Week of firsts...

Good evening everyone!

This was a week of firsts for the McGraw family. Monday, August 22nd, Emily started her third year of teaching at Athens Christian Prep. Tuesday, August 23rd, Macy got her first set of shots. She was such a trooper, and it was honestly harder on Emily than Macy. Macy really took it like a champ, but Tuesday night was a little more difficult than normal probably because she just couldn't get comfortable (Bless her heart!). This is definitely one of my favorite pictures of Macy so far...

Wednesday, August 24th, Macy had her first day of Angel Keepers. She did really well and Mommy and Daddy did alright too, probably because we were all in the same building. She looked so cute her first morning, but Mommy was surprised when she picked Macy up in totally different clothes. Apparently, Macy had spit up all over her original outfit and the extra outfit Mommy had packed. So for tomorrow's day of Angel Keepers, Mommy packed four extra outfits...
The very best thing that has happened this week is that Macy has now started responding with a smile while you are smiling at her! She has been smiling and laughing all the time! Overall, it has been such a wonderful week for us, McGraws. It has been so nice to get into a routine, but also nice that Macy and Mommy still have Tuesdays and Thursdays together. All day today we just cuddled under the covers, slept late and smiled and laughed a lot! Such a wonderful day!

Hope your week was this good! So much love!

First Day of School!

Welcome back everyone! Happy 1st day of school to most Texas students! It was crazy going back to school after this blissful summer with baby Macy, and it was not without it's own set of problems. First of all, I misread my schedule and was late to my first class... Awesome. I heavily rely on powerpoints and the use of technology and my projector, which of course was MIA for my first class. I found another projector by my next class, but of course it decided that it didn't like my computer, or something... So both classes were completely thrown off, but hopefully we can make up time over this week. Right now I am just so tired, stressed, and have a million things on my To-Do list, but I guess that is every teacher!

Me and Macy on my first day of school!

We had a wonderful night, Cliff made us dinner (Caribbean Jerk marinated chicken, with black beans and veggies!) and then we went on a family walk! Another first for today was working out with weights again since I've been pregnant. I couldn't believe how good it felt! I'm really trying to step it up in that area now that I've been cleared by my doctor. At my doctor's appointment last week, I got on the scale (EEK!) and it revealed that I had lost 36 pounds since the day before Macy was born! That is awesome but there is still so much work to be done! Everything kind of settled differently after Macy arrived, and I had really wanted to lose some before but wasn't working out too hard while trying to get pregnant. I have now made a goal to lose 30 pounds by Christmas, and Cliff upped the ante by telling me that if I reached my goal he would get me a special surprise!

 I have had my eye on a pair of these shoes for several years and Cliff knows that, so it was the perfect motivation! He is just the best husband ever, for more reasons than I could ever write on here!

5 generations

So we all know that the beginning of the school year is always hectic. Well, this year let's add a precious little girl to the mix and the only thing that equals is more crazy. We have really been enjoying our little girl, and the past four weeks have really flown by. I swear I mean to get better at blogging, but time just goes so fast! Anyway, I guess with each post I will continue to promise to get better at it. The biggest thing that we have done these past few weeks is visit Midland for the first time. This is where she met most of the McGraws for the first time, including her great-great-grandmother, Ruth a.k.a. Monnie.

From left to right: Molly McGraw (Cliff's sister), Wanda McGraw (Cliff's grandmother), Tim McGraw (Cliff's dad), Ruth Gunter (sitting, Cliff's great-grandmother), Cliff McGraw, Macy McGraw, me, and Terri McGraw (Cliff's mom)

My poor baby girl was in quite the mood that day because she kept on getting passed around and was just beyond tired!

Our little family!

Macy and her Uncle Kenneth!

(Technically he is Cliff's cousin, but we granted him "uncle-hood")

Macy and Bevers (who isn't technically family, but who are we kidding- he's family)

Other than that, we haven't done much different. We enjoy our cuddle days, and being together. She has become so much more alert in the past few weeks, and when she's looking at you it actually looks like she sees you. Every once in a while you will catch her smiling and laughing to herself, which always makes me wonder what's so funny! A new Macy favorite is bath time! She is beyond funny in the bath tub, and I will have to post a video soon! Some of my favorite photos from the past few weeks!

Coming up on the blog:

• My first day of school, and first day working out again!
• Macy's first set of shots (sad day!)
• Macy's first day of "school"
• Beginning some home redecorating
• Cooking! I have felt the need to start cooking. (There are several reasons for this: the need to feel more domestic now that I am a mother, limited restaurant choices in our home town, as well as obvious health and cost reasons) I have found several recipes off of other people's blogs, and Pinterest (oh how I love Pinterest), so I will keep you updated on what we are eating here in the McGraw household! Tonight was outstanding! Cliff grilled chicken seasoned only with lemon and cayenne and I made broccoli from the recipe I found on Pinterest here. Yes, I know next week is the start of school, and yes I know that I am crazy for aspiring to cook every night next week...

So, for all of these these things I will have a reason to blog and so therefore you should be hearing from me a lot more in the coming weeks!

So much love to all of you!

4 Weeks Old!

Many apologies my faithful followers for my lack of blogging! My sweet, precious baby girl is 4 weeks old today, and I say 4 weeks because it sounds better than one month old! I can't believe how fast the time has flown. These past weeks have been filled with sleeping, cuddling, eating, sweet baby kisses, and a plethora of diaper changes.

Dearest Macy, You already have a budding personality, and you are quite the talker. You are constantly grunting and cooing. You talk in your sleep, sometimes so loud that you set off the monitor. Most of the time you sleep in your bed. However, mommy is quite bad at putting you to bed and the fact that you have spent about half of your life away from home, means a lot of times you sleep in my arms in your rocker/recliner chair (worth every penny), or we pull your giraffe pillow (another lifesaver) and put it next to mommy in our bed. I know that a lot of people will give me grief for that, but oh well! You are my little piglet! I've struggled to keep up with you but we make it work! You pretty much set your own schedule, but you've been eating every three and a half to four hours. Sometimes we get lucky and you go about five hours. You do pretty well at night. Last night you ate at 11, woke up at 1, but cuddled up with mommy and slept until 4, ate and went back to sleep until about 8. We slept in your chair together, and then daddy took you to church. You do really well at church, the past two weeks you have been wide awake during the whole service, but you haven't been fussy. The fact is you aren't really fussy at all unless you are hungry, need a diaper change, or want to be held. Luckily, there are many hands that want to hold you and never put you down. You are quite the cuddler, and can literally squeeze yourself into the smallest spaces ever. I call you and your daddy my heaters. You are both so warm, and if y'all cuddle for too long you make each other sweat. Regardless, you are a daddy's girl through and through. He has a way of calming you and getting you to relax even when you are most upset with us for not getting your bottle in your mouth fast enough. The past four weeks have flown by, but we are just trying to soak up every moment. We enjoy our afternoons just laying around together, as we are right now... All three of us laying in our big bed and watching White Collar. Your dad and I keep looking at you and looking at each other and saying that we wouldn't trade this for anything. We've had our more difficult moments but again, we wouldn't trade you for anything. You have turned our lives upside down, but it has already been one of the best adventures we've ever experienced and we are excited to continue watching you grow and experience it all with you. And of course no blog post would be complete without pictures, so here are a few favorites from the past few weeks...

One of my favorites from our afternoons together...

Our little family at the Rangers game on July 4th

I just love your face in this photo

Aunt Ginger caught you grinning before we enjoyed some pizza at Mellow Mushroom! Yum!

You also thoroughly enjoyed your first In-N-Out experience.

You and your Uncle Noah, he is just over the moon about you and wants to hold you all the time.

Me and you after your first bath

Me and your dad laughed for about 10 minutes after we took this photo. You were so content until you figured out that we were laughing so hard at you.

Giving me and your Donut the crazy eyes one morning

Overall, you are just the best baby and by far the best thing that has happened to me and your dad. We could not be more grateful for the most amazing blessing ever.

Thunder Cats Are GOOO!!

This post may be a little too much for some people, so take this as a warning before you begin...

So the last post that I wrote was all about Macy's nursery and at the bottom I talked about how I could be writing about our little Macy's arrival early the next week. Well, it's not early the next week, but she arrived very quickly after I wrote that last post! I talked about my false alarm when I thought I was having contractions on Thursday, and I guess Macy was just testing our response time. If you don't know, we live in Athens and it is about 40 minutes to Tyler, and it has been something that Cliff was worried about from the start, but on Thursday he made it there in 28 minutes (extremely quick since you have to slow down in 3 different towns on the way). However, Thursday was just a false alarm and we made it back home with no baby in hand. On Friday, we went back to Tyler had some lunch, went to see a movie, had some dinner, and then finally decided that it wasn't going to be the day and headed home. We made it home around 8 PM and we were just hanging out until we were ready to go to bed around 11. We started winding down and I got up to go to our bathroom for something and was in mid-sentence when I felt something running down my leg, and I screamed, "THAT'S NOT PEE!" Cliff immediately jumped up, but it wasn't the big gush like you see in the movies. So I called the on-call service at my OB's office and they had the on-call doctor call me. She said that you can get a little bit of fluid but that doesn't normally lead to the "big gush," as she called it. I got off the phone with the doctor and headed back to bed, and I hadn't been sitting for two minutes when I jumped up and ran back to the bathroom to just barely make it to the bath mat as the "big gush" happened. So another call to the OB's office and another call back from the on-call doctor, she told us to start making our way to the hospital in a "safe and calm" manner. We started making our way to the hospital and I was pretty nauseous so we even stopped at Sonic for a cherry coke! Cliff looked at me like I was crazy when I asked to stop at Sonic, but I thought it was a very calm move. Anyway, we made it to the hospital around midnight, and they started to get me admitted. One thing that you never want to hear when you are gushing amniotic fluid is, "Wow, this is a busy night, I hope they have room on the maternity floor." Luckily, they got me into a room and around 12:45 AM, I was getting hooked up to my epidural. Ladies, forget diamonds-epidurals are a girl's best friend. Since my false alarm the day before, I had already progressed a full centimeter in dilation, so they knew that Macy was on the move. The on-call doctor apparently had already delivered 4 babies in the past few hours and they were trying to slow me down so that she would have time to deliver another baby before me. So we tried to sleep just a little bit, but around 4:30 AM they put in a catheter and in the next hour I dilated from a 5 to a 10. I started to feel a little bit more pain around 5:30 AM, and so I called the nurse's station afraid that I had knocked my epidural out or something, but our wonderful night nurse, London, came in and said, "Oh no your epidural is good to go, but your ready to deliver..." Instead of starting right then, they had me "labor down" which basically means that you just wait for baby to move down a little bit more to cut down on the pushing. Also, it gave the on-call doctor some time to get back to the hospital after she had gone home to rest. So, my parents had been there since about 4 AM, and they came in and we sat and talked for about an hour and a half, which really helped me with the more painful contractions that I was starting to feel. About 6:50 AM, London came back in and said, "Well Dr. Klouda isn't back yet but we are going to start pushing because she is almost here." So my parents left to go find a donut shop, and said they would just be waiting in the lobby when we were ready. So I started pushing and luckily the doctor got there just in the nick of time, because I didn't push but about 3 more times without Macy coming out. So our sweet Macy entered the world at 7:31 AM. We took a little time for doctor and nurses to finish up, and a few minutes to just spend as a family, then we got my parents and brothers to come in and meet her! They had gotten donuts so that we could celebrate Macy's birthday like we normally do, by spelling out your birth year in donuts....

We loved just getting to cuddle with our little lady. Here she is in Daddy's arms...

We had just a host of family show up, and it was so wonderful! Here she is staring up at my cousin, Duncan...

One of the first family photos

Cliff's parents made it from Midland around 11 AM, after driving through the night, and this is a picture with the rest of the family too.

Overall, it was such a wonderful and eventful day filled with blessings beyond what we ever thought we were capable of receiving.

One person that is not in the picture above is my dear friend, Megan Tucker. She drove all the way from Lubbock to come meet Macy and spend some time with us. It was beyond a wonderful surprise, and she stayed with us until Tuesday with my mom just helping out. I just love her so much!!! We are so blessed with so many people that love us and that reached out to us on the day she was born as well as all the people that prayed for us and continue to pray for us. We just ask for continual prayers as our little one continues to grow and we get into our groove as a family. All of this is quite a lot to adjust to, but she is worth every bit of it.

Macy's Nursery!

Dear friends,

You must forgive me for my lack of posting in the last few weeks. We have just been going a little crazy here in the McGraw house as we prepare for the transition from 2 to 3. However, as I promised I have a full update on Macy's nursery, including quite a few pictures. We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends that are so talented! So many of the items in Macy's nursery are handmade by people so dear to us and they make her nursery so much more unique and special.

Door hanger for Macy's door at the hospital and the door to her room, made by such a wonderful and talented friend, Ashleigh.

When you first open the door to her room...

Other side of the room from the door...

Changing table/chest of drawers, changing pad, wipes warmer, lamp and of course the coolest bow holder there ever was made by the lovely Danielle! All I did was tell her about this other bow holder I had seen at Canton and she recreated it even better than I described it. She also refurbished this window pane from a house built in the 1930s! So cool, and oh so wonderful!

Favorite mural from Target, and Cliff's favorite chair in the house. Macy also has the best view in the house straight out to our beautiful pool, but the lighting was a little too much while I was taking these pictures.

Super fun "M" bow holder made by yet another extremely talented friend, Katie, swing and part of Macy's crib, and of course you cannot skip over the absolutely fantastic shelves made by yet another set of incredible family friends, the Chaffins. The top shelf is made up of some of my favorite books that Macy has. All of the books on the top shelf were gifted to Macy by her great-grandmothers. I remember reading quite a few of them with my Granana, and she read them to my mom as well. Being the lover of history that I am, nothing can compare to these items that have been passed down over time. They are truly invaluable to me.

Macy's crib straight on, and one of my other favorites, her "Practically Perfect in Every Way" frame (another ode to my Granana, who I can remember watching Mary Poppins with on numerous occasions.)

The other fantastic shelf with more of our favorite books and knick-knacks. I am already enjoying reading quite a few of these books to Macy, but I can't wait to find out which ones are her favorites. Also, loving the adirondack chair that at the moment is holding a few of Macy's stuffed animals.

Macy's accent wall, with a favorite picture of me and Macy's other great-grandmother, Jane, for whom she was given her middle name. And of course, Macy's closet...

....Which isn't quite as spectacular from the outside, but is quite fantastic on the inside. Clothes, clothes, clothes, I know that if it was me I would be busting out to come try these on! Just a side note for all you moms who perhaps haven't had showers yet, I bought 5 packages of hangers from Target thinking, "Oh 100 hangers will be plenty!" I have since then purchased 100 more, and when I went to hang some new things in her closet I realized I was still running out, sooo the moral of the story: never underestimate the amount of cute things that you will get. Currently, none of the newborn, or 0-3 clothes are hanging up and I have taken down about half of the 3-6 months clothes, just to make room for all the other clothes and to prepare for Macy's arrival, of course.

If you didn't know, I'm kind of a shoe fanatic. Love love love me some shoes! I think that it has been a struggle since we moved to Athens and now Cliff and I are sharing a closet... However, please notice- right about the middle the white and pink Nike Shox that Cliff insisted that Macy just had to have for all of their outings, not to mention to match the Under Armor outfit that Macy already has...

And of course the inside of my sweet girl's crib...

I don't know if you remember what Macy's nursery used to look like, but it was awful. Now, we love it! Hopefully, Macy will come out soon and start loving it with us! We actually thought it would be this afternoon/evening as I started to have pretty consistent contractions as I was writing this post, but things slowed (after we made it to Tyler and was hooked up to the monitor, of course)... However, the doctor was surprised by the amount of progress I had made in just 3 days and was a little concerned about us driving back to Athens. We made it home and I think that I will go take a long warm bubble bath and watch a good girly movie! Who knows, maybe I will be writing early next week about the arrival of our (already) stubborn and headstrong baby girl!

So much love to you all, Cliff and Emily

P.S.: I was in the most fabulous and beautiful wedding this past weekend in Lubbock. Here are a few pictures!

33 Weeks!

Hello friends!

I am so sorry for the delay, this past month has been BEYOND crazy! Anyway, we have been so blessed in the past month. We've had huge showers, seen wonderful friends, attended weddings, and still managed to get some work done in there. We have also been going to the doctor every two weeks for the past two months or so, and we have since then learned some very interesting information.... Our Macy is an overachiever. We had a sonogram on Tuesday, in which we learned that Macy is measuring in the 95th percentile for size and already weighs about 5 and a half pounds. Below are some of the latest pictures...

Side profile of Macy's face

Top of Macy's head, and the white specks all around her head is HAIR! Yay! I haven't had a lot of heartburn either, so cross your fingers that I won't start!

Another side profile of her face

3D of her face... These 3D pictures still kind of freak me out but oh well! She is laying her head on her arm here, which is so cute, but her face was kind of smooshed.

Anyways, not much else is going on. I am literally just trying to survive until the end of school and Cliff is ramping up for the summer. Everything is getting harder: sleeping, staying asleep, walking, getting comfortable, getting out of bed, staying awake when I'm at school, etc. My poor body is just having a hard time, but it is all worth it for our Macy! Other than that I have been pretty lucky, not much swelling and very little heartburn. Below is a picture taken a few weeks ago of me and my good friend, Heather (I was 31 weeks and she was 38 weeks). They will be meeting their son tomorrow!

Overall, the waiting is just getting to be almost too much to bear. I can't wait to hold my baby girl, get to see her face and just everything! We are so blessed that she is so healthy, and hopefully she will just to continue to grow stronger so that she can come out soon! We are trying to finish up last minute nursery decorations, and I promise that when everything is done there will be a blog post dedicated solely to the nursery. Sorry for being so scatter brained, but I'm just mentally spent! I'll leave you with one last picture from the past month that always makes me smile!

Oh BABY!

What an exciting time we have been having lately! The past few weeks has just been a whirlwind! Two weeks ago all throughout the week we were re-tiling our pool, and it is BEAUTIFUL, if I do say so myself! It was kind of like opening Pandora's Box, but it's finally done and it is wonderful.

From this... Disgusting, I know! Tile falling off, and of course the most nasty water!

To this!! I just want to sit outside all the time now!

We also had a wonderful time with the Yeldell family, and let me just say, I think that my abs are still sore from laughing so hard at all of my aunts and uncles, and the conversations we had. We also brought home so many wonderful and cute things for Miss Macy. I love having a big family and can't wait for Macy to experience it too!

Then this past week, Cliff and I spent about a week in Ruidoso with 4 ACP Seniors and our principal. It was such a great time! I was so glad that we were able to go, Ruidoso is one of my favorite places. The cabin is just so relaxing and has so many awesome memories of when we've spent time their with such wonderful friends, and it was great to get to take some of these kids there too!

Our first family photo at the lookout (28 weeks pregnant)

The 4 ACP Seniors on the trip

We had such a great time! We got back home to Athens on Sunday at about 9:30, and Monday morning came way too early if you ask me. It's been a busy week, and it's not going to slow down any time soon! We went to the doctor today and Miss Macy is measuring quite large! My tummy is measuring a little over 31 centimeters, which makes me about 3 centimeters ahead of were I'm supposed to be. The doctor said that is just fine, and we will just continue to monitor her growth and possibly do an ultrasound even earlier than we would normally to see what's really going on in there. It makes me laugh every time we go to the doctor, and regardless of which of the four doctors we have, every one of them comments on how much of a mover Macy is. I'm not really sure if that is a good or a bad thing for Cliff and I, but we always knew that any child of ours would be quite lively and always keep us on our toes. Can't wait to meet her!!! AH! Something else new that happened this week was that yesterday I had two Braxton Hicks (fake) contractions, in about an hour. You should have seen Cliff's face when I told him! He just said over and over, "I don't have a bag, you don't have a bag, Macy doesn't have a bag." I just love this man so much. He has been just incredible, but let's get serious he always has been incredible. I asked the doctor about those this morning and she told me that it's great to have those Braxton Hicks contractions, but if it gets to be more than 4-6 in an hour that I need to sit, drink water, and call the office to let them know. She also said something that shocked me, they won't stop labor past 34 weeks. People, 34 weeks for me is May 27th! That is nuts, as well as Cliff and I's 4 year anniversary. That is just crazy close to me! Macy can come as soon as she wants, but all I'm saying is that she better stay in there until she's done cooking.

But anyways, back to the schedule! There are a lot of good things on the agenda this week to look forward to! Tomorrow night is ACP's Tablescapes fundraiser, for which I am a table hostess and will post pictures soon. This weekend is LTC in Dallas with our church kids. Next Tuesday night is going to be fabulous, and I'm getting to spend some time with my wonderful girlfriends here in Athens. Then next weekend, me, my mom, and my Granana will fly to Midland for Macy's Midland shower. Every time I look at the calendar I get a little overwhelmed, but then I remember just how blessed we are and how excited I am to get to see friends that we don't always get to see and be a part of all these special events! Exciting times ahead!