dixi + russ = married for 2 years

Russ and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary this past Tuesday, and it was so much fun!

I surprised Russ and took him out to Lake Weiss to have a picnic dinner on the dock, and to go fishing!

He closed his eyes/put my purse over his head all the way from Rome, so he wouldn't know where we were going. I wish I had taken a picture of this, cause it was pretty funny. Anyways, I drove out to a lake house that a friend of ours owns (Thank you so much Tha!), and left him in the car with his eyes closed while I set everything up for us, and then went to get him out of the car.

This is what he saw when he finally opened his eyes:

a Subway picnic on the dock, complete with sparkling white grape juice, and some presents!He was very surprised, and was shocked that he had no idea where we were, cause it was his first time visiting our friend's lake house.

Then we chowed into our fancy Subway sandwiches, and then opened our presents for each other.

Russ bought me a cute little mommy activity book to use with Caedmon when she gets a little older.

And he also got me a super nice sketch pad, an art book, and graphite pencils.
It has been a long time since I have been able to creatively draw, and he figured since I would be at home for a few months before Caedmon is born, that I might find some time to draw again! I was so impressed! It was really great.
Then it was his turn to open his presents.

I designed him a picture and framed it in a frame that has hung empty in our bedroom since we moved into our house over 2 years ago...haha. The background is the vows that I said to him 2 years ago at our wedding with a fancy ornate logo of our last name in the middle.

Then he opened up a new pair of shoes! He has been wanting a new pair for a really long time. I was really nervous that he wouldn't like them, but turns out he thought they were perfect, so I was very glad!

Then we did a little fishing, and Russ was so impressed that I thought of surprising him with going fishing for our anniversary. He smiled a whole lot, and not because I was making him smile for the pictures!
Then I caught the first fish! I was so proud of myself! And I even think Russ might have been more excited than I was that I caught the first one!
We ended up catching 4 fish that night, I caught two and he caught two, It was the perfect night cause we both left completely satisfied with our two catches!
It was a perfect night, the rain let up, and held out long enough for us to have a really great time! Our favorite part about it, was that the fun factor was so high yet the cost factor was so low! (minus the presents that we both splurged on for each other)
Seriously, we spent a total of 8 dollars at Subway, 7 dollars on fishing bait (live minnows), and 3 dollars on Sparkling White Grape Juice. So our grand total was 18 dollars spent on a super perfect evening together. It really doesn't get much better than that!

Our 2 Year Anniversary!
Russell Jay,
I am so proud of where we are 2 years into our marriage. I find more reasons to love you, and respect you every time I turn around. Thank you for making me exactly who I am today because of your love and commitment to me. Thank you for always making me feel beautiful and for providing so much for us. I seriously can't wait to be parents together, and to celebrate 100 more wedding anniversaries with you.
I love you.
-your wife

p.s. next year it is your turn to surprise me with great plans for our 3rd anniversary! ;)
i really enjoy disney world...

(almost) 27 weeks.

so technically, I am not 27 weeks yet, more like 26 weeks and 4 days , but I wanted to go ahead and post cause Russ and I are going to be pretty busy this weekend. But I had to go ahead and put 27 weeks, cause none of the other pictures have had the # weeks + 2/3 mark on them, and it all has to look uniform! So there is my disclaimer that I am not quite yet 27 weeks, but almost!

caedmon is doing great! my last doctor's appointment was this past monday, and everything is going very smoothly. the visit was super short, minus the part where i had to wait an hour for my blood test to make sure i haven't developed gestational diabetes. I will only find out the results of the test if I have a sugar count above 140. But if everything is normal they won't contact me, so I am hoping that the next time i hear from them will be on the day of my next appointment, June 9th.

i have officially gained 20 pounds so far! apparently i am going to be pretty large by the time August gets here...

we finally got a crib for her room, and it is in the process of being refinished as we speak. It is $10 yard sale find by Russ's mom, and it is in great great shape. Russ started sanding it down Tuesday night so we can refinish it. I originally had it in my mind to be white, but I may try staining it dark brown, and if that doesn't work, then we will probably go back to white. So stay tuned for the crib project updates!

here is my adorably sexy handy-man working hard in the garage with his electric sander.

caedmon moves around constantly, and I am now enjoying feeling her move around, cause that is the only way i feel like she can communicate with us right now. I love feeling like she is right there in the middle of everything that I am doing. This sentence may be removed from this post in about a year when i don't enjoy her being in the middle of everything I am doing anymore! But for now, I love it.

i have one more month left at Chick-fil-A, and it is definitely going to be a bittersweet moment in my life. bitter in the fact that it will be very sad to leave such amazing people, and such an amazing place where God has grown me into such a different person, but it will be very sweet because it means I am THAT much closer to holding my baby in my arms, and not having to be completely exhausted from standing on my feet for long long long periods of time! my body just doesn't function as effortlessly as it once did... and 8 hour shifts at work make me realize that more and more.

that is all for now, and thank you so much for continuing to read along with our family! all of these moments will be forever remembered in our minds, and it is so nice to share them with our friends, family, and the occasional stranger that stops by!

please feel free to comment and let us know that you read, it is so nice to find out so many people had been reading that we had no idea about!

the countdown begins!

So yesterday we started the official countdown from 100 days till Caedmon Clair Burnett arrives (even though we know she won't arrive exactly on schedule, but hey we have to start somewhere!)

To celebrate we all went to the Atlanta Braves game at Turner Field, and had a blast!

I forgot to take my camera to the game, which made me so very very upset. But I did get to take a few pictures from my phone, so the quality kinda sucks, but the memories will still remain!


And to top off a great evening at the ballpark, the Braves won 4-3 against Arizona with a very exciting bottom of the ninth sacrifice pop fly to centerfield by Escobar for Schafer to score the winning run.

this picture is from mlb.com

They even shot off some amazing fireworks after the game to celebrate our 100 day countdown! Or maybe it was because they have fireworks at every friday home game, but we are going to stick to the idea that it was for Caedmon...



Today's countdown: 99 days!!!

Pink & Posh

so, my older sister, Jeri, has this pretty cool website called Pink & Posh where you can enter to win tons of free stuff, you should check it out! Lots of baby things on there!!

Right now she has a giveaway for any pair of kids shoes from a company called See Kai Run. And wow, they are real cute.

I am trying to win these shoes...

so many exciting things, all rolled into one blog post!!

So I have to apologize, I was a terrible blogger in keeping up with the posts about finding out what we were having, but fortunately facebook and twitter got to keep up... Please forgive me! But I promise you this post will be well worth the wait with tons of exciting news with lots of pictures to go with it!!

On April 20th, I was 22 weeks when we had our ultrasound appointment, and we got to see the baby for almost thirty minutes on the ultrasound screen while the nurse/tech looked at everything. We couldn't get a profile shot of the face cause the baby hid from us the WHOLE time, but it was so great to just watch for so long.

Then the nurse/tech finally showed us an area that she described as what we would see if we were holding the baby's legs up like when you change a diaper, and she pointed the little mouse cursor at a the private parts area, and it was so clear! She asked us if we knew what we were looking at, and I immediately said, "A little girl!" And she confirmed that it was in fact a little girl, and oh my gosh, it took our breath away.

Russ and I both had a few tears while we watched, but I just kept wiping my eyes so that I wouldn't miss anything while we got to look at her. It was like the best movie I had ever seen. The lights were turned out in the room, just like in the theater, and Russ was holding my hand/arm, just like in the theater, and i thought surely they were about to bring me some popcorn and candy... but they didn't...

Anyways, she is forming perfectly normal so far, and the doctor said i was having a pretty easy/normal pregnancy, which we are so thankful for!

Here are several pictures from the ultrasound:

Her toes look EXACTLY like Russ's toes with the second one longer than the first one!

Since then, we have painted her nursery, getting ready for her to "move in" with us. This is seriously like the best new roommate anyone could possibly prepare for...
Mike and Jimmy helped me paint the room, and Russ and I painted her a little message before we put the final coat on top.

The color is absolutely perfect. It is called Lake Marsh. I LOVE it!







And the latest most exciting update since we found out she was a girl, is that I have worried/stressed/prayed/& worried some more about what to name her, cause we literally liked so many different names... but today Russ and I finally decided what to name her!

drumroll please...

Miss. Caedmon Clair Burnett

Caedmon after Russ's all time favorite music group Caedmon's Call, and Clair after his mom's side of the family. (The St. Clair's)
I am so thrilled that I don't have to stress out over her name anymore, and I can actually call her by name, instead of "the baby girl", or "she/her" all the time! And we absolutely fell in love with the name!! So now everyone can head off to the monogram/embroidery shops to get all her stuff personalized!!


I am now 24 weeks, and well over halfway there! Our next appointment is May 18th, so hopefully we will have another good report! Stay tuned for more girly things to come as we get ready to decorate her freshly painted room!

Here is a tummy shot at 24 weeks.

Check out my new facebook album to see all the pictures side by side, to see how fast she is growing! My weekly update said that at 24 weeks, my uterus should be the size of a soccer ball... my ribs are upset about this, believe me.

Thanks for catching up with us, and so sorry again for such a delay in posting! I'll try to do better next time!!