I know it's been a week but that's approximately how long it takes to immerse yourself in pink!! That sound you just heard was either the swish of my check card purchasing another adorable baby girl outfit or the clicking of my mouse going to its 1 millionth baby girl bedding site (which by the way, I have found the perfect bedding which only costs approximately half of one of pay checks, and if you're wondering, which I know you are, Chris's exact response was, "I suggest you start stitching"...ie...over his dead body will I ever own it, unless the sewing fairies sprinkle some dust on my sewing machine and magically, POOF, it appears in the crib.....AND stop laughing...yes I own a sewing machine!)
This past weekend Sam and I went to visit Aunt Mammie and Unkie Greg again!!! Sam is ADORABLE when he says "Mammie", and every time I'm on my phone or he gets in the car he says it!! Here are some action shots from this past weekend:

Preggo girl was craving her some chipped-beef gravy!!! (not to mention it was Amy's idea, but we thought we had a better shot of suckering mom into making it if pregster whined that she was craving it!)

We took a ferry ride with Bill and Brenda (Greg's parents) over to Surry County. Usually it takes Sam a long time to warm up to people who he doesn't see very often...but he loves him some Bill and ALWAYS goes to him right away! They took us to a great restaurant and to see Pocahontas's house but all you heard from Chris was..."Forget Pocahontas, where is Michael Vick's house" (apparently Surry County is where all the dog mishaps went down)
The rest of the fam has season passes to Busch Gardens so on Sat. night they went for a couple of hours to Howl-O-Scream! Greg so graciously offered to stay home and entertain Sam and I, something about riding the Big Bad Wolf with a screaming MaJo, didn't make it such a bummer to stay at home! Greg, Sam, and I managed to entertain ourselves quite well!!! Ohh the fun you can have with a 2 dollar wig from Target!
I've been saving the best for last!!!!! Why might you ask are we giving a shout out to the number 3?? You didn't think we would let HSM 3 slip by us did you?? As you can see we made it a family affair, and we were FIRST in line! What aunts won't do for their niece's! I'm going to go ahead and freely admit that I LOVED it!! I mean you know what you are getting into before you go and while it may have one too many "I love you, wildcat" I had a smile....and a small high school crush!

It's a......

GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To say we are WAY EXCITED is an understatement!!! I made Chris IMMEDIATELY take me to the mall to SATURATE myself with pink and bows!!!!!

We got to the ultrasound tech and she asked if we wanted to find out. We gave our little spill about wanting to know only if she were 95 percent sure. She said she wouldn't tell anyone unless she was that sure!!! She literally put the wand (official medical term I'm sure!!) on my belly and within 5 milliseconds she said...its a girl...for sure!!!! Chris and I were shocked!!!! I think deep inside we both wanted a girl but didn't want people to think we would be disappointed with another boy. Sam was not as impressed with the ultrasound technology as we were...he started to squirm half way through but I was glad we decided to take him!!!! The best news of the day is that everything looked great!!!! Everything measured correctly and the heart rate was perfect! What a blessing from God that we are extremely grateful for!! After the appointment came the fun part...calling everyone! By the time we left the doctor's office we had a gazillion missed calls and texts so we were off to the races telling people about our good news! Here are just some of the ways we told people...thought you might enjoy....

Sam:
We said: Your having a baby sissy.
His response: Ball....Elli (I'm going to go with...He is still clueless...bless his heart he has NO idea what he is in for)

Chris's text to his friends: No hot dogs here...we have a little taco (politically correct I'm sure)

Amy:
Me (In the middle of Valley View Mall...YELLING): Your Witchcraft has failed! It's a girl (Chris was appreciative of my volume and assured me that none of the 50 people surrounding us gave me a weird look!

Laura, Dylan, and Danielle:
Me: It's a girl, Danielle we are even again!!!
LOUD CHEERS FROM EXCITED COUSINS FOLLOWED
Dylan: YES...I can have Sam and Danielle can have the baby

(Danielle called back approximately two minutes later to inform me she had started to save some of her "old" clothes for the baby...now tell me they won't be best friends!!!!

Cam's text: So is it Bitty Babies or more footballs
Me: Roll out the....BITTY BABIES!!!!

Peggy (the most country school custodian you will even find, who 2 weeks ago gave me a huge bag of ALL girl things and has asked me EVERYDAY since if she was right):
Note on board for her to find tonight: Peggy, you were RIGHT...It's a GIRL!!!! Thanks again for all the pink!

Chris's text to some of his golf buddies:
We have a Paula Creamer on our hands

Betty Reynolds (the most adorable K teacher ever): I'm going TODAY to buy pink yarn (she knitted or crochet or sewed OR SOMETHING more domestic than I could ever fathom, Sam the MOST ADORABLE yellow blanket!!!)

My class started cheering when I told them and for the record they guessed correctly with Girl winning over Boy on our baby graph 12 to 5!!!

EVERYONE was so excited and I feel like I have so much to say but just not enough time! I'm busy packing for another exciting trip to W'burg while Chris is staying here to put on his annual golf tournament and entertain his college buddies! Def. more to come soon and I will try to scan in some of the ultrasound pics!!

and the answer is....

*edited to note(8 pm)
Now I'm not one for signs and I STILL think that Baby Dowdy is a boy (even though some may say it's just the witch craft talking:) ), but do you find the irony in what I received in the mail while I was gone???

(ok I tried to download a picture but couldn't)
...I got an American Girl magazine...out of NO WHERE...I have never ordered anything American Girl or related so why did I receive this magazine...I'm just throwing that twist out there.
**** For those that don't know I have ALWAYS said that the first thing I am going to buy my daughter is a "Bitty Baby" (the baby form of American Girl....come on people...don't act like you don't know who Kit is)!!! Even Chris knew when we were dating that I couldn't wait to give my little girl a Bitty Baby and ohhhhh I looked at the magazine and ohhhh I was tempted to think pink!!!!! Go here to see (Chris was not so tickled pink when he looked at the cost...apparently American Girl Dolls are a "girl thing")

I know I may have left several of you in suspense about my Monday's doctor's appointment to find out if Sam was having a sister or a brother but the truth is...I haven't had it yet!!! Last Tuesday Chris found out one of his golfers made it to the state tournament in Richmond. Since we were already planning a trip to visit aunt Mammie and Uncle Greggie in W'burg we decided to make it one LONG weekend get away for the fam! We left Friday night for Williamsburg then spent all day Sat. with Mammie and Greggie. Then on Sunday we headed for Richmond for Chris and Hunter to play their practice round and then Hunter had his first round on Monday and is at his second round right now! Sam and I have had some serious and much deserved Mommy/Sam time. We have visited friends, gone shopping and Sam even got to make a doggie at "Build a Bear" and you will never guess what he named her....ELLI!!!! He was so into the whole thing...he pushed the button to stuff her, kissed a heart to put inside her, gave her an "air bath", and combed her....it was PRECIOUS!!! He has carried her EVERYWHERE!!! He even tries to feed her fruitloops and he puts his treatment mask on her, for Elli to get her "medicine", just like him! Oh my has it been cute!!! (Sam update: he had to go back to the doctor, get a chest x-ray, and be put on "preventative medicine" twice a day:( He is starting to take his neubulizer better and now you can tell him "It's time for your medicine" and he will sit beside his machine!)



So back to when we are finding out because I know you sitting on the edge of your seats!!!! Tomorrow I have to stop playing "stay at hotel" mommy (and OHHH how I have enjoyed it) and go back to work...just in time for a field trip to Safari Park! Then I will pray our bus isn't late getting back, leave right at 2:30, rush to the doctor by 3:00 and HOPEFULLY have my ultrasound! So we should know by Wed. evening!!!!...even though we know it is a boy, because really people, has Amy's "witch craft" EVER been wrong...nope...its been 100 percent correct...it's actually kind of scary!!! Please be praying that everything goes well for the ultrasound, and that everything measures correctly!

Looks like his daddy...

same illnesses as his daddy:(  

Last Thursday I was watching Danielle and Dylan and of course that means Chris, Dylan, and Sam have to play this ridiculous version of basketball, which is slowing teaching my innocent little son that is funny to hit people in not so kind places...I mean, call me a woman but I. just. don't. get. it! Needless to say, Sam was laughing hysterically and running around falling on the ground like a mad man!  We noticed that he started coughing but just thought he had gotten too tickled.  The coughing didn't stop at dinner but after all that running around he went to sleep perfectly fine.  But, an hour later, he was up coughing which included a little wheezing.  We brought him in to bed with us...WHICH WE NEVER DO, because I'm not going to lie, I LOVE my sleep and lets be honest, I already sacrifice a fourth of my bed to a not-so-little 4 legged friend.  He kept coughing and had a REALLY hard time sleeping and I can remember looking at Chris in the bed and saying, "it's  asthma I know it is".  Sure enough we make an appointment and after the nurse listened to his breathing, the doctor came in maybe 1.2 seconds (which we know NEVER happens), and Sam had to get a dose of steroids and a breathing treatment right there in the office.  They won't come out and say he has asthma but he recommended we go ahead and buy the neubulizer and not rent one (in other words...this is likely to happen again).  He had several breathing treatments over the weekend which really translates to Chris pinning Sam down the best he can and I make my best attempt to hold the mask over his face...you got it...Sam=not a huge fan of the neubulizer.   He finally went to bed better tonight, but be thinking about little Sam and his adjustment to all the yuckiness:(  

Also say a little prayer for me...I have had a rough couple days playing solo parent to sick little guy as Chris had to go overnight to the regional golf tournament with his team.  (Don't worry mom and I had a slumber party last night because 1. as stated before the nebuluizer is most definitely a two person job and 2.  mom can ward off the bad guys, or at least let me sleep considering Sam was up at 4 AM, and 3.I'm never too old to admit...sometimes...you just need your mom...and she brought fudge:))

Here is your mental picture for the week:  Amy W. and I decided we needed and deserved a yummy treat, so we loaded the babies up and decided we should go to Olive Garden to treat ourselves...(umm, yeah we weren't really thinking).  By the end of the meal Sam had gone through all my "tricks" I keep in the diaper bag and the floor looked like something you would find in "Jon and Kate's" house.  But DAG ON IT...we were bound and determined we were splitting the "pumpkin cheesecake" because not only is is hard to find a good friend but it is even harder to find a best friend who shares your love for ANYTHING pumpkin!  So for the last 1o minutes of the meal we pretended not to see Riley eating paper or Sam eating his 20th piece of candy corn and we shared not only the most delicious slice of heaven I have EVER eaten, we shared a mommy/girlfriend moment that will get us through the week!  OH, and if anyone out there is having one of those "it's only Tuesday I don't know if I can make it until Friday" moments, give me a call, I can have Sam and the bag of candy corn loaded in 5 minutes because trust me people...that pumpkin cheesecake MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER!!! 

     

Mr. Fix It and his little helper

(two post, one weekend....wild and crazy I am) 

As many of you know Chris and I are still trying to sell our house.  We know, we know...horrible time to do so, it's a buyer's market...yada, yada!  We still feel that it is our plan to move closer to PH and find maybe a smaller fixer upper to call home!  Over the past couple of months I've become what we like to call in our household a real "Pessy-Jessy" about the whole situation.  We have had open houses, and I'm sure all 4 people who attended enjoyed the tour, but the newspaper kept messing up the dates and that coupled with the fact that we just haven't had much interest has really had me down:(  Every time I drive back home from the PH area I make it my point to call Chris and remind him that if we lived over there I would be home by now.  I also fully expected to be in a new house by the time the baby came, and given the fact we put the house on the market last year, I didn't think I was setting my goal to high.  We had the best plans of moving Sam into his big boy room as we moved into a new house so we could knock out all the "transitions" all at once.  Ahhh the perfect little world that goes on inside my head. 

 The real truth is that I see living in this house as a road block to my true desire of staying at home with the kiddos, and the resentment towards my poor little house grows each day as my heart breaks dropping Sam off every morning, knowing full and well it WILL only get worse with two.  I have been blessed with such a supportive husband who has a WELL documented plan to make my desires come true and he truly sees and understands the need for me to follow my heart.  

Today at church I was humbled as God spoke to me during worship.  As much as I was trying not to listen, I was overwhelmed with the simple message that God's plan works in His timing. I was letting the outcome of the house rob me of my peace.  

Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord

We will wait upon the Lord

We will wait upon the Lord

Our God, You reign forever

Our hope, our Strong Deliverer

You are the everlasting God

The everlasting God

You do not faint

You won't grow weary      

Our God is bigger than our economy and bigger than my house!  

On a lighter note (because what would my blog be without one)!  Due to our recent open houses we have been working on the little things on our house.  For instance, Chris tighten the screws to the crib due to the fact that a little boy around 20 months old wakes up in the morning and the first things he does is climb on the bottom rail, pull on his little backpack that hangs on the doorknob, pull the door open and yell for...not mama....not dada...but you guessed it ELLI!!!!! and his best friend COMES A RUNNING!  The cutest part is that Elli (who somehow by the mercies of the cute animal fairies STILL sleeps in our bed) can hear him playing, and squealing in the morning but WILL NOT jump off the bed and run to his room until she hears the door open and the sweet sound of her best friend calling her name!  I've got one word for ya....PRE-CIOUS!!!!   

Here is Sammy C helping out daddy. 

Oh yes he is in just a diaper and a shirt and yes he is standing on a box...judge me later (at least he has socks on):) 
And here he is making sure Daddy does it just right...
AND if anyone out there DARES to call Chris and tell him I just posted a picture of him shirtless, sporting a present from the hair-fairy...I will banish you to blog exile:):)  It's his fault he doesn't read:):) 

Another equally important and entertaining side note:  Today we FORGOT we left the open house topper up from last week on our sign and at 1:00 a couple and 3 adorable little girls literally woke Chris and I up from a little Sunday afternoon nap...ohh the next 3 minutes were QUITE entertaining as we managed to do the quickest "pick-up" ever and somewhere in there I managed to properly dress myself...ohh it was a classic Dowdy house moment.  I felt like God was looking down on us saying in his booming voice, in between chuckles, "Ask and you shall receive"! 

Bargin find of the year...try not to be jealous!!!:)

(edited to note: after rereading this post I almost put myself to sleep, consider that a warning)

I know I said I was going to post more this week but I really do have a good excuse, of which I will have to explain later because quite frankly...its Friday and put a fork in me, I don't want to have to think!

What I would like to do is brag!!!

Go ahead and get it out now..."She is one of those girls...who has to tell you about every deal she has ever found!" As a matter of fact I am. What's the use in finding a good deal if you don't get to brag about it. Oh how I embarrass the HOTY by frequently telling complete strangers how much I paid for my shirt or where to go to find cheap, cute, and comfortable shoes. Apparently that falls into the "Things us boys will NEVER understand about women" category, somewhere in between "Why to they wake up at 5 in the morning the day after Christmas to get cheap decorations they can't use until next year" and "you mean to tell me you didn't do anything but go to a restaurant, with your girlfriends, and talk...the whole 5 hours?" Yes Chris, us girls actually can entertain ourselves by just simply talking and gasp here's a secret...we don't even need Madden!!!!

Back to my bargain find victory:

So here is our lasted find, and yes I said our because Chris actually spotted it before we even got in the store and as much as I HATE to admit it...he did play a part in our lasted diamond in the rough find.

As we were walking into PIER 1 Chris eagerly says, "I think I've spotted something" and immediately heads to an ol too cute wooden buffet, in which both of us simultaneously think would make a great TV stand. However, I being the veteran Pier 1 shopper just knew it would be approximately a gazillion dollars out of our price range because well...its Pier 1, not necessarily what we like to call a "buying on a teacher's budget" store, especially for furniture. We saw the price tag, $500, and both of us again simultaneously sighed and thought in our naive little minds...maybe in our next life when Chris is the kicker for the Redskins and I just go around being a Redskins groupy, having babies, and decorating our mansion. Then Chris noticed a random sticker on top...not just any random sticker...a 75 percent off sticker!!!! And yes the heavens did slowly open and somewhere a choir was singing "Hallelujah"! The most pleasant sales lady came over and told us that her manager had JUST marked it down because the door hinge was broken and she didn't know how to fix it. Well my little HOTY took one little look at the broken door, figured out how to fix it with two screws and out the door we went with an all wood, just perfect, TV stand for....drum roll....$124!!!

Here is our little gem (please ignore the star in the backgroud...it obviously doesn't work in the space anymore, I'm just waiting for Martha (AKA Amy Jo) to come figure out where to put it!


Here are the two cute shelves...once again...waiting for Martha! The pumpkin we were attempting to hid from Sam because a little black cat jumps out and scares him to death and makes him cry...yet he keeps going back for the torture, we aren't quite sure why!
And the BEST part is....I finally get my sofa table back that was so viciously taken from me when Chris decided he needed a new TV and in return needed to "borrow" my sofa table for a TV stand....FOR A YEAR!!!! Its like getting two new pieces of furniture! Sofa table oh how I missed you!
And if that wasn't enough to put you over the "steal of the year" top...check out my maternity dress I got for one dollar...brand new...one dollar!

Side note: the color in our kitchen is called Paprika! As you can tell we are way afraid of color here at the Dowdy house and tend to stick with the neutrals...:)

Fall time at the Dowdy's!

Apparently its the "hip" thing to do...to post pictures of how fall looks at your house!! In retrospect I could have taken a picture of the Dowdy's watching a Skins game and be done with it, but instead I will choose to bore you with these pictures :)

Side note: Chris and his college roommate, Ryan, did the whole hearth and fireplace in one weekend!!! If you look at the purplish rock in the center you can still see Ryan's orange juice that spilled on that rock! I thought it added character and a memory so we decided to still use it! I am so blessed to have such talented friends and one very talented husband! (Chris also made the mantle!)
One of my favorite parts of fall...peanuts and candy corn...just like a Payday!! That is an old candle jar and topper!
Here is my goal this fall...do not let this one plant die..the odds are NOT in my favor, given past experiences:)

I am almost 18 weeks and starting to feel MUCH better! My goal this week is to blog more than once!!!! Look out for updates! 2 more weeks and we will know boy or girl!!!