And Baby Makes Three!!!

I found out I was pregnant when James was in Arkansas for his first round of interviews with Tyson Foods. It is actually a pretty funny story. I was cleaning up the house, packing a few things, and I found an OLD pregnancy test. We were not planning to have kids for three or four more years, so I was going to throw the test away. I decided to take the test for fun knowing that it would be negative. I took the test and forgot about it for a few hours. I went back into the bathroom later that night and glanced down and it said PREGNANT!!! I was in shock. I had NO pregnancy signs or symptoms. I figured it had to be a mistake. I started chugging water and headed out to the pharmacy to get another test. I took two more tests and they were both positive!! James was on a plane during all this so he had NO clue. It was a complete shock to both of us, and we still didn't believe it until I took the blood test the next day. We had the next few years of our lives planned out and that night it all changed!! 8 months later on March 4th 2010 our handsome little man was born 11 days early. My water broke at 3:00am and I had to have an emergency c-section because he was breech. James Alexander (Xander) was born at 5:55am and he was 7lbs 12oz and 21 inches long.

That's where the Duggars live!!

     As I mentioned in the previous post, James' four year commitment to the Air Force was almost up, and he started looking for a job. He ended up getting two good offers. One at Tyson Foods in Springdale, AR and the other was a sales job in Nashville, TN. The first thing I said when James told me about his offer from Tyson was "OMG, that's where the Duggars live!" Yes, I know I am lame. I do not know why that was exciting to me, but it was, and James still makes fun of me for it :). 19 kids and counting has been one of my favorite shows for years. I started watching it when it was 16 kids and moving in!!

     Unfortunately, living in the same town as the Duggars was not a good enough reason to move to Arkansas, so we had a tough decision to make. We were ecstatic about the offer in Nashville. It was only 4 hours from our family in Atlanta and James would have had his dream sales job. This should have been an easy decision right? Wrong!! After almost 5 years of marriage I have finally realized that nothing we do is ever easy. Tennessee was the obvious choice...awesome job, fun city, closer to family, but it just didn't feel right.

     We flew out to Fayetteville before we made our decision. After living in 2 big cities we were a bit skeptical about North West Arkansas, and were still leaning towards Nashville at that point. After our visit we both agreed it "felt" right, but were still not convinced. Once we got back to Los Angeles, we HAD to make a decision. Should we take the better paying job in a big city near family, or the job in marketing that was 13 hours from the closest relative. The job in Nashville would have been nice, but like I said it didnt "feel" right. We felt like we could do our way (Nashville) or God's way (Arkansas). This was hard. We had been doing "our way" since we got married. We decided to trust God and we chose to move to Arkansas!! After almost 2 years of living in Arkansas, we know we made the right decision, AND we live right down the street from Josh and Anna Duggar :).

Off to Californa we go!

       Its been a while since my last post... hopefully I can keep it going this time!! I will pick up where I left off... our wedding! Yes we eloped, and it was probably one of the best decisions we ever made. After we were married we went home to GA we told our family and friends that we were married!! After they had a minute to digest the news we dropped another bomb... that we were moving to Los Angeles in 1 month! Needless to say this exciting news made for a very interesting Christmas!
     We moved to Manhattan Beach in 2007 which was AMAZING!! We were literally 2 blocks from the beach! We lived in MB for about 6 months and then moved to the next town over El Segundo. It wasn't nearly as nice as Manhattan Beach, but we did have more room and a 2 car garage!! 
     James worked at Los Angeles Air Force Base which was about 1 mile from where we lived in El Segundo. I was a full time nanny in Manhattan Beach for the cutest kids ever!! I still miss them! We had a great time in Los Angeles, but we hated it at the same time. James knew he wanted to get out of the military after his 4 year commitment was up so he started looking for a job towards the end of our stay in California. We had our hearts and mind set on moving to Georgia, Tennessee, or Texas, but the Lord had other plans for us because we ended up in Arkansas!

 The first box was our first apartment, then the view from across the street, then James in his uniform (that is the only picture I have of him in uniform while we were in Cali!) then the cuties I nannied for!!

Welcome to my Blog!

      Okay here it is.. my very first post! I have wanted to start a blog for several years now, and I have finally been inspired to get it going. I have met so many new people over the past year that I figured what better place to start than from the beginning!? Not the VERY beginning ;) but the beginning of our precious family of three.

     It all started at an Outback Steakhouse. I had gotten my first job as a hostess   and met this handsome server who was working full time to put himself through college. There was just something about him and I knew that he had to be mine! Unfortunately his girlfriend was also an employee of the OB, so I knew that I would have to wait for the perfect opportunity to win him over. It all began when they broke up and I knew that was my chance to talk to him... I offered him some encouraging words, secretly hoping that he would want to hang out some time. We did finally hang out and our first date was at IHop!

We continued dating and James graduated from Georgia State in the summer of 2005 and was getting ready to move to Charleston, SC for his first assignment as an officer in the Air Force at Charleston AFB. We dated long distance for 9 months. I loved visiting him in Charleston, and it quickly became our favorite city. Here is a picture of us on the day of James' graduation/commencement ceremony and then a picture of us in Charleston.

     James finished his stint at Charleston AFB and was luckily assigned to Moody AFB in Valdosta, GA. I transferred to Valdosta State University so I could move down there (about 4 hours from my home in Atlanta). I don't have many pictures from Valdosta...It was awfully boring!! I did enjoy going to school there though!! We were in Valdosta for a few months when James found out he would be moving AGAIN! This time it was on the other side of the country.. Los Angeles!! We got that news in October 2006, James proposed on Thanksgiving 2006, we eloped on December 22, 2006 and moved to California in February 2007. This was such an exciting time in our lives and I was thrilled to be going on this adventure with him. I actually wish I had a blog back then because we had some very interesting encounters on our journey to Los Angeles. Anyways...We got married at this cute little chapel in downtown Charleston, it was only us.. our families didn't even know we were engaged!