Brady's New Best Friend

Yes, I know that's bold, but that's what we told Brady when we were scrambling to get to the hospital last night to welcome Mr. Pierce McCord to the world! Joanna and Justin recieved news yesterday around 3:00 that Pierce needed to come that night. They were to be at the hospital at 5:00 to check in and had to have decided whether or not to have a C-Section or to Induce labor! I can't imagine the pressure of having that choice. Fortunately for Jeff and I, we weren't given a choice, so we were never faced with that decision, let alone forced to make it in an hour and a half!!!

Needless to say, they opted with a c-section, and she did great!! Last night when we left, she was just a 'bit' sore across her tummy, but other than that she said it was super easy! Jeff went and got Brady from my parents' house around 10:30 and brought him up to the hospital to meet Pierce. I think he was kind of confused because he had just been woken up!

Enjoy the pictures! Congratulations Justin and Joanna! We're are just tickled to death for you all! Brady can't wait to play!

Playing the Waiting Game

The Soon-to-Be-Aunt and Soon-to-Be-Grandma

Killing time before it's time to go in!

The New McCord

Proud Daddy

Justin was showing his nephew, Will, his new cousin Pierce. Will had been so worried about "Aunt Jo" ever since they had gotten there. It was terribly cute!

A New Friend.

So, I went to get my haircut tonight and Jeff watched the Little Bug. I sat down while I was waiting and recieved this picture on my phone! If anyone knows Georgia at all.... you know this is HER friend, Maxwell. She has slept with him EVERY night for three years. She can't go to sleep unless he's on the bed with her. Seriously.

Jeff said he was outside with Georgia and came back inside and Brady was leaning way over to the side, reaching for something... and that something was Max. It's SOOO nasty, but I'm glad he got a picture of it before he took him away! (He was apparently watching Baby Einstein too!)

The Friendly Giraffe

So after much trial and error, we ended up going with a Giraffe costume for Halloween. We were originally thinking Charlie Brown, then Jeff wanted him to be an elephant (guess what for?) and then we settled on getting a costume from Pottery Barn Kids because we had a gift certificate there and Halloween costumes can get pricey!! Especially the ones that are so darn cute!! So we're trying it with different colors of shirts on underneath every day... and today was gray. He was in a particularly good mood (a.k.a. he was putting up with me changing him into his costume) so I decided to go ahead and snap some pictures. I was going to try to save them until after Halloween, but they were too cute not to share!

**He's trying to put his foot in his mouth in this picture. It's his new thing. I think he'd ROCK at Yoga!

Sick Boy!

This weekend, we went to a friend of Brady's birthday party... Holice Pegram! He was so funny eating his cake! He neatly picked all of the icing off of it and was taking his time enjoying it! It was a beautiful day so we had a great time hanging out in the back yard with some friends!!







On Saturday night, Jeff's friend from New Orleans that he met on a Mission Trip last year came into town to meet with some ministers from Prestonwood. He runs a ministry out of New Orleans that does church planting. He and his wife just had a baby about 3 months ago and he's already 15 pounds! That's about Brady's size and he's half his age!! Apparently he was 9 pounds when he was born and his wife broke her tailbone in delivery!! Ahh!! So glad the Bug was small and I didn't have to go through anything like that! We went and ate at a BBQ place in Coppell that was pretty yummy!! The boys were stuffed!!!

Jeff and Joanna compared their feet. 

Poor Joanna... They look like they hurt SO bad!

When we were at the restaurant, Brady slept the entire time... which is so not like him. He usually is 'relaxed' when we're out at night time, but he's definitely alert and taking it all in. When we got him home, he was running a temperature. And on Sunday, he was not acting like himself all day long. He sucked on his pacifier all day and wouldn't really want to play with anything. The McCord's watched him for us last night while we went to our last parenting class and Joanna said he really didn't even want his bottle for a while and he didn't take more than 2 bites of his solid food! Poor Baby!! He looks better this morning, but we're playing it safe and staying put today. I'm definitely getting more smiles out of him today though. He's been sitting in his booster seat at the table the past few days... he looks like such a big boy! I love it!!

October 24th.

Friday marked the 10th anniversary of Jeff and I's first date. (He's probably going to kill me for some of the things you're about to see!!) Ever since we've gotten married and have a "real" anniversary, we've always kind of just said, "Oh, it's our anniversary!" when October 24th rolls around, but this year, Jeff remembered it was our 10th! About a month ago, we were in the car and he looked at me and said, "Can you believe we've been together for 10 years?" I couldn't believe he put that together! Maybe I don't give him enough credit, right? :)

So, a little bit on our history... Jeff and I met probably 12-13 years ago at Youth Choir at our church, Prestonwood. We were friends and kind of ran around in the same circle at church. (I say circle because I think it proves better for the church than "cliche", anyone agree?) So anyway, he dated a few different girls while I knew him and I dated a few different guys... yes, mostly his best friends to this day. But one day, out of the blue, it just clicked. I don't know if that would be his testimony to it, but for me, it was like suddenly a light went off and I all of a sudden thought that I wanted to maybe date this guy that I had known for a while. (Hey, it hadn't worked out with the other ones, right?)

So, he went to my high school homecoming as another girl's date and I of course went with my best friend at the time, Drew. When I arrived at the dance, Jeff and I hung out all night long and kind of lost our dates. I know, that's so rude and I will always tell Brady that he needs to stay with his date at a dance, but it all worked out in this situation, right? So that night, Jeff asked me to go to his high school dance which was two weeks later... October 24th. Our first official date!

So on Friday, what did we decide to do? We went on our first date again. We drove all the way out to Frisco and ate at La Hacienda Ranch, just like we did that night 10 years ago. We skipped the dance part, but we drove straight to 7-11 to get slurpees (just like that night) and we went to the park where Jeff asked me to be his girlfriend. I know it sounds so cheesy, but we had a wonderful time reliving some of our most favorite (and least favorite) memories of the past 10 years. Everywhere we drove, we were reminded of an event, a joke, a movie, a date, a fight or a kiss. We drive by these places all the time and never think anything of it, but tonight was different. We were on a mission.

When we got back home, I had retrieved ALL of our 'junk' that we'd accumulated from each other over the past 10 years. I know that this isn't near all of it, because Jeff used to make me stuff all of the time for our 'month' anniversaries. For my 17th birthday, he recorded me a tape. This isn't just a mix tape, people. He SANG on this tape for me. (If any of you do not know, Jeff has an incredibly beautiful voice and was the lead in all of the christmas muscials back in the day. He's super modest about this now and doesn't want anyone to know... so if I can find a way to get this tape on my computer, I will!! I want to hear it again!) I think we killed a rainforest or two with all of the paper we wrote on and cards we bought! I surprised we didn't put Hallmark out of business! I can't believe how serious we were about each other. We were absolutely CRAZY in love. Jeff wrote me poems, ya'll! POEMS!! (I asked Jeff about this because it doesn't happen anymore and he told me that he thinks he probably copied them from a book or something!) Regardless, we had a wonderful time going through our old pictures, memories, etc.

We ALSO had a great time because Jeff surprised me with the very best anniversary present ever! On Friday, the partners at his law firm walked into his office and made him a job offer for when he graduates! Yay!! This has been a long time prayer request for us and we are so appreciative of everyone being so encouraging during this time! Thank you to all of our prayer warriors out there!! We are tremendously blessed, and we have learned a ton about ourselves and our marriage during our season of waiting! We almost don't know what to do now that it's over!

The night we 'hit it off' at TCA Homecoming

(with Jeff's date - Melody)

All of our "Junk" that has been accumulated.

This is a picture of a picture, so it's really glare-y, 

but I just had to show Jeff in his Zuit Suit!

Jeff's Football Button - His Junior Year

Like I said, Jeff was the star of all of the Christmas Musicals.

This one was "For Unto Ya'll" and he was Gabe. (Gabriel?)

This was the "first" picture we took together when we 

liked each other. It was the week between my Homecoming

and his dance. He was going on a date with someone else the next night

so he was coming over to make sure I was okay with it. :)

A Poem Jeff claims he copied. (I think he's just trying to

get out of writing new ones!)

Just SOME of the cards from our collection.

The tape that Jeff made me for my 17th Birthday. 

Verse of the Day

"Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life-in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing." Phil 2:15-17


Thanks to my friend Missy, I searched for Jon and Kate's website last night during their new episode. (Which was totally cute, by the way). If you haven't been to their updated website, it is wonderful and it gives me goosebumps thinking about the impact that they can have for the Kingdom of God.

Anyway, I clicked under devotionals and Kate is apparently trying to post one of their favorite verses once a week for a year (Labor Day 2008- Labor Day 2009) and a devotional that she teaches the kids along with it.

Under one of the devotionals (I actually think it's the current one), it had Phillippians 2:15 "Do everything without complaining or arguing". I thought, "Wow, do I need that verse every moment of every day or what?" But what is even more interesting, is when I went to re-read it this morning in my Bible, I read the entire sentence and it struck me differently. There is a REASON we are supposed to live this way. I tend to think of this verse as more of a "nice thought" than actual scripture, but how blasphemous is that? It IS scripture. It IS God-Breathed, God-Inspired, God-Ordained.

As Jeff and I experience what seems like a long season of waiting, I would like my life to look like this. I would like our marriage to look like this. I would like our parenting to look like this... and eventually I would like Brady's life to look like this, despite seeing both of his parents continuing to fail at it.

I hope you are as inspired by this passage as I was this morning. What would the world look like if all Christians lived life this way?

The Weekend!

Not too many stories from this weekend, except that Jeff and I realized last night that we had a 'date' every night this weekend! We went to our parenting class last night, and they keep track of dates for a prize, and they count home dates which are just times you spend together after the little one goes to bed. Friday night, we went to dinner and then played games with some friends while Brady slept in their guest bedroom. (I would have won, too, if people didn't stretch answers on Scattegories). Then Saturday night we watched a lot of the football game and ate dinner together after Brady went to bed. I would love to say that's a normal thing for us, but right now we usually put Brady to bed and then either get in bed ourselves or watch separate t.v. shows. (I am in love with reality television and Jeff is in love with campaign coverage). That's another thing in itself. Anyway, we had a pretty good weekend together... and we have a big date coming up this weekend, too! And this one is a 'real' one! I'll have to post more on that later!!



Anyway, one of the days we walked to the park last week, it was definitely cool enough for the Bug to wear his cool Patagonia vest that Crazy Uncle Cam gave him when he was born. It's getting a little snug, so we wear it every chance we get! On Friday, we didn't have time for a real bath, so we did our first 'spit bath' in the sink. We tried these when we went to Destin, but they weren't so easy because he wasn't sitting up by himself. But Friday, it was SUPER easy. (I know, it's dangerous when I say things like that, but this time it really was!) He got a little distracted by all that was going on around him, but for the most part just chewed on his two bath toys I threw in there with him!




Saturday, we went to Mackenzie's birthday party. She has a ton of boy friends, but I tell Brady that he's her favorite. (Never-mind the 6 months age difference!) No offense Jack, Holice, or Collin! :) Is she not absolutely adorable in her tu-tu?! Brady loved to play, but since he was the youngest one there, he would definitely get left behind when a new toy was more interesting. :) For the most part, he loved this play center thing that Mackenzie had! We all had lots of fun and so enjoyed watching all the kids open Mackenzie's gifts!!