The Gender....Revealed

Many of you already know that Patrick and I found out the gender of our baby this week! It was such an exciting time and we were so blessed to get to share it with so many people we love. We arranged to have cupcakes made in Savannah (for my family) and Knoxville (for Patrick's family) with either blue or pink icing....depending on our news. We called the bakeries from the DRs office as soon as we were done with the ultrasound and told them what color to dye the frosting. Our parents picked up the cupcakes and met the family back at the house to open the box together. It was so much fun to surprise them in a creative way.

We did something similar for our friends here in St. Louis...except I actually dyed the cupcake and covered it up with white icing. We had 20-30 people over that night for food and fun. They came dressed in pink or blue...depending on what they thought it was. We took a vote and then Patrick bit into the dyed cupcake to reveal the color.....blue or pink. It was such a fun way to share our news!

Thankful Thanksgiving

We just got back from a long, but glorious road trip home for the Thanksgiving holidays! We spent Thanksgiving with my in-laws in Tennessee and will be spending Christmas with my family in Georgia. The trip was full of family, great southern food, beautiful mountains, cold weather, SEC football and lifelong friends. Here are few pictures from our trip. Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Bathroom Makeover

Hi readers! I know you have probably given up on me....but don't give up quite yet. I have finally made it well into the 2nd trimester and finally started feeling better around week 17. Just to put into perspective how sick I was...I haven't gained a pound and I am 18 weeks along. Just thought I'd make sure you didn't think I was MIA for nothing.

As soon as I started feeling better I got to work on a project that has been haunting me for months. During my many hours in the bathroom the first 17 weeks of my pregnancy I figured out that I really needed a change in the decor. Hey, who says your can't multitask whilst vomiting?!

The first thing the bathroom desperately needed was a nice coat of paint. I went back and forth on the color, settled on a light green, but then spontaneously picked up a light blue and threw it on the wall without reserve. I'm crazy like that...but thankful I actually liked it on the wall. The next change was the shower curtain, which I already had. I added a few cheap apothecary jars from T.J. Maxx and then filled one with Christmas snow and ornaments and the other with Cotton balls, which I use everyday. Another cheap find was the Christmas tree on the counter-$8.99 from Homegoods. I would have definitely made this to save the money, but I have way too many projects to do right now and needed to save the time a little more than the money. I still need to fill the third apothecary jar, add few things to the shelves behind the toilet and add some pictures to the wall, but we are at least on our way. Next project, Christmas decor!

Guest (and secretive) Blog

So Lindsey has no idea I've done this...marriage is full of surprises though. I wanted to stop by and do a couple things. First, I'll brag, followed by theological ramblings.

BRAGGING: Lindsey is now 14 weeks pregnant--for the mathematically challenged, that means the first trimester is finished (can I get a double-raised hand Hallelujah!). She's been a trooper battling sickness at any and all hours. My lady has also developed an aversion to dairy...not by choice mind you; her body just rejects it and if ingested it's but a moment before she's hunched in the bathroom. Thankfully, Chick-fil-a is not dairy.

While I would expect someone in this state to be complaining and whining, she's resorted primarily to silent suffering. When I get a sore throat I'll put an ad in the paper letting you know it's sore, and then I'll give puppy dog eyes to Lindsey, as if to say, "Pwwease take care of me." Not Lindsey.

The other day as I was sitting comfortably in my leather recliner (aka-man's throne), Lindsey asked a brief but theologically packed question: "What's your curse again?" She was of course referring to the sin of Adam and Eve and the subsequent curses placed on them by God. It's true though; women do seem to have it harder than men. You have to put up with men first of all. But you're the one who gets pregnant, whose body does magical--sometimes inhuman things, and it is you who gives birth in excruciating pain.

RAMBLING: Now, what's my curse? I think it's that I'm supposed to sweat when I work or the ground will be difficult to cultivate or something like that. But let's pretend we're in church and be honest: the bulk of my days are spent reading, thinking, and writing (also in a leather chair = throne). I also preach, but that's another calling altogether. More and more, though, I'm realizing the tremendous weight to my calling as a husband, namely, that I'm eternally responsible for the spiritual health of Lindsey. I will give an account for how I ministered to Lindsey well before any church questions start flyin' my way from Yahweh Himself. Pregnancy is an extra special time to minister. So to all the ladies, I commit to preaching and teaching men that it's our responsibility to lead well in sacrificial humility.

I hope I'm serving you well babe. Thank you for carrying this child and for not hating me that I've done this to you. As an excellent wife you are, as Proverbs 12.4 says, my crown. I wear it gladly and with gratitude. Love you momma.

10 Weeks and Counting

I promise that once I get through the worst nausea of my life, I will blog about something other than our little bean, but right now, I have nothing else going on besides this nausea....it has taken over my life. Talk about a run-on sentence. Point being: I have to update you on the baby because it's the little things that keep me going at this point.

Size of Baby Mitchell: Barely the size of a kumquat (just over an inch)
How can something so small cause this much change in my body?

All vital organs are in place and are starting to function to some capacity.

My belly: Barely showing, but I do have a small bump....which could just be the bloating. :) No need for maternity clothes yet.

Baby Mitchell is growing finger nails and peach fuzz this week. It's arms and legs are longer now and the fingers and toes are no longer webbed (whew!). In fact, Baby Mitchell is apparently kicking up a storm right now, but is still to small for me to feel. Weird huh?

Intentional Thankfulness

When I'm tempted to complain about my nausea or exhaustion, I try to redirect my thoughts and words to thankful ones....

Meet Baby Mitchell-8 weeks old

Our Living Room Revisited

Sorry I've been MIA. I've been battling awful nausea and "morning" sickness that lasts all day long. I hardly want to eat so I definitely don't feel like blogging. BUT, today has been a good day, which includes eating a bowl of soup for lunch, so I thought it might be good to update you on a few changes we've made to our living room. We've made some changes to other rooms, but I need to save those so I have something to blog about another day. :)

Most importantly, we painted the walls. I liked the off-white look we had when we moved in, but since I put a light slip cover on our couch and got white lamps, it all looked like a wash to me. I needed to make the light accessories pop, so we had a painting party and painted the living room Favorite Tan-a Sherwin Williams color. I love it! We actually painted our bedroom the same color, but those pictures will come later. While we were in painting mode, we painted the entry way Comfort Gray-another Sherwin Williams color that looks more like light blue than gray.






In addition to painting the walls, and adding some bookshelves, I added the colorful pillows to the couch. They matched perfectly with the red ones and brought out the home-made $11 blue curtains behind the couch. Now, I must pat myself on the back for the thriftiness here. I searched high and low for these pillows. I didn't know exactly what they would look like, but I knew what I was looking for. I looked frantically and waited patiently for months....many months. I looked online, at fabric stores, and everywhere in between...no luck. My sad story turned around when I saw some cheap laundry bags at World Market that had the print that I needed for my pillows. I looked everywhere and asked if they had the pillows, but no pillows....just a laundry bag. I quickly realized that this was even more perfect because I could slip my pillow right into the bag, cut the extra fabric and I would only have to sew one side shut. So....that is exactly what I did. It isn't pretty if you look at that one side, but shame on you if you look at the seams on pillows when you visit your friends.

Finally....

Sorry it has been forever since my last post. There has been a lot going on in the Mitchell house. This being one of them:



No, you aren't seeing things....we are indeed pregnant with our first baby! We announced it to the facebook world yesterday and have been overwhelmed by encouragement. I have been off the pill for 6 months. Our theory was that we would just live life and see what happened. No temperature-taking, no counting days, no charts-I didn't want to become obsessive about the whole thing. BUT, month after month, nothing. I was getting a little ancy when a friend of mine, who just had her first, gave me a book entitled "Plan to Get Pregnant." It charted out what your body is doing all month and taught you how to recognize the best times to try. I have to admit that I had already thrown my hands in the air because my body just wasn't following the chart. I was convinced something was wrong with me. But, what do you know...I was already pregnant.

Please be praying earnestly over the next couple of months during this crucial time. We are so excited and can't wait to experience pregnancy and a baby for the first time! For all of you mommas out there....I would love any bits of wisdom you have!

I Got An Itch

With school starting and the scortching sun simmering down a bit, I begin to get ancy for Fall kick off to come. Not just for college football, but for my fav shows:

House


Will he and Cuddy survive the dysfunction of their crazy relationship?? What will come of them? Will House stay clean or fall back into his addictive cycle? Will 13 and Foreman get back together? Will Taub ever become content in his marriage? Will Cameron show up and confuse Chase all over again?

Community

super funny...mostly clean. Really hoping Jeff and Britta end up together...totally confused by the ending of last season.

and the newbie....Parenthood

This show started right after the Olympics last year. It's not super climatic, but it's a clean, fun, family show that is more realistic than "reality TV." LOVE the cast.

I must add that I haven't decided how committed I will be to The Office now that Steve Carell is out.

So, what shows do you watch???

The Room We Live In...

Did you think I was done blogging forever? It sure has felt like forever! Moving takes over your life, but we are finally getting settled into a new routine here. Patrick and I have both started our new jobs. I am teaching again, which is FABULOUS! I am co-teaching Pre-Kindergarten at a private school just 5 miles from our new place. Speaking of our new place.....here are a few glimpses of the living room. We live in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath condo. It isn't much, but we love it and it is 500 square feet more than our place in California....and $500 cheaper every month. It's amazing how much farther your money goes outside of Cali.

So, I am taking the whole decorating thing one room at a time. I'm doing that for 2 reasons: 1-so I don't go crazy and 2- we have to budget as we go since we don't have a billion dollars in our "decorating" account. I imagine people with money have an account just for decorating. I might consider it if I were in their shoes. I know "time is money" but I don't have money...I have time, so that's what I am using. :) Don't worry, this isn't the finished product, this is just where we are right now.




If you can remember from our last place, we have a brown leather couch, which I love for all of it's practical purposes (like dog hair and spills), but I really wanted to lighten up the space we have since it isn't a super huge room. So.....I put a slip cover on my leather couch. Who says you can't do that? And even if you found the guy who says that....who cares? I've been a rule-breaker my whole life anyway. :) Take note of the curtains. Got the fabric for $11 and made those bad boys myself. Just used some no-sew hemming tape and my handy iron.

I found the white table on the right at a garage sale. It was yellow so my wonderful husband painted it white for me. The black tables on the left side (which you can't see in the pictures) are from T.J. Maxx. There are actually two tables. A smaller one fits right under the big one and we can pull it out when we need it and put it right back when we aren't using it. Beautiful. Snagged both tables for $50.

The large black table in the center of the room, aka the "coffee table" (I don't drink coffee so I need to find another name to start a trend for the non-coffee drinkers) was a craigslist buy. Got the table for $30 and my lovely husband sanded it and repainted it for us.


Don't freak out about the brown leather recliner. I am very aware that this doesn't match, but I am patiently waiting for a solution to come to mind. I may end up having to make my own slip cover that can still function on a recliner. How? I have no idea yet.



The red table under the TV is one of my favorites. Just ignore the guest room in the backroom. It currently serves as our storage room for things we still have to find a place for. Moving on....I had been eying a Pottery Barn table for almost 6 months, but it never went on sale. So, I started looking online for a look-alike. No luck. I really wanted something that had separate places for the the DVR and DVD player, but I wanted something that resembled a table. Not an easy find. After many weeks of searching I finally found one online and a store about 2 miles from us carried it. BUT, they didn't have the price listed so I had no idea if it was any cheaper than the Pottery Barn table I adored. Off we went to find out. As the salesperson was checking on that, we plopped down on one of the couches in a "living room" they had set up. We both noticed the table that would be our Plan B....the red one that you see now. The first table we loved ended up being over $1,000 which is not even close to being feasible. Luckily Patrick pulled out some Dave Ramsey techniques and haggled them down to almost half the asking price. Heck Yes!

I still have plenty on my to-do list for the living room. I have to figure out what I am going to do with the top of the red table, get a couple of ladder bookshelves for the corner behind the recliner and put some pictures in our new, white picture frames I got on clearance at T.J. Maxx. One question: Do the pictures I have hanging on the wall leading into the kitchen look too high? I feel like they need to come down a tad, but don't really want to go through the hassle of re-hanging unless I have to. Thoughts?? Do they look awkwardly high enough for me to hang them all over again??

I'll be back....

Hi readers! I just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten about you. We made it into St. Louis a week ago and have been unpacking and getting settled ever since. Things are finally coming together in our new place so I will be sure to post pictures soon! We have been overwhelmed by the generosity of the Harvester Christian Church community. Everyone has given us such a warm welcome. I start my new teaching job on Tuesday, which I am thrilled about, and Patrick hits the ground running this week as well. I will be sure to post a more detailed update soon. Thanks for reading!

Road Trip to STL: Days 4-5

We are a few states and a couple days closer to St. Louis. Here's a recap of what we've done the last 48 hours....

Day 4: We left New Mexico around 8am for our 9 hour drive to Denver. The first 4 hours were tough. There were little to no stops for gas or food-thank God for Las Vegas, New Mexico...the only sign of life until Colorado-and the desert was a tad repetitive. Once we reached Colorado, however, we were wide-eyed because we didn't want to miss one thing. Colorado might be the most beautiful state I've ever seen. I love it! The Rocky Mountains were on one side and rolling, green hills were on the other. We hit pockets of traffic in Colorado Springs and coming into Denver, but we got to the hotel just in time to leave for the Rockies vs. Red Sox game.

The craziest thing happened at the game. I was on a mission to find frozen yogurt and made a short stop at the ladies room. As I walked out, I recognized a familiar face....the husband of the older sister of one of my best buds I from Georgia. I know, it can get confusing. One of my best buds, Kathryn, has an older sister, Becky, who lives in Colorado Springs with her husband and adorable daughter. Patrick and I talked about Becky and Randy that day as we were stuck in traffic in Colorado Springs-little did we know that we would run into them that night in Denver. :)

The game was a blast. We were cheering for Boston, just because we think Boston is probably a cool city and my husband has always loved the Red Sox. If you saw the game on TV, you know what a great game it was. It went back and forth each inning, but the Sox took the victory. :)










Day 5: We slept in today. :) I know, you probably don't care about that detail, but it was long overdue and worth mentioning. After taking our time to eat breakfast and get ready, we drove into downtown Denver (aka Lodo-Lower Downtown) to visit the Tattered Cover Bookstore. It way outdoes Barnes and Noble. It is THE definition of what a bookstore should be. We met a lady on the way in who used to work there in the 1940s. They have old chairs, leather couches and desk, a coffee and sandwich shop, and an old library feel.

After sharing a muffin and coffee over some magazines, we went to a pub for lunch and walked around 16th Street mall to do a little shopping. We spent the afternoon at a park with Bailey and then went back to the hotel for movies in bed. :)

Road Trip to STL: Days 1-3

Welcome to the series of posts about our road trip to STL. The trip will last about a week and we are so excited to share it with you!

Day 1: We left L.A. on Monday morning for our one-week road trip to STL. We woke up early, paused to remember our favorite memories of our time in our little place in Glendora, made one last stop at Classic Coffee, then hit the road. We are driving separately, so I was a little nervous about the 13 hour drive to New Mexico, but it flew by. I can't believe how fast it went! Most of the drive was in the blazing desert (114 degrees) but as we made our way into New Mexico we got to see a crazy rain storm from a distance, huge rainbows and an amazing sunset. I will post some pictures I took from my cell as soon as I can figure out how to get them off of my phone. :) We arrived at Holloman Air Force Base around 10pm.

Day 2: We were so happy to get to spend a couple of days with the Fikes. Leslie was one of my college roommates and we have stayed in touch through all of our phases in life. It's great that our husbands get along and we were thrilled to get to meet little baby Chandler Fike. :) We spent most of the day in our pajamas watching Wimbledon and I had a ton of loose ends to tie up with switching banks and insurance. We went on a short afternoon hike, took a stroll around the little town and then made some home-made pizza for dinner. We ended the night playing Cranium. Leslie and I gave the boys a run, but they took the game.


This is the picture that cost us the game of Cranium. Leslie drew it, I had to guess what it was. Does this look like King Kong to you???!!!




I got to let little man sleep on me while I was on the phone most of the morning with the bank and insurance company.

Day 3: Today has looked a lot like yesterday. We spent the morning watching the U.S. in the World Cup and then went to White Sands National Park for a bit. The place is amazing! It was really hot and really bright, but it was insane to see. Remember that scene in Transformers where they are fighting in the desert?? Well, it was filmed in the White Sands. Fun fact, I know. Doug, Leslie's husband, took us to a runway on base so we could watch the jets take off. He flies the F22, which is a stealth fighter jet. It might be the coolest thing I've ever seen. We literally stood at the end of the runway and the jets flew right over us. After the ringing in my ears stopped we came back to the house for lunch and watched Isner's insanely long tennis match, which will have to conclude tomorrow (so far it has been over 9 hours long). We plan on spending the rest of the night eating ribs and playing more cards!










This is a picture of Doug flying an F22...A-Mazing.

Don't you feel protected now???