly, Jen, Carrie, Shon and I hosted a baby shower for our friend Katherine on November 15. We all had a great time and I think Kat got lots of great stuff for Chicken Little, who is due on December 17. Here's a quick shot of the all of us, including Jen's adorable daughter Lotti Sue. You can see more great shower pics on Jen's blog here.

Shon, Carrie, Kat, Jen, Lottie Sue and me!

Halloween Birthday in Athens

This post is a little late coming. We had the pleasure of celebrating Patterson's 30th birthday and Halloween in Athens Georgia with our good friends Katie and William. They threw a little party, some more good friends came by, then we went out to enjoy the Halloween festivities in a town that really does it up right!

The theme this year was "The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat." Patterson was Miss South Carolina. If you're not familiar with her, you can watch the classic video clip here.

I was running Forrest Gump.

Katie was Joan of Arc (she had some fire on those legs not shown in this photo).

William was John Belushi from his classic SNL skit Little Chocolate Donuts.

Rob and Faith were a matador and bull.

Cristyn was Bride of Frankenstein and Andy was the Tooth Fairy.

Saturday Courtney and Sophia came to visit we enjoyed seeing them. It was a fun weekend that went way too fast. We really appreciated William and Katie having us at their house and throwing the party!