Girl's Trip to Chicago!!

My mom has been wanting to do a girl's trip with me and my sister for a while now but we have never actually got around to doing it. So last week was my mom's birthday and she decided for her birthday she finally wanted to do our girl's trip, so the three of us headed out for CHICAGO!! We had a blast! We stayed at the Wyndom Hotel in downtown Chicago, it was way nice and close to everything. The first day we went shopping along Michigan Avenue, there is a mile stretch that has tons of stores called The Miracle Mile. We found lots of good stuff of course, and had a chance to see more of the city. That night we went to the Broadway play "Wicked", it was really amazing. The next day we went out to a HUGE mall about an hour outside of the city, it was seriously the biggest mall I have ever been to. There were tons of great stores and all three of us were in shopping heaven. We also ate at the Cheesecake Factory while we were out there, it was delicious. We took some cheesecake back to the hotel with us and while we ate it we watched a movie and just hung out. It was a fun way to end the day. The next day was Saturday and the city was celebrating St. Patrick's Day. There were thousands and thousands of people that came out to see the river which they turn green and watch the parade. It was crazy on the streets, everyone was dressed in green and already drunk and it was only noon. But it was fun to see the green river and the excitement of all those people. We also went to the Art Institute of Chicago Museum that day. After that we headed to "The Blue Man Group" show, it was a crazy, funny and very random show but very good. So as you can see we stayed very busy and had an incredible time. It was fun to just spend time together and get away for a few days!! Thanks mom!!

Expecting!

So I have been really bad at keeping up on this whole blogging thing, but in checking out so many of your blogs I am inspired to try again. Life has been a whirlwind for us the last few months but like I said it is full of wonderful things. The most wonderful of them being that we are EXPECTING!!!! Thats right we are pregnant. Most of you probably already knew but for some it may be a suprise. I am 18 weeks along (thats about 4 1/2 months for those of you who do not measure by weeks), my due date is August 18th! We are so excited to have a baby and expand our little family. The first 16 weeks I was very sick and it was a pretty rough time but I am feeling so much better now and feel so blessed to have the opportunity to be pregnant and be a mother.

This is me during the first part of my pregnancy feeling pretty yucky. I spent a lot of nights out in the rocking chair. Glad that those days are past.



We announced our "news" to our families for Christmas. I wrote them a poem and we wrapped it up and gave it to our parents. For my parents I wrapped the poem along with some bibs and a little book about grandparents in a huge box and there were several smaller boxes wrapped inside. It was so fun to tell our families and see their excitment. That was definitely an unforgetable Christmas for everyone! I love these pics of my parents opening their present, their reaction was so fun.





This is me and Shane on Christmas 2007-the day we told our families that we were expecting. What a good day.



Here I am now about 4 1/2 months along, I am starting to show. In a few weeks we will find out what we are having!!!