Visitors

We had a few visitors about two weeks ago, and I've been a slacker about posting the pictures! Mark's sister Melissa, her husband Kevin and their 2 month old, Parker drove down to spend the weekend with us. We were glad to be part of Parker's first road trip and had fun just hanging around, watching movies and eating a lot :) Mark even got to change his first dirty diaper!! We did get to spend some time walking around Historic Downtown, though the weather was pretty yucky for most of the weekend. Hopefully we'll be able to do it again sometime without so much rain!

Hanging out with Uncle Mark

In the kitchen with Aunt Kelly

Road trip wore me out!!

Thank You & Congratulations (x3)!

We got such a huge response to the blog last week, we just wanted to say THANK YOU!! The e-mails, phone calls and comments (on the blog) have been amazing and we really appreciate all of the well wishes and congratulations from friends and family :)

And speaking of congratulations, I have a couple of my own to send out! First, my friend Amy and her husband Eric had a beautiful baby girl last weekend! Ella was born last Sunday and is doing great. Congrats to Amy and Eric - Ella is gorgeous, and I can't wait to meet her :)

I also found out that my cousin Maureen and her husband, Judson, are also expecting a baby, and Maureen is due just 8 days after me. This will also be their first baby, and I'm excited to share notes with Maureen along the way!

On top of all of this great news, I also discovered that my friend from college, Chris, and his wife, Molly, are expecting their 3rd baby on July 14th! Their other two children, Connor and Sara, are two of the cutest kids I've ever seen and I'm sure this third one will be just as sweet.

Three babies due in just over a week! Should be a busy summer :)

Mark's sister, her husband and our new nephew, Parker are here visiting this weekend. Mark and I are getting some mom and dad practice in! We'll post some pictures soon. In the meantime, I hope you all have a great weekend!

Happy New Year!

As I'm sure you know by now if you're visiting this website, Mark and I are expecting our first baby this summer! We had a lot of fun surprising our family and friends with the good news over Christmas, and we were glad that we kept the secret, even though it was really hard to stay quiet!! We are incredibly excited and happy about adding this baby to our family, and wanted to thank you for sharing the experience with us.

I do have to admit that I borrowed this website idea from my friend Amanda who had a beautiful baby girl, Abbey, this past summer (www.thenewestneville.com). It was so nice to be able to keep up with Amanda's pregnancy and now to watch Abbey's growth - I thought it was a wonderful way to keep friends and family updated at their own pace, without bogging down your inboxes with endless pictures. The perfect solution for people like us who have friends and family we love all over the world!

So far, this baby has been very easygoing! To the chagrin of most people I know who have been pregnant, I haven't had any morning sickness and have seen very few changes in my normal moods and energy level. I can only hope that the rest of this pregnancy will be as smooth! I had an ultrasound at 7 1/2 weeks where Mark and I were able to see the baby's heartbeat (the picture is posted below). Just over a week ago (at 12 weeks), I had another appointment where I heard the baby's heartbeat loud and clear (153 beats per minute!) and even heard a little kick while we were listening! My baby books tell me the baby is about the size of a lemon this week and growing fast :) My next ultrasound will be around 20 weeks (near the end of February), when we'll hopefully be able to find out the sex of the baby if he/she is not too shy!

We're really looking forward to sharing this fun and exciting time with all of you! Since we're new to this parenting thing, please feel free to share any thoughts, recommendations or advice you think might be helpful to us - we'll take all the help we can get :) In the meantime, please have a safe, happy and healthy New Year!!

Love,
Kelly & Mark