Our precious little one!

Just about 20 weeks along and everything is looking wonderful!  Last week we had our anatomy ultrasound and it was music to my ears to hear that our little baby was perfect and healthy.  We did want to find out the gender but that was just the little cherry on top compared to seeing all of the little one's organs & body parts complete and functioning :)   We were completely surprised during the ultrasound to hear the gender.  It was neat because I actually said what it was before the sonographer was able to.  She built it all up by talking about everything we had seen so far during the scan of our baby and then she told us that she saw 3 lines which I knew is what they looked for to determine that it was a little GIRL.  It was a very sweet moment :) 

 

We can't wait to meet Gia at the end of November/early December !

She was quite stubborn throughout the entire scan causing it to take longer than normal but look what she showed us right at the end...

So may say she is saying "hi" but considering her parents we are going to say she was telling us to stop and that she had had enough of the picture taking ;)

Upgrades...

About 2 weeks after we moved in we replaced this nasty sliding glass door with the help of 2 amazing friends from church who spent a good part of their Saturday at our house! 

We love our new french doors!  (sorry for the poor quality picture)

House Tour

Welcome to our new home!

Entry way/foyer

living room

Kitchen & Dining Room

Bathroom on main level

Master Bedroom

 

smallest "extra" bedroom

Guest Bedroom

Office (in basement)

Family room/basement

There is also a backroom workshop, laundry area and full bathroom in the basement that didn't seem to make it into the photos. 

We're alive!

We are still around and finally starting to see less boxes sitting around!  We have been homeowners for a month as of Friday.  It is crazy to think of all the work that has been done around here in that short of time.  Of course if my parents & brother weren't around to help I know we would not have made as much progress on the house.  We have been trying to take pictures of before & afters along the way.  The house was beyond dirty when we moved in.  We spent the first days cleaning and ripping out carpet.  Our plan was to leave the carpet in the 2 "extra" bedrooms upstairs for a few months until we had the money to replace them.  Well that idea quickly went out the window...quite literally!  The Sunday after we moved in my parents came over and my mom, brother and I were throwing carpet out the bedroom windows.  The carpet smelled like dog pee!  We could not have that for several reasons...1. being i wanted my dog to come live with us and didn't want her to smell it and think it was okay to pee in the house.  2. it STUNK! That following week the basement carpet had to go as well.  We have left the basement office carpet in for now.  That carpet seems to be in good condition and we haven't noticed too much of a smell in that room...fingers crossed it stays that way!  I will leave you with this picture for now...more house pictures to come!

Moving

Yes I am procrastinating on packing by blogging!  But its official we have a settlement date for our new house.  April 13th we will officially be homeowners.  Yikes...2 weeks!  We are very excited about our new home and can't wait to make it our own.  Of course there is LOTS of cleaning to do, painting and a few other misc. projects my wonderful Dad will be working on :) Right now we are living among a mess of stuff everywhere...packed boxes and empty boxes waiting to be packed.  I guess I better get to it since they wont pack themself!  Be on the look out for house pictures to come...

My husband rocks! I came home from work to find pink tulips on the kitchen table :)

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Weekend re-cap

We had a jam packed fun-filled weekend!  On Friday night Kev made crab legs for dinner which were delicious as always!  Then out the door I went to meet up with the girls for an evening downtown.  The 4 of us girls hadn't all been together in years so needless to say there was a lot of talking and laughing going on.  It was so nice to catch up and I can't wait to do it again soon.  Don't worry Kevin loved being home ...he played video games the whole time. 

*This picture is from 2007 of the 4 of us girls*

Saturday we got up and hit up the usual Saturday morning spot, Zi Pani.  The workers pretty much know our order when we walk in and we can spot a new worker as well.  Then we were off to go house hunting with our realtor.  We liked what we saw but will continue on looking.  Maybe if people would just clean their house it would be more appealing for me to buy it :)  We had just enough time to shower and change and head to DC for an evening of fun with cousins.  For Christmas each year Kevin's family does a cousin gift exchange and this year we hit the jackpot!  Meghan & Ben took us to a Wizards Game.  We got to see their house and then walked to Chinatown for dinner and then headed to the game.  The Wizards lost by a few points but we still had a great time.

We got home pretty late and then just a couple hours later my phone was ringing.  A wonderful friend of ours was about to give birth to her twin boys so I quickly got up and went over to watch their older 2 boys whom we love!  I crashed on their couch until he came in around 7am with the exciting news that they now had 4 beautiful boys :)  Then off to church we went.  After church we ended up going to lunch with some friends and had a great time hanging out with them.  Nothing ends a good weekend like a Sunday afternoon nap and that is what I did!  And to add to the weekend fun since my parents were away we had some doggie house guests ;)

Home Owners

If someone asked me what I was most looking forward to about being a homeowner my answer would be simple...

Having my lucky girl live with us!  That's right, I am pumped to know that the days of living without a dog are numbered.  I have always LOVED having a dog in my home.  And of course a Mom to take care of it :)  I have loved each of my cocker spaniels throughout growing up. 

We got our first cocker spaniel Ginger when I was about 4 years old.  I remember driving to my Dad's work with my Mom to ask him if we could bring home Ginger from the pound.  What a great dog!  Whenever I was sick you would always find him laying right beside me keeping watch over me.  We had to put him to sleep when I was 14.  I might still tell my parents that they murdered my dog.  To say I was upset is putting it mild.  

About a year and a half later we got our second cocker spaniel, Bug a Boo.  Yet again my Dad was not with us when we went to "look" at the dogs.  That afternoon we left with a dog.  We didn't need Dad to be there...he wasn't the one that ever needed convincing!  Bug a boo is a great dog.  Probably the best behaved of all 3...except when we go out of town.  He doesn't like when we leave him.  He is getting pretty old and slowing down quite a bit these days but I refuse to hear anything of that nature.  I told you I love my dogs and it makes me really sad to think he may die soon.  

Next comes MY third cocker spaniel, Lucky!  That's right she is mine :)  She will be 4 years old this April.  It is my first girl dog and boy is she feisty!  But I love her and she loves me.  Right now she is living at my parents house but hopefully within the next month or so she will be back with me.  I can't wait to have some extra company around.  Hey a dog can be a girls best friend too ;)  

Happy New Year!

I can't believe today is the first day of the year 2011!  Our year has had its exciting, sad, fun, hard & joyful moments but through it all we have grown closer to each other :)

So just where did the year 2010 take us?!

The year quickly started off with 2 back to back snow storms!  Foot after foot of snow was dumped on us and we fully took advantage of the snow days together. 

Our weekends from January through May & August through November were spent at Indoor, Outdoor & Cross Country Meets.  Kevin coached all 3 seasons and Kyle was running his senior year.  It was an exciting Indoor & Outdoor season because of Kyle's awesome season!  We were able to travel to Boston for Nike Indoor Nationals Meet in March and then Penn Relays in April. 

Unfortunately I don't have pictures on this computer from our trip to Kentucky for Easter but we had a blast.  Our family that lives there is wonderful.  Despite the distance and time that goes on between our visits we always can count on have an awesome visit with the Monroe/Armstrong Extended family.  Looking forward to the next vacation to Kentucky!

In May we were blessed with meeting some amazing friends with some pretty cute kids :)  They might not even know just how special they are to us as we were longing to find couple friends to share life with. 

In July we took our first family vacation to the beach with the Graves family.  It was so nice to be able to get away from the hustle and bustle of life & work for an entire week at the beach!

On August 15th we celebrated our One year Anniversary <3 

September was quite a busy month for travel in the Graves household.  I don't think we were home one whole weekend.  The highlight of all the traveling was my trip to San Francisco.  Us 3 girls went from hanging out ALL the time to not seeing each other for 8 months!  We had a fantastic time catching up over a long weekend while exploring a new city.  I also conquered a 6 hour flight by myself and a delay/missing my flight on the way home :)  

This little guy became a big brother and we now have 2 nephews who we love to play with!

We celebrated our 27th & 26th birthday this year!

We look forward to another year full of events that become special memories :)