My Life: Sad Times and Happy Times

I've always heard the saying "It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all" I guess I always thought of it as talking about romantic love but now I think it applies to anything you love deeply. Pat and I got Bailey (our black lab) my freshman year of college (I gave her to Pat for our 3 year anniversary dating) and have in the last 7 years fallen in love with her. She has been a part of so much of our lives. Two weeks ago she was hit by a car and killed and we are just devastated. This was the first animal Pat or I have ever been close to... she slept in our room, watched movies on the couch and was pretty much a spoiled rotten, huge part of our lives. She could do so many cool tricks... If you said "Would your rather be a Auburn fan or a dead dog" she would play dead, if you said "Roll Tide" she barked, you could point to a door and tell her to shut it and she would... We really loved her... So as we are heading into a new exciting part of our lives and adding 2 people to our family...we lost one we loved very much. So as incredibly hard it is to let go, I am so glad we had 7 great years with her... So the first few are some of my favorite pictures of Bailey.

Preparing for the babies... 9 months to get ready...wow and it is really flying by. We only have 9 weeks from Friday before they will be here!!! That is so soon!!! We are so excited and can't wait to finally meet them. I can feel them moving like crazy and I absolutely love it. I had no idea how incredible it would be to have life inside me. (and 2 lives at that!!) I really do love them already so much I can't even imagine what it will be like when they get here!! They say our house should be ready in about 7 weeks...that's right...best case scenario we've got 2 weeks to move in :) We'll see!! Either way it will be fine... the babies won't know the difference and from what I hear about the first month they are home...WE won't either!!

So anyone who knows me knows I am NOT a morning person. I work for myself...sleep till I wake up and try to never schedule an appointment before 10... With that said I have been waking up (wide awake) at 3:00-4:00 in the morning a lot lately and I can't go back to sleep! I'm not in pain, hot or anything...just awake. One of my friends said this is God's way of preparing me for motherhood... So I have been trying to enjoy it and have watched more sunrises this month than I probably have my entire life :) And man are they beautiful. So I've had some great "additional" time to spend in prayer and thinking about the year to come... Pat really likes the "morning Alyson" as he calls me, because I fix him breakfast and hang out with him before work. It's still rare but I imagine it might be more frequent in the upcoming months:)

So here's some pictures of what's been going on in our lives lately.

A favorite picture of Bailey

This was the night we got her.

Her "I'm Daddys dog" t-shirt...she was a fatty so she didn't get to many more clothes after this one.

In College on Game Day

Our Birthday goodies made my Ashton

Birthday Pictures

We are 25 and 27 this year!!

My 2 sisters (one to-be in May)

My last picture of Bailey at our birthday party

Since our birthdays are one day apart, we shared our cake :)

Callie's already One!!

One of the Sun Rises I have seen this summer (a beautiful view from our rental cabin)

Flowers from Brittany :) I love flowers!!

My friend Cara's new baby Casen!!

Rick and Coleen on 4th of July

Bellies!!

We are living in a space ship...Don't you like silver houses??

25 weeks pregnant

Coleens maternity pictures :)

Isn't that the sweetest

HaHa

Newest ultrasound pics...Thank you Ashton... She's sucking her thumb.

She's waving to us!!

This is the one on top and she sat with her legs stretched completely out the whole ultrasound while her poor sister is scrunched on the bottom!!! Seeing personalities already!!