Floating down the river for our birthdays!

Lacey's and my birthday are so close together that we thought we would get a big group of people to help us celebrate by floating down the river! This is seriously one of the most relaxing activities that you can do in Atlanta, we just love it.

Here is the group of girls modeling our life jackets. Basically you have to wear these while getting into the water then you can take off and use as pillows :)
And modeling the bus. We've gone with this company a lot "Up the Rive Outfitters", they are the cheapest and you can float for as long as 5 hours if you want!
You take a bus to your drop in point, get in your tube, and then sit back and float :)
We rented 2 extra tubes for our coolers with drinks and snacks in them. We all strapped together in a circle and then the cooler tubes just floated in the middle. Man it's so fun!
The water was FREEZING, so no one got into the water unless they had to pee! Thanks again everyone for coming we had a great time!

The newest baby on the G side!

Kyle's sister Rachel, delivered her first baby on Sunday August 15th! We drove up to Raleigh last weekend to spend some time with our new nephew! His name is Guenther Gray Clifton.
He has such a full head of hair it's unbelievable! Kyle and I kept forgetting that there was a baby in the room as all he did was SLEEP! At the end he cried just a little, and he really sounded like a kazoo... it was crazy! We loved holding him!

And for most of the dogs this was their first time around a baby! Tyson has been around my sister's babies, but still it was neat to see them all go up to Gunney and sniff him.Congratulations Rach and Mike, we are so happy for you both!

Amy and Matt have moved away :(

The first friend that we told about the baby was Amy, as she brought us dinner the day after we got back from St. John. She knew we were trying, and as soon as she heard Kyle talk about going in the hot tub and not me--- she knew the reason why! Amy is exactly 4 weeks ahead of me, due in February!

Us showing the size of our 'babies' (which we were both SO off I think)

Amy and I had our "date nights" weekly when both of our husbands were traveling. We would call each other and plan 'whats for dinner' just like we would with our spouses. Even Tyson was in love with her. These are some pictures from our last "date night", I think Tyson knew it was the last time he would get to cuddle with her. He was all over her, it was hilarious!
Matt received a promotion to sell to Walmart (instead of Home Depot like he was doing). Sadly that means Amy and Matt would have to move to Arkansas, as that is where Walmart is headquartered. About a month ago, we had a going away party with bbq chicken sandwiches, beans, coleslaw and fruit. Chris and Kathleen came to join in the fun too! We played "buzz word" and laughed so hard all night. What great friends they are to us!

Here are the girls:

And the guys:

We miss you both already, but are so thankful for the few months we did get to spend together! We'll be back together soon ;)

Baby Surprise Party at work!

I told my boss about my pregnancy when I was 9 weeks, she was completely shocked! (I told her early because I didn't want her to think I was slacking by how much I was getting sick) We were having my mid-year review and she said "Now I hope you plan on being here forever, through kids and everything". And I said "Well speaking of kids", and she immediately got tears in her eyes and hugged me. I couldn't of asked for a better reaction from her! She was excited to be in on "our little secret" and so her, Lacey and Jen started plotting away a party.

On the Wednesday that I turned 10 weeks (August 11th), we emailed my closest friends at work and asked them to come down to give their opinion on our new catalog design. Jen held up the designs and said "Aren't these beautiful? But this isn't what we got you all down here for" and then I spoke up and told them the news. Everyone was SO EXCITED.

I think the funniest thing was about a week before hand I went out to lunch with a bunch of these girls. I ended up getting sick in Jasons Deli, and everyone's reaction at the table was "ARE YOU PREGNANT?" I of course put on my best 'lying face' and said "no". One of my friends, Keisha, even said "well that wasn't convincing" haha. Anyways it was funny to see their reactions as they were all SO right!

Jen, Lacey and Donna brought in drinks, cookies and cupcakes!

And here is some of the group:

It was so fun to let everyone at work know and have the secret out! Thanks again Lacey, Donna and Jen for putting together a party for me to share my news!

Wordless Wednesday: Preggo Purse

(Cheerios for mid traffic hunger, zofran for nausea, phenergan for nausea, imodium for tummy, trash bags for throwing up in the car, tums for acid reflux, tylenol for headaches, febreeze to make any place smell instantly good, anti-bacterial for hands and orbits gum)

Raleigh family weekend

Last weekend we went home to Raleigh to visit with our new nephew on Kyle's side, and to spend some time with my dad before he starts the second round of high dose chemo. It was such a short weekend, but we so enjoyed spending time with both sides of our family.

I sadly didn't take any picture all weekend (I'm blaming it on the nausea- ha) but my family did take some on Saturday night that I wanted to share. We had a wonderful dinner: Filet Mignon grilled perfectly by Kyle, baked potatoes and the most amazing dessert I've ever had by Pioneer Woman (I will be making this soon and posting the recipe for you guys). Even though Dad's numbers were higher than they have been, we still wore masks and washed our hands a lot to protect him from any germs that we all might be carrying.

Natalie is such a Grandpa's girl (another character trait she gets from me!). She loves to snuggle with him in his hospital bed and play games on his iphone. Tara got some really cute shots of them together:
I think the sweetest moment of the night was when Jamie was about to say a prayer right before dinner, so we were all silent, and Natalie looked up at Dad and said "I love you so much Grandpa". We all got tears in our eyes, as it was so genuine and meant the world to Dad.

Here he is right before dinner!

I think one of the funniest moments of the night was when Grandma was helping get dinner on the table. She starts bopping up and down and rapping "I am a hip Grandma with an iphone and a macbook". Kyle and I both said WHAT?!?! You have a Mac?? haha. She fell in love with Tara's last week and bought one herself. She seriously amazes me everyday. (And if you are wondering Nick and Kyle will be making up rap lyrics soon and hopefully we can get it on video!)
After dinner we all just hung out in the living room. I can't believe how big the Sams are getting, and they are the cutest babies ever. I love how they smile back at you and are now babbling up a storm!
I wouldn't trade family time for the world, and it was the perfect way to send mom and dad off to the Duke apartment. Please keep my dad in your prayers as this afternoon he gets the second round of high dose chemo, and then tomorrow will get the transplant of cells. He will be in quarantine for probably the next 3 weeks, with my mom taking care of him in the apartment.

We love you Dad and are so glad we could spend time with you before your transplant!

2 month details & belly shot (weeks 5-8)

The Sunday of the weekend that we told our families was when "pregnancy symptoms" really started to kick in. I started to feel a little nauseous at Kyle's parents house so they sent us off with some sprite and plastic grocery bags in case I threw up. I was so thankful for those a couple hours later on our road trip home :)

That next week unfortunately was filled with gagging non-stop and throwing up almost everyday. Our doctors appointment was not until I was 7 weeks so I called in and had them prescribe zofran to help with the nausea. I ended up telling my best friends at work, Lacey and Jen, our exciting news so that they could start covering for me if I had to run outside and "get something from my car" (ie. throw up). They were so excited and I'm so glad that they knew as early as they did. Once I was able to take the zofran I was only throwing up about every other day.

Our 7 week doctors appointment was so exciting. Kyle flew in from a business trip literally 2 hours before the appointment, but I'm so glad that he was there. I had gone for my annual appointment in May and told my doctor that we were going to be trying soon, so as soon as she walked in the door she said "That was fast!". She did an internal ultrasound and confirmed our due date of March 10. It was SO COOL to see the heartbeat flickering away strong as ever. Since twins do run in our family she checked my ovaries and fallopian tubes for any extra babies, but there was just one in there which is fine by us!

This was my stomach the day before we went into the doctor. I still can't believe how quickly I started showing! (my slip was a mess under my dress!)

The end of week 7 and entire week 8 were really hard weeks. I started having these "episodes" of diarrhea and vomiting simultaneously. My first spout with this was when we were in Boone with my family. I thought it was something I had eaten and pretty much passed it off as that. The next time it happened was at work on the following Tuesday. I quickly rushed off to the Publix that is near our work, as I did not want to get sick at work in our little 2-stalled bathroom that is always in use! Luckily I had packed some grocery bags in my purse so I was able to throw up into those while sitting on the toilet in Publix. After 15 minutes I thought I was done, and headed back to work. As soon as I got there I ran to the work bathroom and stayed there for probably 20 minutes. By this time my shirt is completely soaked with sweat and I was shaking because I felt so weak. I came out and told Lacey and Jen that I had to go home. (They covered for me and said my stomach was upset from lunch). The way home was terrible, I drove for 2 minutes and stopped at Burger King for about 30 minutes. Then drove for 2 more minutes and stopped at a gas station for probably 10 minutes. At this point I was in tears as all I wanted to do was GET HOME and I couldn't. Luckily I really didn't have anything left in my body so I made it home and slept for the rest of the night.

I had about 3 more of these "episodes" in the next 2 weeks. I was scared as I didn't know what was causing it, and I had no clue when it would happen. I lost 4 pounds this month and was not able to exercise AT ALL. Tyson did his best to keep my company in the bathroom. Poor thing he had no clue what was happening to me!OKAY so I think you guys get the picture, I'm so sorry if you think I'm complaining but I wanted to state the facts! As far as what foods I did keep down, this was basically what I ate everyday:
Breakfast - Bagel & cream cheese
Mid morning snack - Watermelon
Lunch - Lipton chicken noodle soup
Mid afternoon snack - Cantaloupe or applesauce
Dinner - Handful of whatever Kyle was eating and an Italian Ice (hence my red lips in the picture below)

I am so embarrassed to even post this picture but it truly explains what month 2 was like. ROUGH. As hard as this month was, it is going to be COMPLETELY worth it! So without further ado, this is what I looked like August 2nd, the end of my 2nd month.

Congrats to Rachel & Mike!

Congratulations to Kyle's sister, Rachel, and her husband Mike on their new baby!
We are so excited to meet the new addition to our family!

Guenther Gray Clifton

Born Sunday, August 15th at 7:41pm
8lbs 1oz 21.25" long

Wordless Wednesday: Look who we ran into last week!

That's right Bryan Gaynor, a guy who has been on So You Think You Can Dance AND his dance crew! Remember his audition on SYTYCD??

Why do I get SO excited when I meet "celebrities"?

How we told our families!

After we got back from St. John, we went home that coming weekend for my dad's Standing in the Gap event. We wanted that weekend to be all about my dad, so we decided not to tell our family. (Plus I was only 5 1/2 weeks at this point). Our friends, Molly and Marshal, surprised us at the event, and came over after wards to meet my family and play dominos. On our way to Tara's I couldn't hold it back from them and blurted our news out in the middle of the church parking lot. Molly thought for sure Tara heard her screaming haha.

We headed over to Tara's to play games but Tara wanted to give Molly a tour before hand. We were down in Tara's basement and Tara was showing Molly the storage room. Inside were 5 garbage bags of maternity clothes for me, for whenever I could use them. Tara's exact words were as follows: So Leah, Jamie asked me if you were pregnant and I said I didn't think so. So then he said, "well have you asked her straight out if she is?" and I answered no, so I'm going to do that right now, ARE YOU PREGNANT?

Molly was about to explode watching Tara and I go back and forth, and of course I couldn't lie to Tara so I just sat there speechless smiling. We screamed and celebrated, and then came upstairs to tell Nick and Jamie. We couldn't just tell one side of our family, so we planned to tell them the next day after church. I don't even remember exactly what was said when we were at lunch, I just started rambling and said "Well I hope you don't mind Kyle and I adding one more baby to the mix".

I'll let the following pictures show you how excited my family was for our news!! By far the best reaction we could ever ask for! (Luckily since Tara already knew our announcement she took these photos to capture it all)

Look at my mom's face below... PRICELESS

Grandma just sat there with tears coming down her face, oh man we just love her!

We headed out to go tell the news to Kyle's family later that day. We bribed them with ice cream to get everyone that was in town together. We decided to keep it low key and Kyle casually slipped the news into conversation saying "That's funny, Rachel has 6 weeks to go and we are only 6 weeks along". It took them a couple of seconds then they asked if we were serious and then there were hugs all around! Rach and Mike showed up a couple minutes later and they were so excited to hear the news.

Unfortunately, Kerry and Brad were not there so we sent them this lovely image that Kyle made in Powerpoint, and heard their reaction over the phone. Can you figure out what it says? (We'll give you a hint the last words are not "cove cove" like K&B thought ;)
And that's the story of how the word slipped out to our families!

Baby details and 1 month belly shot!

Thank y'all so much for all your comments on our Wordless Wednesday surprise! It was so exciting for Kyle and I to finally be able to let you in on what's been so exciting for us the past couple months! So since you know now, let's start from the beginning....

We decided last year that we would start trying for children in the summer of 2010, but we wanted to reach some financial goals before then. We hammered out a budget to stick to, and set a specific number to hit in our savings. By March we had reached our financial goal, and this comforted us to no end!

I started reading pregnancy books and researching online (What to Expect Before You Are Expecting, FertilityFriend.com, etc) in the beginning of the year. One day in March I remember waking up with one of my migraines and Kyle took my birth control pill pack and threw it in the trash. My doctors had ruled out everything else for my migraines so they were starting to think it was those pills. So needless to say mid March I went off of my birth control pills to really figure out my cycle, and let me add that my migraines basically disappeared! I starting paying attention to all the guidelines for conception (big surprise) like getting cleared by all your doctors, exercising & eating right, charting your ovulation, etc.

In all the research I had done, it said the average time to get pregnant was 6 months to 1 year for couples. So Kyle and I started trying 1 month earlier than we had planned, June instead of July, just in case it would take us longer. June 25th was the first morning I could take a test (4-5 days before missed period), and the whole night before I couldn't sleep I was just so excited. Finally around 6:30 am I snuck out of bed went into the bathroom and was shutting the door very quietly. Before I knew it I see Kyle's torso sit straight up in bed and say "Are you going to take a test?" with a HUGE smile on his face. Come to find out he slept terribly too b/c of nerves. So anyways we took a test together and the outcome was... confusing. There were 2 lines but one of them was SO faint that we just weren't sure.

Kyle suggested that I take another one that night, but I was so excited I immediately stuck my head under the faucet and started drinking as much water as I could. About 15 minutes later I took another test, and the outcome was THE SAME... the second line was so faint! Kyle had this "I told you so" look on his face, so we waited until that night to take another one.

So we ended up bringing a test to Lake Lure with us while we visited Lauren and Matt. That night I took another test (yes we are on test #3 right now and) and without a doubt there were 2 strong lines. Needless to say, we were BLOWN AWAY that it only took us 1 month to get pregnant but couldn't feel any more blessed!
** I do want to document that if you are thinking about getting pregnant go buy the DIGITAL kinds that say "pregnant" "not pregnant" and you won't have as much confusion as we faced!**

That next week was when we headed on our vacation to St. John, and it was so fun to have that secret all to ourselves. I did crack and tell one random stranger that we met at dinner one night, he was from Winston Salem and he was very excited for us :)

So here is my 1 month belly shot from St. John. Absolutely nothing there besides a little bloating!

It's the Dad Life...

Thank you all so much for your comments yesterday, they were all so encouraging!! I'm still trying to get my act together for some blog posts, so while you're waiting I thought I would share this video. My brother Nick sent it to Kyle a couple months ago as "something to look forward to", and it is HILARIOUS. Enjoy!!

Wordless Wednesday: Our "little" secret :)

Family trip to Boone

A couple weeks ago we met my entire family in Boone to spend one more weekend together before Dad went into his stem cell transplant. Kyle and I got there pretty late on Friday night, so we were thankful that we took Monday off to have a long weekend there.

Saturday morning after a delicious breakfast we gave dad a gift to help encourage him during his transplant. It's a jar filled with 60 hand written notes (1 per day) from all of us, including reasons why we love him and funny memories. The next 60 days are going to be really tough for him, so we hope this will help give him something to look forward to reading!

And the poem on the 4th side to explain the jar to him:

Saturday night we ordered take out from Dad's favorite restaurant in Boone, BANDANAS! It was delicious and we all really enjoyed the smile on dads face eating that! Tara & Jamie had to leave after dinner, so sadly we only were able to spend a day with them!

Sunday we layed low again, only venturing out to find Grandma some new shoes from Mast. and pick up dinner from Hokaido. Here we are toasting to dad with sparkling grape juice that we all love!
Kyle set up a fire in the firepit, so we all went down there for a little bit to roast some marshmallows and relax.

Dad even joined us from the porch for a while.

Monday we had a lazy morning then started packing back up for our trek to ATL. Sad to see the weekend come to a close but looking forward to one in the fall with everyone again after Dad's stem cell transplant. Thank you so much for the prayers, please keep them up!