My favorite time of year!

Fall is finally here! It is by far my favorite time of year. I get so excited when it starts getting cooler and the leaves start falling. I love the sights, smells, colors, etc of fall. For me there is something energizing about fall. Maybe its the last hoorah before winter sets in or maybe its just the time of year when I feel even more blessed to live where I do, where it seems like God is just showing off with all of the colors and changes. While I havent been able to make many of the festivals and fairs this year I love that there are so many options for enjoying this season. I am looking forward to getting out and enjoying the changing leaves and cooler weather soon.
I am also glad that our son will be born during this season. Yet another reason for me to celebrate fall :)

We have a bit of catching up to do...

Going back a bit to the beginning of June. We had our first party to celebrate our little one. As part of the agreement when we decided to find out whether we were having a boy or a girl I agreed that we would have a party to celebrate our big news with our friends. Because we were going to a wedding right after we found out we went ahead and told family but our friends had to wait a few days longer. We asked them to wear blue if they thought we were having a boy and pink if they thought it would be a girl. While up to that point we had more people saying girl we ended up with nearly an equal amount of each that evening.

Here are the pics for team blue and team pink.

We had a great evening of fellowship with friends and enjoyed being able to tell many of our friends at the same time what we were having!

The cupcakes held the answer inside.

It's a boy! A little boy will be joining our family towards the end of October or early November.

We are excited to meet our little one :)

Keepin on, truckin on

Life has been busy. There are so many things that I need to catch up on. The last month has flown by. We started off the first weekend in June with our big ultrasound appointment at the doctor's office. Right after the appointment we drove over and picked up Aaron's mom and started our drive to Northern VA for his cousin's wedding. We had a great trip seeing his family and being there for their wedding.
Week 20 (The beginning of the bump)

A few days after we got back we held a Gender Reveal party for our friends to let them know whether baby Giese would be wearing lots of pink or blue. Our party was a blast! I will put up a seperate post with pictures from that night.


The following weekend I drove down to Winston-Salem to see Abby in Cinderella. For years now I have been able to go down and see the various plays put on by the West Side Civic Theatre. The plays are outdoors and are always fun to watch. I enjoy the layed back night of entertainment. The next day I was blessed to be able to visit with Sean, Christal and Cooper for a bit before coming back up to the mountains.


The last couple of weeks since then really have been a blur. I have gotten back onto the task of crossing items off of my really long and detailed to do list. Many of these items have been on there for nearly a year and some of them I really want to have accomplished before our little one arrives. Starting last week I also started keeping my cousin's little boy a few days a week. I have enjoyed being able to help them out while also forcing myself to stay home and get a few things done around here as well. Not to mention he is such a happy baby! In addition to those things Aaron and I have also made some decisions, based on many prayers, about our church home. We knew my time in the nursery was coming to an end but we have also decided that our time of going to Access church are also coming to an end. We love many different aspects of the church but are feeling led to come back to a more local church in order to raise our family in the way God would have us to.


As far as our little one goes, we are continuing to be blessed by the Lord with an easy pregnancy. My only complaint is some occasional mid back pain. I thank the Lord daily for this child and this pregnancy. I can honestly say I am enjoying being pregnant. I love feeling our little one, who's kicks are growing stronger every day. I am thankful that they seem new and exciting to me each time. I never want to forget just how special this time is. While the heat has been above average here lately I have been managing ok. I have only had one day where I felt miserable with the conditions. Next week marks 24 weeks in this pregnancy! I will post a new belly pic then.


Thanks for continuing to check in on us even in our long absences.

With growing joy and excitement....

we bring you our exciting news..............we're pregnant!!

I had suspicions and decided to take a test even though it was probably a bit early. Within a minute or so the test very clearly read pregnant. Even though I knew it was a very real possibility I was surprised. I looked at it over and over saying to myself...really? I even went so far as to go back and look at the test several times throughout the morning. As the day went on I realized just how excited I was and how much I love our little one already!


Aaron came home from the office for lunch and I had waiting on his computer an "I love Daddy" bib. When he saw it, he looked at it and quickly realized its meaning. He had a few moments of surprise and realization and ended with great joy.



We are both still processing this news and are excited about the changes that are coming!

We have now told most of our families so I thought I would take a moment and post our news on here :)

A few quick thoughts

I dont have long to update at this point but I did want to put down a few thoughts so that I could come back and visit them/update when I get a chance.
*Prayers~ My heart is still heavy with them but God has given me the peace of knowing He is in control.
*Crafts~ I have some photos to post of some shirts I made and cant wait to share them! They turned out really cute :)
I am also getting back into scrapbooking and hope to make some great progress over the next couple of weeks.
*Superbowl commercial spectacular~ We enjoyed a great evening with friends. We had a lot of great food and conversations! I will post some of the pictures from the evening when I can.

4th of July

The fourth of July was full of great fun!

To celebrate the day we went over to Spunky and Keisha's for a wonderful meal with friends. After a fantastic time of fellowship and food we all loaded up and went over to the lake to watch the fireworks.

Thanks Spunky and Keisha for a great night!

These two were such sweeties--and super cute too!

Fun with Friends

I appologize right now for the crazy pictures, I couldnt get them to go straight for me for some reason.

Since I am no longer working and the construction/remodeling at Grandmother's is slowing down I have finally had a few moments to spend with friends.

Several nights ago my friends Brandon and Jennifer came over with thier girls to play in the sprinkler and hang out. We had a great night of fun together!

On the last weekend in June we drove down to Old Fort for Jonathon and Rena's wedding. We had a great time and enjoyed getting to see our Chrysalis friends!

This past weekend my former college roommate, best friend and "sister" came up for a visit. We had a great time catching up, wedding planning, and hanging out together. I can't wait for her to come back in just a couple of weeks!!

Tomorrow I am looking forward to a fun day of family and friends as we celebrate the Fourth of July! The coming weeks will also be filled with many visits with friends. I will be sure to post often including pictures. Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Happy Father's Day!!

Happy Father's Day to my Daddy!

I love you!

Friday's Fun

I am excited for all of the fun that is going to be happening tomorrow! In the morning I am going to get up do a few productive type things then head towards Cherokee to see some of my family that is camping there. I am looking forward to a day where I can hang out with family I don't see often and relax. Maybe I'll even take a dip in the pool.
In the afternoon I will head back to Waynesville to pick up my keys (I left them in my aunt's car earlier today--oops), take a quick shower (maybe), and then meet my mom and some other dear friends for an evening of girlie fun. I'm not sure what we are doing when we get together but our final destination will be Chonda Pierce. Fun, Christian, giggly and girlie.
Hopefully I will have pictures to post soon. I am tired of blogging and not being able to add updated photos!

Also to come--Birthday shout outs to some of my favorite people!!

Where have I been?

So I realized a few days ago that this blog would be a whole lot more fun if I actually wrote on it..updated it. I am hoping to include pictures. I know I have said that before but I would really like to get back to it. I need to work on taking the card out of the camera, putting them on the computer and then actually doing something with them. Goals for another day...

Life has been busy....if you really want details call. Too much to type :)

I am SOOO ready for Spring Break. I have major spring fever, mostly related to travel. I need to get out of Waynesville. Anyone want to go somewhere?

Just a little bit of evidence of God's love this week:
**Positive comments from my lead teacher about my efforts at work
*I won a door prize at my workshop tonight b/c I was the only one in the room who has a birthday this month. And on top of that it's purple!!
*Getting to meet, hold, and feed baby Braydon

Only 2 more days til my birthday!!
(15 more days til Aaron's birthday and 177 days until we get married)

Christmas wrap-up

This certainly was a Christmas I will never forget. Things have not been traditional in the slightest. Well....at least not most things. We did Christmas eve as usual at my grandparents; although that has changed a lot over the last couple of years as we have gotten older, some of us have married and others now have kids. Altogether the evening was wonderful as we simply enjoyed being around family. It was nice to see everyone, since it had been nearly six months since the last time I saw some of them. I really enjoyed being around family, I needed to be around family. I needed for some part of Christmas to be "normal".
After my grandparents we went back to my house instead of my parents to spend the night. Aaron and I decided not to go to Christmas eve service since we got about 3.5 hours of sleep the night before. My family allowed me to watch A Christmas Story one time as we played a few games before heading off to bed. I love that movie and could not imagine Christmas without it!
I slept in Christmas morning later than I have ever slept on Christmas before.
The rest of the day was interesting and in many ways very un Christmasy. We ate breakfast as a family (including Aaron!) and then got ready for playing games at Lynn's. We got to her house around 3 and played games until 12:30 that night. By the end of the day I was exhausted!
Today we have been at Aaron's parents, enjoying Christmas with his family. The day has been filled with great food, family, and fun.

More to come over the next couple of days and I promise that it will not be so boring and list like. And hopefully will include pictures!