Christmas-Part 1

This past weekend we drove down to Temple to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family. Saturday morning we spent time hanging out, playing with Tanner, and doing a lot of relaxing. I think Brian read an entire book on Saturday! 

Once Poppa and Uncle Mark arrived from Dallas we had a fabulous lunch and then opened up gifts. Tanner was a big help this year and had a blast handing out the stockings and gifts. 

Every time he handed out a gift he would throw up his arm and say "YAY!" Let's just say that Tanner got to unwrap most of the gifts under the tree : ). Here are some of the pictures from the weekend. 

My mom got all of the boys funny boxers. Of course we had to get a picture!

Tanner got a kitchen from my parents and loved it! He played with it for the rest of the weekend and would  walk around the house pouring each of us a cup of coffee (sound effects included). 

Later that evening the boys played a few rounds of Blokus while I did a little bit of this...

Here is our Christmas 2011 family picture. Look at how red T-Man's hair looks! 

Merry Christmas from the Bailey's, O'Neal's, and Pattillo's! 

16 Week Update

How far along? 16 weeks

Heartbeat? 156 which the sonographer says is great! Honestly, I think it sounds like there is a little race horse inside of me!

Total weight gain/loss: So far I haven't gained or lost any weight. 

Maternity clothes? I am still wearing all of my normal clothes but after I have eaten 3 meals my  jeans aren't so comfortable anymore!

Sleep? This week I pulled out the big body pillow to help me practice sleeping on my side. I am a back sleeper so I need help staying on my side all night. I am sleeping great and usually don't have to get up in the middle of the night. Brian is convinced that I will never have trouble sleeping EVER since I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime! 

Movement: Not yet. The doctor said I should start to feel little flutters in the next few weeks :).

Food cravings: I haven't really craved anything yet. I am just hungry all the time!

Gender: BOY! His name is going to be Tyler Grey Pattillo. We are excited that he will have boy cousins on both sides that are all within 3 years of him. They are going to have a great time growing up together! 

Labor Signs: None

What I miss: Coke and margaritas! 

What I am looking forward to: A bigger baby bump! When I wake up in the morning I have a VERY small bump that probably no one else would notice. After I eat a big dinner I get really excited because my food/baby bump is much bigger :). I'll take what I can get at this point. I am proud of that bump! 

Well....

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving break this year and I am a little sad that it is coming to an end. This year we spent Thanksgiving with my family. Thursday morning we started off by running the Turkey Trot in downtown Dallas. We met up with my parents and walked to the starting line. I think the Turkey Trot is becoming an O'Neal family tradition. This was mine and Brian's first year to do it since we were with the Pattillo's last Thanksgiving. It is a really casual race with lots of kids, strollers, and dogs participating. Here are some pictures of us walking to the race. 

After the race we headed over to Kali's house for Thanksgiving lunch followed by about 7 hours of football. We were pleased with the Cowboys performance but very sad about our Aggies loss. We had a great time hanging out with family and also took advantage of my sister's new camera lens by taking a few Christmas card pictures. :)

Tiny Prints

I am really excited that Tiny Prints is offering 50 free cards this year! I absolutely LOVE getting Christmas cards in the mail and look forward to browsing the websites to pick ours every year. After browsing through their website I found some really cute options for this year. Here are some of the ones I found.

Click here to link to the Tiny Prints website where they have lots more to choose from!

Celebrating Brian's Birthday

Brian's birthday was way back in August but we finally got to celebrate this past weekend. Brian's grandfather used to own a sail boat in the Caribbean and ever since then Brian has loved sailing. For Brian's birthday I got us a 2 hour sail boat cruise on Lake Lewisville. I know it is far from sailing in the Caribbean but it was still pretty cool. Here are some pictures from our cruise. 

2 Year Anniversary

For our 2 year anniversary Brian and I took a weekend trip to Asheville, NC. Over the last few years (and mostly because of the awful Texas heat) we have come to love the mountains. Brian took a half day on Friday so we arrived in NC around 4pm. We were hoping to escape the hot temperatures but apparently we brought them with us. While we were there the temperature got up to 95 degrees! BOO! It wasn't what we were expecting but at least the scenery was beautiful! 

Friday night we walked around and got settled into the place. We had dinner at Cedric's Tavern and then headed to the creamery. Saturday morning we took the shuttle over to the Biltmore house. It is the largest home in America and was finished in 1895. It has 4 acres of floor space, 250 rooms, 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces. The basement alone would house a swimming pool, gymnasium and changing rooms, bowling alley, servants' quarters, kitchens, and more. I felt like I was at a chateau in France! It is incredible. 

Later that day we decided to take the car and drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is an incredible drive through the mountains with many places to pull over and get in some incredible pictures. That would have been great if our camera battery hadn't died on the drive up! The rest of the pictures of our trip were taken on my iPhone. That would have been fine if either Brian or I had the new version of the iPhone with the fancy camera and flash....well we don't! I tried my best to capture the scenery on my phone but many of the shots didn't turn out so great. Lesson learned....I will always have the camera battery charged before we head out on vacation! (Thanks to piknic.com my pictures don't look so bad!)

That is the best shot I got on the drive through the mountains. 

Due to a recommendation from Noelle, we headed to The Grove Inn for dinner at the Sunset Terrace. It was a perfect night. We were seated right around sunset and got to enjoy that while eating our dinner. It was a perfect way to celebrate! 

Here is a picture of the Sunset Terrace on the back side of The Grove Inn and a picture of the view from dinner.

Sunday morning we had a few hours to kill before heading back to the airport so we rented some bikes. They have lots of mountain bike trails you can explore but since we only had a few hours we just stayed on the main roads. The roads were lined with beautiful sunflowers. 

I am so thankful to have met and married such an amazing man and I look forward to the many many years ahead!