Career Strong

I thought it would be fun to write a letter to you before I met you. We could read it together later and laugh about how clueless I was about you! Dear Stella, It's Christmas 2011 and I honestly haven't thought at all about the holiday this year.  All I can think about is March, when I get to meet you for the first time.  Your Dad and I went to the hospital this week to check out where you would be born! I thought for sure going to the hospital would make me anxious but instead it made me incredibly excited. What a gift it is to bring someone into the world and because of you I get to experience that.  You have no idea how much you were prayed for, wanted, hoped for, for so many years. I always knew I wanted to be a mother, even back in high school when I worked in a toy store and joked about getting my tubes tied. :-) But, when I found out about YOU I couldn't have been happier.  I remember standing in the bathroom completely convinced that I had willed ...

Over the past 2 weeks Stella has been kicking (and possibly punching) all the time! I went to the doctor this week and they gave me a kick counter in case I was worried she wasn't moving enough. The nurse said "only use it if you haven't felt her in awhile".  I will never use this since she is now even waking me up at night with her movement.  I've decided to call her DJ Stella D. (D is for Diane, her middle name, the Pauly D reference is shear coincidence). I think she's DJing in there. Why else would you happen to be awake at 3AM moving around unless it was to create some crazy sick beats.

Me at 23 weeks.  There's a lot wrong with this picture.  Yep, I'm getting bigger but so is my butt, face and hair.  I got a haircut yesterday in the hopes of remedying the fro.  We'll see if it truly helps though.  I'm truly gaining all over. Thanks Stella.  Actually if you are around me on a daily basis you know this actually doesn't bother me that much because I eat a lot! I have been SOOO hungry! I think it's because I was underweight when I started my pregnancy. Ha, no way is that true. I'm really enjoying pregnancy.  Eating is fun. Different clothes are fun.  And I have a whole new respect for bigger folks.  I had no idea how just a little bit of weight can make it hard to roll over in bed at night or get up out of a chair.  Okay, let's be honest, I've gained 21 pounds since last I visited the Doctor.  6 of those pounds in the last 2 weeks! YIKES! Did I mention that I've been hungry? Stella is weighing in at 1lb 3 ounces, slig...

I haven't posted in about a year so this sucker's going to be long! Sorry for the long update.  We've been busy. 1. The rental place. We love this place, it's fabulous! We have a queen size bed and the kitchen came fully prepared to cook (minus food of course).  Here are some pictures below. It's pretty big and very open and bright.  Who knew we would only be here a month and a half.  2. The new house.  We found a PERFECT new house.  As everyone has told me, we found something that I love even more than the first house I blogged about forever ago. Pictures of the new house below. This is the front door.  Notice the rocking chairs and cute table, we get those too! The family we are buying from is moving back to California, they were transfered here a year ago! Can you imagine! I feel for them.  Anyway, they can't take all of their furniture because they will be buying a smaller place.  So they've been selling various things to us, such a...

I'm so sorry to have neglected my blog lately.  Life has been so crazy lately.  We are in the midst of packing up our house. We will be completely moved by Tuesday which seems so soon! Although, we are definitley ready. Our Pods are being delivered on Monday since we are putting everything in storage until we find our dream home. Since we can't get a firm time of when the Pods are delivering, the movers arrive on Tuesday, along with the cleaners.  Oh and at the same time the final walk thru is in the afternoon. What can I say, we like to do a lot at the same time.  As a result we aren't going anywhere for Thanksgiving. :-) Although things are hectic I have to stop and think about how truly blessed I am to have so many wonderful people in my life. My Aunt has graciously offer to throw me a baby shower in Decemeber.  When it comes to registering I am completely clueless!  Thank God for Nicole and Melissa! They have taken over the registry and pi...

When we went for our ultrasound I walked into the room and told the tech straight off the bat "we want to know, so whenever you see anything please feel free to share, seriously, we want to know." I'm sure she thought I was nuts. Especially when a few minutes later after labeling several perfectly developed body parts she said "oh look, can you see it?" I couldn't see a penis anywhere so I was very confused.  Then she said "It's a girl." I literally popped up my head so fast the wand on my belly bounced. I still I can't believe it! For some reason I thought I would only have boys. Obviously God and Darren's sperm had other plans. Right after the tech left the room Darren said "whatever she wants she will have, if she wants a unicorn she will have a unicorn."  I find this funny because when we (I) thought we were having a boy Darren talked about how strict he was going to be and how he was going to raise little men.  Hone...

We sold our house! We got an offer last Sunday, countered, and we are now moving November 16th. Hooray! On the downside we are moving November 16th with no new house in sight.  I know, this sounds like a new show on MTV called Homeless and Pregnant. We have been frantically searching for a new home but we haven't been happy with anything we've found.  So, today, after going with our realtor to view another property at 9AM, we decided to rent until the dream home shows up. This involves moving twice though....not ideal.  But it's better than buying a home just to move within the timeline.  After making this decision I met my friend Jamie for lunch (she's so fun!) and went grocery shopping (not as much fun).  When I got home Darren had found a vacation rental on the lake! I hadn't even thought about vacation rentals!  We are able to move in when we want and don't have to bring any of our furniture because it's fully furnished. Also, if we e...

I've been reading a ton of pregnancy and parenting books about how to raise healthy, emotionally well-adjusted children.  Dr. Oz claims that by eating certain foods, when pregnant, you will bring out good and bad traits in your children. I'm pretty sure my brother is a pain in butt from time to time because my mother drank diet coke while pregnant with him.  When she was pregnant with me she loved ice cream which caused my need to correct other's grammar and talk incessantly.  This should tell you how much stock I'm putting in all this research.  I don't believe any of it. If my kid is screwed up I'm not blaming it on the chicken fingers I ate. Now the french fries, maybe. What is the dumbest parenting/pregnancy advice you have heard?  I would love a good laugh, please share. I'm going to go eat some chocolate covered pretzels.

As I was leaving work yesterday I decided to look up the dream house again. I found that it was already off the market. It felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. I immediately called Darren and he immediately called our real estate agent. The real estate agent let us know it was indeed under contract. Sometimes I like my long commute home.  I of course cried like a 5 year-old for a little bit and then realized I was being a completely spoiled brat and resolved myself to continuing to search for the dream home. This time we would be ready with our preapproval. If we liked something we would make an offer within 12 to 24 hours.  I also got a few kicks from the baby on the ride home. I'm pretty sure he/she was telling me that they were way more important than any silly house ever would be. I got home and Darren had already found 2 other houses that were awesome and he too had the same plan about making offers. While the "dream home" was nice, it wasn't the...

I went up to Knoxville this weekend, my hometown and also the college where I got my undergrad.  When I started at UT we were National Champions.....now, not so much.  But I am still a huge fan! My parents have had season tickets since I can remember and there's nothing quite like these seats. I think I grew up in these seats. A view from our seats. This guy kind of ruined my picture but oh well, I'm sure someone was in front of his picture too. I sat with the coolest man in the world (except for Darren) my Dad. We had the best time talking and trying not to cry from the loss.  After I had the girl in front of us take this picture I of course looked to see if we looked decent and that's when I saw it. The fat girl sitting next to my Dad! Who is this person and why is her arm around my Dad? Does my Dad have another child I don't know about? Oh, no, it's just me. I'm apologizing now for any and all that have to look at me everyday (Coworkers and Darren). If yo...

As of yesterday afternoon our house is officially ready to hit the market again! It's been almost a month but, in the end, well worth it.  We got beautiful new floors, cleaned out our basement and um, I'm sure there's something else.  I have included a picture for those of you interesting in a lovely North Georgia home. We lowered the price, it's pretty much free at this point. In pregnancy news my short term memory is GONE. Poof! If you tell me something, there's a good chance I won't remember it in the next 5 minutes. I have always prided myself on remembering details so this has not been an easy adjustment for me. I realize it's completely normal to experience in pregnancy but I'm going to have to be honest and say I thought this was another one of those things women made up.  Over the course of this pregnancy I've gained so much more respect for my fellow women, and I didn't even have morning sickness.  (Those women deserve a medal or at lea...

My famous last words.  I have neglected to share our newest complication.  On Labor Day weekend, Sunday to be exact, we went to Cumming for the day to look at houses.  Because my bladder is about the size of an acorn now I knew I should pee before we leave. I used the half bath toilet, not thinking anything of it. The part of the toilet that connects to the waterline decided to split. We got home 5 hours later to a flood on our main level that had made it's way to our basement. Ugh. Although, this was fully covered on our insurance, whew! Over the last few weeks we have had various repair men in our house cleaning up the water installing new hardwood floors. I never see any of these people as I'm out about 12 to 14 hours a day.  I have started calling the repair guys elves because I never see them but things are always different when I get home. For instance, last week I pulled in the driveway starving (as usual) and ready to cook dinner. I walked in...

Darren and I got to see our little baby this week! He/she is measuring 13 weeks and 1 day and everything looked healthy. This picture cracks me up because the baby looks like it's pouting because we woke it up.  We did though, the tech was pushing on my belly like I do when I'm trying to get into pair of jeans that are too small!  Baby Hawk wouldn't move! Enter the Kashi cereal bar.  I hadn't eaten in nearly 4 hours (the appointment was VERY long) so I ate my Kashi bar that I always keep in my purse for ultrasound emergencies. BOOM, baby Hawk was wiggling and sucking and even looked like he/she was sucking it's thumb! Yes, this is indeed my baby, I go nuts for food too! I do think the profile looks like Darren though. Darren makes this cute pouty face when he's being funny.  So, the mystery is solved, this is Darren's baby. Whew, we were wondering. I'm totally kidding people! This picture is sort of creepy to me but I must share my 3-D picture. I...

Welcome to my blog! My name is Emily Hawkins and I'm so excited to be starting this! My goal for starting a blog was to have my house sold and be pregnant. Well, I have the pregnant thing going on but we are still in our house in Jefferson, GA.  We love it here but it's very far from where I work (between a 1.5 and 2 hour commute one way). We are very excited about baby Hawkins coming in our lives but the house not sellng is a little stressful.  We are going to have to carry 2 mortgages. I know there are plenty of people in the US doing this right now and they are all saying cry me a river.  Still, it's scary to extend yourself that much! Hence this blog title, I'm ready to start the blog....as ready as I'm gonna be. There is another reason for this title. A week after I found out I was pregnant I was at the gym running on the treadmill (let's be honest I was slowly walking on the treadmill, counting the minutes until I could get off) listening to my IPod on shu...