Happy Birthday to Ryan!!

Ryan turned 32 on Monday, May 16th. We had a fun party with our small group friends on Sunday night and then we celebrated together at Park Cafe on Monday evening for dinner and then went to Cheesecake Factory for dessert. Park Cafe is our special place - we went there the night Ryan proposed, the night of our wedding, several anniversaries, the night we found out Madison Claire was a girl, the night before Madison Claire was born, and now the night of Ryan's birthday and the night before our sweet baby boy is born. We enjoyed the time reminiscing and thinking about how much God has blessed our family. Happy Birthday to my sweet husband...

39 weeks

Last Day of School, Last Day of Work

Friday, May 13th was my last day of work before my maternity leave and Ryan's last day at CPA. I woke up that morning and felt like shouting out "last day of school, last day of work" to the tune of Nemo in Finding Nemo when he wakes up and shouts "first day of school, first day of school"...you get the idea.

Congrats, Meredith!!!

Meredith graduated from Samford University on Friday, May 14th. We weren't able to go because it was so close to the due date, but we were there in spirit. She is going to be working for a church in Birmingham, AL with their middle school & high school girls. She is going to be FABULOUS in that role - I wish I had had a Meredith to walk alongside me when I was that age.

Congratulations, Meredith!! We are proud of you!!!

Last Weekend as 3

This past weekend was our last weekend as a family of 3! It was filled with mixed emotions for me - anticipation of the new baby, sadness that it wouldn't just be Madison Claire anymore, excitement for Madison Claire to grow up with a sibling, and overall emotional about what these changes would mean for our family. We had planned to take Madison Claire to the zoo on Saturday but when we woke up, it was cold and looked like it was going to rain so we opted for Monkey Joe's instead...Madison Claire had a BALL! Afterwards, we went to McDougals for lunch.

We feel so blessed to have our sweet Madison Claire Bear and are looking forward to seeing her grow as a big sissy!

Big Girl Potty

She is still going!!!

Money

Madison Claire has discovered money. On Easter Sunday, she saw a coin underneath a chair at the McSwains house so we let her pick it up and she has wanted "money" ever since then. She goes to Annie's purse and pulls out her wallet to get to the coins and when she does something that we give her praise for, she'll usually ask for a sucker, M&Ms, bubbles, and now she has added money to the list! Usually it's in the order of bubbles, sucker, M&M, money....we know that will change one day!

Anyway - every night before she goes to bed, we'll say our prayers and read a bible story. For the prayers, I start by saying "Thank you God for...." and Madison Claire fills in the blank. Well, last night, after all of the normals (annie, daddy, mommy, baby brother, bear-bear, Jesus) usually in that order she looked at me and said "money". And I just said yes sweetie...thank you God for money. It was precious!