Here is my belly at 25 1/2 weeks, plus a couple pictures from Kyle & Candy Johnson's baby shower last night. It was a lot of fun!

In the last week, Josh has gotten Noah's room painted, all the furniture has come in, and we got the bedding! I am so excited, it looks really good so far. Here are some pictures. The furniture looks black in the pics but really it is a dark wood. We are going to have a blue bookshelf in there too that Josh's granddad is building so that will be really special, and now I just have to figure out what to put on the walls!!

Josh's close friend Eric and his wife Leslie had their baby girl Tilly yesterday. We went up to the hospital last night to see her. She is so precious and perfect! She has the cutest head of hair, I just love it! Noah is going to love her :) He was kicking like crazy when we were there last night--I think he heard her crying :) Here are some pics of Tilly

Here's a slideshow of some fun pics from the holiday season so far. We had a "Tacky Christmas Sweater" contest at work last week, it was hilarious. Then this week we had a cubicle decoration contest--equally as fun! I also included a couple pics from the Third Day Christmas Offerings concert that Josh and I went to on Sunday, and also our Christmas card picture--can't you tell how much Josh loved it?? :)

Here's my belly at 21 weeks...I feel like I am getting bigger every day! I had a doctor's appointment this week and everything was great. I have also FINALLY started to feel Noah move! The first time I felt it was really exciting. I'm starting to wonder if he ever sleeps because I feel like he moves all the time now. :)

OK, several out of town friends and family members have been asking to see my belly, so here you go. A "baby bump" suddenly appeared late last week! I am not so much a fan of bare belly pics, but here I am (below) in all my clothed glory at 16 weeks.

I had a dr. appointment today, it was pretty quick. I heard the heartbeat again and scheduled an ultrasound for 18 weeks. So we will find out the sex at the Baby Views ultrasound on Nov. 2 and then we have another one the next week on Nov. 7. I can't wait!

Speaking of the sex, we have finally settled on names!! If the baby is a boy, he will be named Noah James. If it is a girl,we will name her Caitlyn Grace.

So apparently I am not a very good blogger so far, I've had several people get on to me for not posting enough! I'm sorry, I will try to do better!

I had a doctor's visit today, it was pretty short and sweet but it was great cause I got to hear "Junior's" heartbeat! That was really cool. Last time we saw it but we didn't hear it, so it was pretty exciting to hear it this time. Other than that the visit was pretty uneventful.

We also found out today that we will know whether it is a boy Junior or a girl Junior on November 1! We are so excited, that seems really soon. We are doing Baby Views that day and then we'll probably have another ultrasound a couple of weeks later through the doctor. We've heard that Baby Views is really cool though cause they spend a lot of time with you explaining everything so we're looking forward to that.

It is pretty funny cause basically EVERYONE is insisting that it is a boy...including our precious 3 1/2 year old niece Ellie (pictured below with her equally precious sister, Mollie). Ellie has been pretty funny about all the baby stuff. For instance, she gets VERY upset if you tell her that the baby is going to be her cousin--she doesn't quite get that. (Of course, she also agrees that Josh is her uncle, but insists that I am her sister). Then the other day, we were all over at Josh's parent's just hanging out, and Josh was throwing the ball with the dog, and it hit me in the foot...well, of course I said "ow", even though it didn't hurt at all. Well, Ellie proceeds to march into the kitchen (where Josh was standing), hands on her hips, and says "Josh, you do NOT need to hurt Mandy's foot! She is about to be a mom, and you are about to be a daddy. Now you get in there and tell her you're sorry!" Of course, Josh immediately did as he was told :) Too funny.

Well that's all for now. I will try to do better about updating!

Well, I've been meaning to get on the "blog bandwagon" for awhile now, but I am finally getting around to it. I figure now is a good time, considering how much our lives are changing! We just moved back to Little Rock (and into our first house!) after our year in Florida; Josh finished school (after 3 degrees I think he is finally satisfied!) and started his first job as an official attorney............BUT most importantly, and the biggest change,
WE ARE HAVING OUR FIRST BABY!

We found out about "Junior", as we have been affectionately calling him or her, about a month ago, just a few weeks after we moved. The news was a PLEASANT surprise to us, and needless to say we are completely thrilled! It was so difficult to keep it to ourselves for so many weeks, but we didn't want to say anything until we had our first doctor's appointment. We went to the doctor a week ago today, and thankfully she said that the baby looks great! We had our first ultrasound and got to see Junior's little heartbeat. It was just amazing! It definitely made the whole thing seem real. Now we've just been having a blast sharing the news with our family and friends. Thanks to everyone for sharing in our excitement!

I am due on April 11, so I am about 9 weeks along at this point. The next big event will be finding out the baby's gender. We should find out sometime in early to mid November, so we'll keep everyone posted!

So that is our big news for now. We are getting all settled in back home in Little Rock and getting ready for baby. It's funny how all these big changes make our time in Florida seem like a lifetime ago, when really we have been back for just a couple of months! The year in Florida was so amazing for us, we were able to spend tons of time together. I worked at home and Josh was only in class a few hours each day, so it really felt like we were together 24/7--which was great! We also got to do and see so many fun things. I'm going to attempt to post a slideshow of the highlights below. We spent tons of time in Destin at the beach, we made 2 trips to Disney World, went to Jacksonville for a Jaguars game, went to the SEC Championship in "Hotlanta", visited St. Augustine (the country's oldest city), just to name a few! Oh, and Josh discovered golf while we were there--now he's a complete addict. He was able to play almost daily, year-round, so he's been having some withdrawals since we got back. But he has been able to play every weekend so far so he can't complain too much!

Well, that is pretty much everything that is going on with us! Sorry to ramble for so long, I promise I won't always do that!