Give Thanks!

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. Somehow, my mother always had a magical way of creating Thanksgiving dinner with what seemed like no more effort than any other meal she made for us. Now that I am starting to fill that role, I realize that even though my mom could pull off a Thanksgiving meal without breaking a sweat, it’s not an easy task. Jen and I have taken over preparing the Thanksgiving feast for our Erwin family. With a little planning we had a great spread and a lot of left overs!

With Thanksgiving comes tradition. Every year when we sit down together, we go around the table and share what we are thankful for. It is always a reminder of how truly blessed we are.
This year, Zack and I started a new tradition - the Great Pie Challenge! A few weeks ago, we decided that we would each make a chocolate meringue pie and winner take all (although all was merely bragging rights). Thursday, I slaved in the kitchen making my mom’s no-fail homemade crust with chocolate filling and meringue from scratch. Despite some minor set backs and lessons learned - (1) meringue should not be refrigerated; (2) it is difficult to travel 300+ miles with a meringue pie (and a dog) - I came out with the victory! To my benefit, Zack doesn’t exactly follow recipes and Paula Dean makes a mean pie!

The winning pie (before refrigeration and transport)

This weekend will be full of Melton Thanksgiving traditions! Mom, Melody, and I will be in Dallas for Black Friday shopping! Clay and Jeff have decided that they do not want to be in the same county when the Melton girls hit the street so they will be in Austin for the big game. Let’s home the Aggies come out on top and Clay comes back with bragging rights for the rest of the year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Amen and Pass the Butter,
Marcy

Clay, Me, and One to Be!

That’s right, we’re having a BABY! We have been crossing our fingers for a few months and got our official “pregnant” during the first part of August. I thought that right before I left for work was a great time to take a test, probably because I knew it would be negative, but boy was I wrong! Clay and I couldn’t be more excited! On or about (there’s the lawyer in me) May 5th, we will welcome our little bundle of joy into the world.

So how am I doing? Great! I am officially 13 weeks and the baby is the size of your fist. It is crazy to believe that I am over a quarter of the way there and in my second trimester! I have so enjoyed my pregnancy and luckily have had few symptoms. I am addicted to pregnancy websites and (thanks to Ashley) projectnursery.com.

We had our first ultrasound at 10 weeks which was ultra amazing! Clay and I weren’t sure what to expect which was probably evident by our reaction. We made such a commotion that the nurses outside of the room thought we were having twins (but we have confirmed that there’s only one baby in there) and the ultrasound technician told us that we were in the top 3 new parent reactions! I was thinking our baby would look like a little nugget or peanut on the screen. Little did we know, our little one has developed legs, arms, and everything in between! The baby was jumping around and dancing for us throughout the entire (2 hour although we could have stared at the baby all day) ultrasound. Not only did we see the heartbeat, we HEARD the heartbeat. Our baby measured 2” from head to rump with a heartbeat of 155 beats per minute. I never knew that we could feel so much love for the little one we won’t meet until May.

We have already started to get ready for our baby to be! This weekend my mom came up and helped me with a garage sale to make room for baby. Clay is so excited to paint the room and I can’t wait to have my mom and Aunt P in for decorating fun.

We are prayerful for a safe pregnancy and healthy baby. We are so excited to share with you our thoughts, apprehensions, and plans as we await the arrival of our baby. Stay tuned, May will be here before we know it!

Amen and Pass the Butter,

Marcy