Our Gift From Above...

I know it has been a long while since I last updated my blog. I guess you can say things have changed in our life! Elias Mason Akridge was born October 9, 2009 at 6:26 pm. It was a smooth labor and delivery. Eli weighted 6 lbs. 9 oz. and was 19 1/4 inches long. Since then Eli has gained a lot of weight! Here are some pics from birth until now. Hope you enjoy. And yes, I know he looks nothing like me!

Eli during the Auburn game. His only UGA win so far! Thanks to his great grandmother and great uncle from Alabama for the outfit. It proved to be lucky.

Just hanging out. What a face!

One of Eli's first pics thanks to Julia, our photographer.

Cute little guy sleeping through the Raider game we were listening to.

Mirror Image

I just wanted to share a funny picture of my dad and I at 32 weeks of pregnancy. It is funny how much our bellies look alike. Mere took this picture Thursday night before dinner. I know some people also wanted to see my belly. I am still measuring about 3 weeks behind where I'm supposed to be but the baby is growing fine and things look good inside my belly. So praise God for that. It doctor says I am just carrying it in a way where I don't measure as big as I should. Which is ok by me! Maybe it will be easier to take off this weight. I also reached the 10 lbs mark at my last visit. If I add the 13 lbs I lost during the first five months...it makes 25 lbs total that I have gained since I stopped losing weight. Just keep praying for a healthy baby and a smooth labor and delivery.

Baby on the Way!

We had our first baby shower this past weekend. It was a Habersham shower that was filled with lots of wonderful people, great food, lots of pregnant girls, and tons of awesome gifts! I want to thank everyone for coming and for being so gracious to Chris and me. Here are some pictures from the event and a new pic of the baby...ultrasound, of course.

This is Jen Kafsky and me. I'm opening a diaper sack that is covered in Georgia Bulldog material! Sorry Chris, there is no hope for a Alabama fan in this belly! By the way, Jen is due the Thursday after this picture is taken.These are the hostesses, minus Julia. (She had to leave before we took the pic.) I am so blessed to have such wonderful women in my life! Each one has a special place in my life and heart. Thanks again for an awesome day. Chris and I are so blessed by you guys.

The food...and boy, was it good.

Here is the new picture of the baby. We had a surprise ultrasound on our last visit just to make sure that the baby is growing. I am not showing very much and measuring a couple of weeks early, so they wanted to take some pictures just to make sure everything of growing the way it should be. As soon as Chris saw this picture of the profile, he said, "Look at that Blackburn mouth!" (Blackburn is my mom's maiden name.) I think that is funny because I don't see it at all. What do you guys think? All I see is Chris Akridge's head!

From Worst to First!

We have been spending the past few days taking our yard from the worst place yard to the first place yard. Well, probably not the first but we are well on the way. As of yesterday, we only had a small patch of sod that was brown, and mud and rocks for the rest of the yard. It was a pitiful excuse of a yard. Chris decided that we needed to sod the yard to make it look better before the baby comes and we have another mouth to feed. (That is a direct quote from his mouth.) Well, I know a landscaper that does some pretty good work so I called him up and asked him to help us out. :) We are so excited by the way it looks now. Thank you Dad, Felipe, Jorge, Chris, and Meredith for laying sod and making our house look so beautiful.

This is a before short. (well not really, but its the closest thing i have to one)Yes, this is Meredith running the tractor.

Chris and Felipe laying the sod. They worked their butts off today. I tried to help but was quickly reprimanded.

The finished product. Amazing! To get a clue of what it looked like before, just picture red dirt and big rocks throughout the whole yard. And make sure to not picture any green in the picture.

Sweet Home Alabama!

During July we went to Alabama for a week. Our first stop was in Troy to visit Chris' college roommate and best friend Justin and his family. They just had their second little girl, Reese. She is the little one Chris is holding in the picture. It gave us a little bit of practice holding a newborn. I think it was also a reality check for me that I have a baby inside of my body! Crazy! We had a great time hanging out with the Hawarah family. It was a lot of fun. I want to thank them for letting us crash with them while they were adjusting to having their new baby girl home.

Our next stop was Mobile. The other two pics are from our time spent with Chris's family. It is always a delight to see them and spend time with them since we don't get to see them as often. The first picture is of us with Chris' grandparents. They are so adorable! I love listening to his grandfather's stories. I reminds me a lot of my own grandfather. And his grandmother is so full of energy and spunk. I love her too death. The other picture is of Chris with his cousin Zack and two little friends Jackson and Carter. I think they wrestled for three hours straight! Needless to say, Chris was worn out and sore after all that wrestling. I think he's getting old. We enjoyed our time hanging out with everyone in Mobile. It was lots of fun.

This summer

This has been quite a fun summer so far. Well, for me, I guess. Chris has been taking classes and coaching summer ball. His summer has been packed full of studying and coaching. We did get to take a great vacation with the family this year. We always travel to Holden Beach, NC with my dad's side of the family. On the way there we got to stop in Greenville, SC to meet up with JD, Danielle, and Jeremiah Adams for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel. It was great seeing them and Mr. and Mrs. Adams, JD's parents. By the way, thanks for breakfast Mr. John and Mrs. Gayla! It was a pleasure getting to see you all.

Attached are some pictures from the beach trip and some pictures of the garden this year. We no longer live at the cabin so its not as easy to get up to the garden to work. But it is a blessing to have a wonderful dad that works his butt off up there quite often. This picture of the garden is only the potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, squash, tomatoes, and peppers. The corn, beans, okra, and more couldn't fit into the picture.

This pic is of Chris and Justin. Justin is my cousin who moved from NC to GA last year to attend UGA and work with dad. He has become my brother through this past year...or at least I treat him like he's my brother. Chris and Justin are digging into the Low Country Boil that Dad and Chris fixed this year at the beach.

This is a group picture of everyone (minus Leslie) in my Dad's family. We all stayed in one beach house. It was a little crowded but we made it work and will have memories for the rest of our lives. Didn't my grandparents raise such a cute family?

Just our family.

Chris and Dad putting some veggies into the Low Country Boil. This is by far my favorite meal of the year. I even sat at the bar where the food was laid out and pigged out until there was nothing left. This year we fed 33 people! I think that is the most ever. Dad mentored Chris this year on the secrets to the Low Country meal. I hope he paid attention and can make this sometime for our friends!

Our New Home

Yes, I know this is long overdue. But since we moved into our home, things have been a little crazy. Between school, Chris starting his specialist, baseball, and the little one in my belly making me as sick as a dog, there hasn't been much time to even fold the clothes coming out of the dryer, much less blog! So with that said, we moved in January to our own home in south Habersham. It was bittersweet. It is hard going from your dream home to a starter home. But this home is ours, so that is pretty exciting! The house in minutes from work. It cut our drive to work from 30 minutes to 3-7 minutes.

The pictures are of the house before we moved in. I haven't taken any since we moved in. My camera was lost in the trunk of mom's car for months before I found it. So I need to take some and put them on here as well.
I would like to thank my husband for being a penny-pincher. He is the lone reason we are able to have this house. He is the "Dave Ramsey" of our marriage. If it was up to my spending habits, we wouldn't have this house but I'd have 5 more pairs of Chacos in my closet and lots of clothes to add to my wardrobe. I think I like the house more than those things. :)

This pic is looking at the front door from the living area.

The living room. It looked so big without furniture in it.

The living room from a different angle.

The kitchen. Where I used to spend most of my time before I got pregnant!

Chris opening OUR door for the first time.

Our Anniversary

For our third anniversary Chris surprised me with a trip to the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC. We had lots of fun staying in their hotel, eating fancy foods, and touring the house with all the Christmas decorations. It was great to just get away for a weekend and go to a place we had never been before. The third year of marriage was full of blessings and had its share of heartache too but we are thankful that God has blessed us with another year of marriage.

too much going on...

Well since I last posted lots of things have happened. Most importantly we have moved to a new house! We are still in Habersham County but have ventured to the south side. We hated to leave the cabin but decided it was time to move into our own home. Living at the cabin was the best place a newlywed couple could ever imagine living! But God has ways higher than ours and He lead us to Baldwin to find our first "own" home. It has been bittersweet leaving Batesville. There are so many things we miss but it is also nice being homeowners at the same time. I have one funny story that came from buying our house...the day we put an offer in, chris and i were driving home to the cabin in sort of a solemn mood (i guess you have to see where we lived to understand) rehashing what we had just done. We were talking about the new house and sharing thoughts about leaving the cabin and how hard it would be. When we got home I got to work on some Christmas projects and Chris said, "You know, I'm going to go out in the woods and see if I see anything." (That is his way of saying, "I'm going hunting.") So he geared up and took off into the woods by our house. He wasn't gone for too long when I heard a shot echo my way. I thought for sure it couldn't be him because he hadn't been gone too long. I mindlessly went back to wrapping presents by the fire not thinking much about the shot. After it started to become dusk, I began to get worried. I would get up from in front of the fire ever so often to peer out the window looking for my mountain man to come walking out from the woods. But he was never there when I looked. Fifteen minutes after my last visit to the window, I heard him coming up the front steps. He came to the door, panting and out of breath, and asking me to get my camera. "That was your shot!" I said. He affirmed my thought and said that since that shot had gone off he had been dragging the buck he shot out of the woods. He pulled at least 200 yards (and that's his estimation...so it's not an exaggeration!). So of course, I took his picture with his deer and then let him go about slaying the animal. I thought that was a cute story...Chris in the woods and me by the fire. Those are the two places we always loved to be living at the cabin. I guess we realized just how much we were going to miss Watts Mill Road!
We miss the cabin but living near work has helped make it easier to pour our lives into our students. I guess living near our students gives us a bond we didn't have before. I feel more connected to them. Just today I got to take a student out after school and still be home by 4:30! That is amazing. Just pray that continues to God increase our impact here in Baldwin through being closer to the students we minister to. And come and visit us soon.