It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!!

John and I are so excited that football season is finally here!!! Back by popular demand, I have posted a video of John at the Auburn Tiger Walk in Gainesville, Florida when Auburn played them last September. This was probably my most popular post last year, but since my blog got deleted in early spring, I felt it necessary to post it again. Every time I watch it I cannot stop laughing. He is an absolute nut! People that have watched it still talk about it when they see us. So I hope this gives you a good Friday laugh! We are headed to Auburn for the weekend to stay with Shealy and Clayton...YAY!!

The funniest part is that John didn't know I was recording him until the end. Yes, that is truly how he acts at big tiger walks...he will make our son so proud one day :)

20 Weeks Down!!

It is hard to believe that I am half way done being pregnant and Caddy will be here in just 4 1/2 months! We have not taken any bump shots yet, but I decided to take this one yesterday because when I got home from work John told me I looked "for real pregnant." I felt I needed to document such an occasion :) I hope I look for real pregnant. We saw a for real baby in there on Monday!

Caddy Is A...

BOY!!! We are so SO excited to announce that we are having a little boy! We both agreed that today was such an amazing day. I have been feeling girl up until Saturday and then I changed my mind to boy. Neither one of us could have cared less what Caddy was, but I knew secretly John would love for a boy to come first! While we were doing the ultrasound, at the very beginning Caddy had his ankles crossed and his legs were mostly together. I immediately assumed it was a girl because I didn't see anything right away. The lady kept doing some measurements and I could see that John was really trying to tell what it was. All of a sudden It's A BOY!!! popped up on the screen and I immediately had tears rolling down my face and John was grinning ear to ear. It was definitely the most incredible feeling and one I know I will never forget. We feel so incredibly blessed by the Lord for this precious miracle!

This is my favorite picture we got from the ultrasound today-his little feet!
We had our parents over at 6:30 for dessert to share our news. We told them not to call beforehand because we would not tell them :) I stole such a fun idea from Shealy's sister, Sarah Martin, and made cupcakes and iced them pink and blue. When everyone was here, we had each parent pick the color that they thought it was.

My mom immediately chose pink. I think her decision kind of swayed my dad because from the beginning he had said boy, but he picked a pink cupcake. John's mom chose blue because both her and my mom both had boys first and on both sides of their family, Stephanie is the only girl out of 11 grandchildren. When she stated those statistics, John's dad chose a pink cupcake because I guess he thought with those odds, it was bound to be a girl.
We then went and put a blue ribbon around Bentley's neck and let him run out to tell everyone that a boy was coming to live in our house come January!

Once they saw the ribbon, everyone started screaming and got really excited. We showed them the DVD of Caddy's ultrasound. It was so neat to show them everything the nurse had shown us. You can even hear the heartbeat on the DVD which is very cool.
So that is our news! We couldn't be happier!! I have not felt Caddy kick yet but John informed me that he thinks the first time we will feel HIM kick will be on Saturday at Tiger Walk...he said that is what Auburn does to people :)

ANXIOUS!!

Tomorrow is the big day! We have our big doctor appointment tomorrow at 3:30 complete with our 2nd and last ultrasound before Caddy is born. It is so crazy to think that we will know this time tomorrow if Caddy will be a boy or girl. We are super excited and I probably won't sleep tonight! Please pray for us tomorrow that everything would go great tomorrow! And of course we will post the big news tomorrow night!

SO excited, yet SO sad

So my best friend Shealy is PREGNANT!!! I have been patiently awaiting the day when I could talk out in the open about this. I am so incredibly excited for her and Clayton. Now that John and I are over our intial terror and shock at the thought of bringing a little baby into the world, it makes us realize what an incredibly awesome time this is for our marriage and what an absolute blessing it is from the Lord. I could want nothing more for Shealy. And, on a more selfish note, I am super excited that Caddy will have a friend in Auburn that will be so close to his/her age. Football season will be so much more crazy fun next year!! How crazy is this, now that Shealy announced her news, this makes every Language Lion from last year (my team at Drake) pregnant! I am due January 14, Jenny is due March 7, Shealy is due March 27, and Katie is due April 14. I keep thinking how funny it would be if I were still there and then every team's language teacher would be pregnant and due within a few months of each other. We could just all walk our pregnant selves around the halls together...we would probably be the laughing stock at Drake...but we sure would be cute! The only thing that is bittersweet about Shealy being pregnant is that we are not still in Auburn so we could experience this together. Good thing football starts next weekend and we will be seeing lots of the McKinnons :)

The Newest Addition to the Vakakes Family

No, Caddy has not made his/her appearance just yet! Sweet Baby James was born last Tuesday, August 5. He belongs to EJ (John's cousin) and Helena. I forgot my camera when we went to visit them at the hospital so today when we went to visit I made sure to get some pictures. He is absolutely precious. He is such a snuggler and slept in my arms or John's arms the entire time we were there. I think he only woke up once in 3 hours! He has such a cute little button nose. I cannot wait for Caddy and James to grow up together and play together with all of their future cousins (no pressure Jimmy and Mary! and Tim!)

Vakakes' Voyagers

I am officially in the land of 5th grade...and it is awesome!!! Let me introduce you to Mrs. Vakakes' Voyagers...here is a picture of my sweet, precious babies on the first day of school. The Lord definitely has blessed me with an amazing class of kiddos. I have 21 students and so far, so good. They are polite, respectful, hard workers, encouraging of others, and very interested in all that I have to say. What happens during the summer between 5th and 6th grade??? Just wanted to let you know I survived my first few days of school. I have been more tired than usual, but I think any teacher feels that way the first week of school. I absolutely love having the same kids all day. It feels more structured to me and my room stays much cleaner. I am missing all of my Drake folks very badly though, especially this week. But I am very thankful to have a great job that I look forward!!

Weekend To-Do List

1. Get classroom and self prepared for the first day of school...check
2. Grocery shop for back to work food...check
3. Do laundry...half-check
4. Cut the grass before we lose Bentley...check
5. Frame a wall in the bonus room...HECK YEAH...check!

That's right. John framed a wall in the bonus room this weekend. You are probably confused. The bonus room was framed when we moved here, but there is a corner space that was only framed half-way. We aren't sure what they were doing, but the AC guy is coming out this week to install the central heating and air unit and we needed the wall to be framed so he could mount everything. I have dreaded the process of getting the bonus room finished. I made John promise that he would have it done by the time football season rolled around for 2 reasons-1)It has got to be finished before we can begin the nursery and 2)John will be worthless on the weekends once football is here-and we will be in Auburn most of those weekends anyways. Two weeks ago an electrician came out and put in a phone line and cable outlet up there. I was relieved the process had started, but I did not think he would get a wall framed this weekend. John and Jamie went to Home Depot on Saturday morning to buy all necessary supplies which included a miter saw and a bunch of wood. He said he felt more manly just buying the saw...before he had even used it :) Against my better judgement, I left to run some errands just as he was getting started. To my surprise, he was almost finished when I got home. It took him about 2 hours to complete and I am most proud of him!! Who knew he was so handy!!

Measuring the wood...


Sawing the wood...


Framing the wall...

More Presents for Caddy!

Orange and Blue of course. Our sweet friend, Jamie Trussle, came into town yesterday afternoon and had dinner with us and spent the night(he was our first overnight guest!!). Today he is catching a ride with another friend to Dallas where he will get all of his things and move to Memphis where he is starting work for an inner-city ministry for kids. Jamie is awesome. John and Jamie were pledge brothers and they have been great friends all through college. He surprised us when he got here with a few gifts for Caddy. Can you tell he is hoping it will be a boy?! At any rate, one thing is clear. Caddy will be an Auburn fan-there is no hope. Between his dad, his dad's cousins, and his dad's friends like Jamie, I am sure this is only the beginning of the Auburn loot.

EXHAUSTED

I have never been this exhausted in my ENTIRE life, and I am not even sure that being pregnant has anything to do with it. I do know that being a slacker all summer is now haunting me. School starts with kids on Monday. This entire week and four days of last week have been spent in workshops. I have had zero time from 8-3 each day to work in my classroom which made me feel very overwhelmed yesterday. It is my own fault for not getting to work as soon as I knew where I was going to be. I have quickly realized that it is tough going from not doing anything all summer to being so busy you have no time to do anything! I have not gotten home before 6 any night this week. John has been such a help-he has come straight after work the past 2 days and helped me with final touches to my classroom. It is coming together and there isn't much left to be done. I am trying to keep it simple since I will be moving classrooms sometime this fall. Preparing for 5th grade is so much different than 6th. There are lots of things that I never did for my 6th graders because there were so many of them. Since I will now only have 22 students, there is much more to be done! And I love it!! I cannot wait to start on Monday. It is getting to Monday that is killing me.

3 More Weeks!!!

Until we know if Caddy is a boy or a girl!!! I cannot believe it is only 3 weeks away. It seems like we just found out we were going to have a baby and now I am almost 17 weeks. Crazy, Crazy. We are super excited to find out, although John informed me that he will refer to the baby as Caddy until the day he/she makes their appearance and is formally named :)

Bentley's Condo

After we moved into our house, we encountered a problem. The wood baby gate that we purchased when we first got Bentley was too short to fit in the doorways of our kitchen and dining room to block them off. It was our original plan that he would stay in the kitchen while we were gone, but with no baby gates, we have kept him in the guest bathroom while we are away. Poor thing...it is like the size of a small closet in there and it just looks cramped with his bed, food, and some toys. I went to several pet stores looking to buy larger pet gates. They do not sell the oversized ones in regular stores. We started looking on the internet when we realized these things are not cheap! But we knew we had to order some before I went back to work so he could be left in a larger area. Leaving him to roam was not an option. He has not had an accident on the floor in the new house and I do not anticipate one either. We paid $130 for these steel, pressure-mounted gates. John did not want to have to screw into the wall and these were the cheapest we could find-we even got 10% off and free shipping. We tried not to be bitter about the cost and were excited when they arrived. John got them all set up and we put Bentley in there to see what he would do. He quickly found a spot on the side and squeezed himself through. The opening was only 2.5 inches wide, but where there is a will, there's a way. So the next time we left him in there was Friday night when we went to the movies. After we closed the gates, we put blankets over them and then placed a pillow in front on the sides where he potentially could get through. We figured this would work just fine. When we pulled up after the movie, both of us thought we saw his little head in the dark doorway. Our thoughts were confirmed when we came in from the garage. Bentley had just moved the blanket to the side and pushed the pillow over and came on out! At this point we were both MAD at him. We had spent all this money and he was still going to have to be put in the bathroom. My engineer husband thought all weekend about a way to rig the gates up. He came up with plastic ties to create another slat so now he for sure can't get out. We put him in there to see what he would do and he just stared at his normal get-away spot with a look of defeat.

A Day of Dates

Yesterday was my last week day to do absolutely anything that I wanted to. Starting Monday, I will be under contract with Vestavia City Schools and summer life will be over. I can't say that I am not looking forward to it. I have enjoyed the summer to get settled into our house, but the time has come for me to go back to work! I am tired of anticipating what my new school and 5th grade will be like...I am just ready for it to be here and be like October so I am completely in a routine. I was able to meet John for lunch yesterday for the last time for a while. We have done this several times this summer since this is the first job he has had in the same town where we live, so it is pretty easy. I love meeting him for lunch! Then last night we went to the movies and saw The Dark Knight and our dinner was a large buttered popcorn! It doesn't get any better than that! I told him that we go out to dinner all the time, but I haven't felt like we have had a date in a while. Yesterday was the perfect way to wrap up the summer. And if you haven't seen The Dark Knight, we highly recommend it! The special effects were awesome!