Back in Town

I've been out of town for the past week - at the Annual Chick-fil-A Operator's Seminar. This is where the home office staff host all the Operators, that run the CFA restaurants, to a Convention. It's a lot of work but is a fun kind of work and is always at a cool place - this year Long Beach, CA.

Spouses are allowed to go, but this year Hannah was unable to since we only have 4 weeks left before Hudson arrives! So Hannah and Raegan stayed home and I roomed with David Laughlin.

If you saw the Valentine video that Hannah and Raegan put together in the previous post... that really got me through the distance from my girls. I watched that video a thousand times!

I didn't have my camera but below are a few shots I snagged from the web of Long Beach & the Convention Center we used and also a couple shots from my camera phone.



During the week at Seminar, I got to see/hear Dave Ramsey, Jim Collins, Kirk Cameron, Tommy Tuberville, Frank Beamer, Rick Warren, Nicole C. Mullen... to name a few. I also ran a 10K, ate at a lot of good restaurants and enjoyed time with some of my co-workers. And on my flight home, we had Hulk Hogan and Kevin Neiland on our plane!

At Seminar every year, they announce where we'll be going the next year. So for 2010... we'll be getting to stay at the brand new Gaylord National in Washington DC!



While I was at Seminar, Hannah & Raegan seemed to have a fun week. On different days, Hannah's mother or sister, Jennifer stayed at our house. Hannah took Raegan to and from daycare each day (which is usually my job). I can tell Hannah and Raegan bonded more because while Raegan was happy to see me... she really shows a strong preference for Hannah!

Hannah found out at the end of a week of balancing Raegan without my help, work & being 35 weeks pregnant, that she has an ear infection and sinus infection. So Hannah really showed how tough she can be - she didn't even know she was really sick! (she has an antibiotic now and seems to be feeling better)

On Saturday, we went to the playground for a little while. Raegan as usual didn't want to play on the playground but seemed content to watch the other kids play. And then her love for dogs came out as she made friends with one of our neighbor's dogs that was out there.

Then today after church, we went down to Hannah's parent's house. Raegan got to play with Mimi, Granddad, Uncle James, Aunt Kelly, Uncle Jacob & Uncle Aaron. Below are some pictures from my camera phone (we forgot the camera).

That's pretty-much all there is to share at the moment. We are ready for Hudson to arrive. Hannah and Hudson are still doing well... other than Hannah is uncomfortable. I finally wired the remote control and new light fixture to the ceiling fan in Hudson's room. I took out the wire shelf in the closet and this week I'll put in a new closet organizer.

This last picture is just a shot of a rainbow that was outside my hotel room in Long Beach. It doesn't seem like you often see a rainbow so clear. So I had to take a picture and post it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tony-We made several attempts to create "valentine" for you, but you know Raegan. Hopefully you can tell from these clips that we love you and miss you! Hope you are having a great day!!

Love,
Hannah and Raegan

Hudson Eli Miley

We have finally nailed down a name for our boy! His name will be Hudson Eli Miley. We have only a few weeks left until we welcome him into the world! Hannah & Hudson are both still doing well! Hannah is pretty uncomfortable but health is all good!

This past week I spent most of my time preparing for the Chick-fil-A annual Seminar - this year in Long Beach, CA. The truck deadline was Thursday evening so I made the deadline and took Friday off to celebrate. I spent Friday working on 2 shelves for our boy's room.

Hannah played with Raegan all day Friday before leaving for the weekend on a girl's trip to the Lake (not our Lake). Hannah said the house they stayed in was really nice. Hannah relaxed with her old college roommates. They didn't take any pictures!

So Raegan and I had kind of a Daddy/Daughter weekend. She was so good and so much fun! Plus it was an incredible weekend that felt like Spring!

The rest of this blog post is pretty much all from my perspective because Hannah was out of town for the weekend. But I'm sure she could blog about how much fun her Lake trip was.

Saturday morning was the neighborhood playground opening party. You've seen posts where Raegan loved playing on the playground. Well lately she has just wanted to play around the playground but not get on it. She enjoyed mingling a little but mostly just staying away from the playground and playing with things like rocks.

After the playground party, Raegan and I drove to Cordele, GA to see my Grandmother (Granny), Nana & Bailey. Raegan was excited to see all 3 of them. Raegan enjoyed exploring Granny's house, eating her food and I think mostly running in her yard. Granny's yard is huge and Raegan doesn't usually just get to run wide-open like that. It was a beautiful day and I enjoyed visiting with my Mom & Granny too. Below is a slideshow of some of the visit at Granny's house:




So then we drove home. Sunday morning either Raegan didn't wake up until 10am or she woke-up at her normal 7:45am and I was sleeping so hard I didn't know it... so she went back to sleep. Regardless, we missed church because we slept too long. But it was another beautiful day. So we went back down to the playground. She finally got back on it again! Maybe since we were the only ones down there. But she still wouldn't get back on the big slide. Here is a slideshow of pictures of that:



Then after playing on the playground, it occured to me that I had never taken Raegan onto the tennis courts. I need to get her used to tennis! She enjoyed playing on the courts. She has become very silly lately. And until the tennis courts, she has seemed to be scared of stickers of all things. But on the tennis court she decided to use a sticker to be silly. You'll see in the pictures (another slideshow):

Finally, I have to show you what I worked on during the weekend while Raegan was asleep. It may not look like much work but it really was! I haven't built anything since Raegan was born. So this was fun to use all my tools and some creativity again! And to do something custom for my son, Hudson!

I started with this piece of wood...

And using a Table Saw, Jig Saw, Miter Saw, Brad Nailer, Router, Paint Brush (with Stain & poly), I made this (I know I could have bought something similar for maybe cheaper and less effort):

Have a good week!

Weekend Update

Hello friends! Thanks for reading our updates each week! It's nice to know that our friends and family are keeping up with us in some way, even if we don't get to talk to each of you every week. Let us know what's going on with you! This week, we really enjoyed our new small group (Bible study) on Tues. night. We're glad to be a part of a group again, now that we've decided not to move away from Smyrna/Mableton so soon. Our new babysitter, Leslie, was awesome and we feel very fortunate that she is available to us. Raegan liked her immediately, and there were no tears. Yea! Tony worked late preparing for CFA seminar on Wed. night and then played poker in the neighborhood on Thursday night. I think he enjoyed meeting some of the newer guys in the neighborhood. He came home with empty pockets, but a full stomach, which is the same thing I could say for myself after Bunko night!

Nana and Papa (Tony's parents) visited with us on Saturday. We took Raegan, our dogs, and "Bai-yee" (their dog, Bailey) down to the playground for a few. Drew came down with his dad, too. I wonder if Raegan and Drew expect to see each other at the playground now since they are usually down there at the same time. We went out to Stoney River Steakhouse (yum) for Nana's birthday, and I think that was Raegan's first white tablecloth experience. She behaved well, and ended up providing entertainment to some of the surrounding tables with her dancing (in her highchair). She of course tried to clean the tablecloth after spreading her food all over it, and even polished the silver. Too bad she probably left half her meal under the table. Happy Birthday early, Nana!



There is a stuffed cow at the Chick-fil-A daycare (big surprise), and Raegan has started greeting it each morning and afternoon when she and Tony pass by the bench it sits on. She likes to sit next to it and chat for a bit. I even witnessed this on Wed. when I picked her up. Tony captured one of their moments on his phone this week:



Bristo and Luci don't get the attention that they used to get back when they were our only babies. I think they can sense that another baby is coming, which will bump them down even further in the pecking order. They've compensated by bonding with each other lately.



This last picture is one that Laura sent from a couple weeks ago when we got together for a Friday morning playdate (wonderful thing about having Fridays off from work!). This is Hannah, Zach, and Raegan. I think Hannah looks just like Angela (her mom) in this pic -so cute! Hannah and Zach both have younger siblings, so Raegan is hopefully going to learn a thing or two from them. Raegan loves going in Laura's kitchen - she says, "eat eat" everytime she goes in there, b/c she knows she'll get great snacks!

Children's Museum

This past week was a normal work week. Friday, Hannah took Raegan to two different playgroups. Over the weekend, Hannah went out to eat with Carrie and I played in a Flag Football game between my team at work and the HelpDesk team. We lost and I took a knee shot to my leg and it is still hurting.

We have decided to join another Small Group with Buckhead Church. We're actually joining a group that has two couples from one of our previous small groups in it (the McCants and the Smiths). Tuesday night will be our first night meeting with the group. It is also our first night leaving Raegan with a non-family babysitter. We feel good about the new babysitter (actually there are 2 sisters who will alternate babysitting on Tuesday nights... and they live in our neighborhood).

Raegan is getting more and more silly. And her vocabulary is really growing! Below are two shots from my camera phone on the way home from work. She was playing some strange version of peek-a-boo.

She would say... "Where's Raegan...", "Where's Raegan..."...

Then she would turn and say "Boooo!" (she thought this was sooo funny)


On our last post, we told you about our new neighborhood playground. Raegan still likes it. We had the idea of using socks as gloves since she won't keep mittens on. Believe it or not, she likes socks on her hands. And they're pretty functional! So those are her new mittens.



Raegan likes to read in the car some now. I guess that's a good thing. In this shot it looks like we keep the straps really tight around her face. I think it's just the way the picture looks.


On Saturday morning, we took Raegan to the Children's Museum by Centennial Park. She was a little cautious at first but once she got comfortable, I think she really enjoyed it. I'm not sure my photography really captured the experience so well... but here is a slideshow... (I feel like our camera is not taking really good pictures lately)

Rock Bands & Playgrounds

Before this weekend, we didn't think we'd have any pictures to post. It was a pretty uneventful week. But you'll see below we have some things from the weekend. We still haven't fully decided on a name for our boy. We're getting close though!

I've been trying to get back healthy after the holidays. I've started running again and on Friday morning, I started back the weekly swim training with Chick-fil-A. It was tough. I haven't swam like that since the triathlon!

On the thought of health, I participated in a health screening at Chick-fil-A on Monday. Then on Friday, we had a lunch-n-learn to get our results & an expert talked about how to understand them. All was good for me... my overall cholesterol is only 144.

On Thursday for lunch, my brother brought his two kids, Thomas & Ava, to eat lunch with me at Chick-fil-A. That's worthy to mention in this blog because that never happens! They are welcome to come down anytime they want but I know Jason stays really busy. I guess we still look more alike than we admit - my co-workers always act like they're freaked out!

For Hannah, she has been really busy with work... one of her clients, Nortel, filed for bankruptcy. This seems to have caused a lot of extra work for Hannah. I can't explain it all... but I know this is just one of the clients Hannah deals with and she has been juggling a lot with all of that. (she's working right now!)

On Saturday we did a little shopping around. Bought a few more things for our boy's room. Raegan decided it was fun to push and ride the Little Mermaid car (from Nana & Papa) around the house over and over.


Then Saturday night, we went to Carrie and Chad's house to eat and play Rock Band. We had never played before but we hear people talk about how fun it is. Well... it is fun! Whoever thought of the concept was genius! So in this band, we had a lawyer, an accountant & two technology geeks... so the idea of us all rocking is pretty funny to me. Raegan was good on the drums!

This slideshow is a few pictures from us rocking out!



Then on Sunday we went to Church (Raegan has really started enjoying her Waumba Land class). Before going to Church, Raegan had to push the Little Mermaid car around the house some more.

But she stopped to watch a little Sesame Street.


I don't know if you noticed in one of the pictures above, but Raegan has been doing the Michael Jordon with her tongue lately. But she's not dunking baskets.


We think she's teething more so her nose is running and her mouth hurts and for some reason she does that thing with her tongue. You can see in this cute picture of Raegan (below) that she has more teeth in her mouth.


After church, and Raegan's nap, Raegan sat and watched a little football with me. I don't know why... because I'm not fanatical about football, but Raegan really likes football on TV. (maybe it's because football looks awesome on our new LCD TV with High Definition coming in through our new Dish service. Yes I'm proud)


Then Brian & I played tennis while Hannah, Raegan, Karen & Drew played on our neighborhood's new playground. We broke from tennis to play a little too. The playground is really nice! We're lucky it is right across the street from our house!

This slideshow is some of the playground activity.



Then we all went to Los Bravos to eat. I guess we go there too often because Raegan automatically knows that Elmo is always lying (almost dead looking) in the window 2 stores down from the restaurant. See below...


Seeing Elmo like that didn't bother Raegan & Drew too long... because then they started dancing.


... I hope your week has been good!

Furniture for our Boy!

Well we've checked something off our to-do list! We finally bought furniture for our baby boy's room! We still don't have a name figured out but at least he'll have a place to sleep.

We started out saying we would just buy a cheaper crib and maybe a chest of drawers. We already borrowed a changing table from the Martin's, so we really didn't anything else. But then as we started looking for cribs and reading reviews, we decided we wanted to get another crib just like Raegan's - except a darker stain. The thing we like about Raegan's is that it has a drop gate. So it's as sturdy as a stationary crib but it has the benefit of a drop-side.

I found a really good sale in Columbus, GA that carried Raegan's crib. So we drove down to buy that crib in a cherry stain to match the changing table we borrowed.

They had some really good deals and somehow we left with a full suit. We really like it and it is definitely worth the price we paid. But we bought a lighter stain and it is stationary. I left feeling a little bit like we compromised our mission but now that we have the pieces home, I like it even more. This is the same maker as Raegan's crib - Baby's Dream.

We don't have the room put together yet, but below are pictures of the pieces we got. Hannah even got them to throw into the deal this really nice bedding set. See below...

On Friday, Raegan had a playdate with Drew.

Raegan spent the night with Hannah's parents last night. This was partly so we could go pick-up that furniture in Columbus. I think Raegan had a lot of fun. Hannah's Mom is supposed to be "Grammy" but I think Raegan may have decided she's "Mimi".

We came back to pick-up Raegan today and to hangout for the monthly Lewis family gathering. I took a few pictures but they mostly turned out fuzzy. I'm not sure what happened. Below are two shots of Raegan playing the piano over there.

Earlier this week, Hannah had another doctor appointment and she and baby are still doing well. We're officially at 30 weeks! He'll be here before we know it!! But what are we going to call him??

Maybe somehow by our next post, we'll have a name figured out! Have a good week!

Happy New Year!

Wow, is it really 2009? We have just completed the last Christmas and New Year with Raegan as an only child. She's gotten a lot of attention this year from family, especially Tony and I (you're thinking, obviously - take a look at these blog posts)! Part of me is sad that she will be sharing 2009 and the rest of her life with a sibling, but the rest of me is excited for her to experience the joy that comes from having a brother. Being a big sister is a privilege that I'm very happy Raegan will be blessed with. I wonder if she'll get the bossy-big-sister-trait from her mommy?

We've decided it's time to make some big decisions to start out the new year, and the first one is to take our house off the market. The sign will be coming down tomorrow, and thus will end Tony's obsession with keeping our house perfect every minute of the day on the off-chance that someone wants to look at it (phew!). I must say that Tony did a GREAT job preparing our house to be sold, and I'm proud of how it looks and how organized we are now. I don't think it was time wasted, since we still plan to move in the near future. For now, I am thrilled to be having our 2nd child in Vinings Place, where many of my good friends are having their 2nd children around the same time. I think the support from our neighbors will be something we would have really missed if we had moved.

Now we're on to baby furniture, decorating the nursery, deciding if we need a minivan (yes, I said it. We might end up with one, but it will be driven by Tony more than me).

Here is a re-cap of our New Year's festivities. Tony's brother and his family (Jason, Mina, Thomas, and Ava) spent New Year's Eve with us. We ate the trad'l black-eyed peas and greens (thanks to Mina!) along with a bunch of other food. Then the kids got ready for bed, and we rang in the New Year with them a little early (around 9pm). After that, the parents enjoyed a card game and rang in the New Year with Dick Clark. I hope we can make this a tradition for our families - I had a lot of fun!





Raegan is learning to wink (sort of), and Tony took these pictures during breakfast one morning.





Lastly, I went out on Friday night with my college friends to celebrate Huong's birthday. We went to Straits, a new restaurant co-owned by Ludacris. The food was very good. I now know not to sit sideways for pictures, especially not while pregnant!