My daughter

So it is now September, and I am still me, I am just a me with a baby! A baby girl. Claire Cockrell came on July 2nd, 2008 at 8:04AM weighing 8lbs 6oz. Casey and I are absolutely in love with every piece of her. She has changed our lives forever. We brought her home on the 4th of July. So we call her our little firecracker :) She's such a joy to have in our family.


This little red white & blue bow is a gift Casey's mom bought for Claire to wear if she was a girl....and she is, so here she is wearing it! I love it!


I have been blessed to be able to stay home with Claire for 12 weeks. We are coming up to week 11 and then I go back the next. The past 11 weeks have been some of the best of my life. I sometimes wish I could turn back time and start over at week 1 with her, so that I don't already have to go back to work. But, I love watching her grow and I already love the little girl she is becoming, so I wouldn't go back really, because I can't wait to see what more she is going to grow to learn and become.

Here we are on Claire's 1 month birthday!



She is going to be going with her daddy to the church weekday school every day, so I am not worried at all about daycare. I'm thankful Casey will be so close every day.
Here is Claire talking her daddy while she explains to him why he needs to buy her an new pair of shoes :)
She has gotten to where she knows our voices. Its really neat to see her face light up when Casey or I talk to her. She gets a big grin on her face. Like this picture down below....



Here is Claire on her way to her first Plano High School football game. She loved the half time show with all the pretty flags and the shiny instruments and the sparkling sequences that the drill team wore. She did great they entire night!

Claire is now 2 months and going on 3. She can hold her head well. She likes her tummy time, and the doctor says she has advanced tummy skills while being on her tummy! She has the prettiest baby blue eyes, like her daddy's, and long eye lashes like her mommy's.

Claire, you are such a blessing. I just love this little girl. I love watching Casey be a dad, her dad, he is a great dad. I love watching her interact with family and family interacting with her. Its neat to see our parents be grandparents. Life is good, and it only keeps getting better. Thank you God for our daughter.

Heartbeat, Summer, & Good Friends

This week I am 31 weeks pregnant. 31 weeks. Only 9 more to go and that still seems so far away. I am still feeling the baby move around a lot. Casey put his ear up to my tummy yesterday at church in the youth room, and he said he could hear the baby's heartbeat. I wasn't sure if he was serious or not. So, one of our students that is in the youth group had her sister bring up her stethoscope, and we all took turns trying to listen for the baby's heartbeat. I couldn't hear it, but some people who listened said they could hear a very light beat. We go to the doctor tomorrow morning, so I am looking forward to hearing the baby's heartbeat then!

In my last post, I mentioned two showers that were given by family and friends a couple of weeks ago. I have a few pictures from them that I'd love to share with you. This Saturday, is my church shower. I am so thankful to have such sweet friends at our church that love our baby so much already. I can't wait to see everyone and fellowship with good friends and church family. My mom and Casey's mom are coming up for the shower this weekend, and they are going to help us decorate the nursery. I can't wait to get it all together and find a place for all of the baby's fun items that were given to us at the showers. Our sweet friends, Brad & Amanda, and their little daughter, Madison will be here to help too. I am looking forward to this weekend so much!

Casey already has our summer packed with youth events left and right. I love the summer time, and love it even more now because that is the season our precious baby will arrive.

Enjoy these pictures!


This is the blanket that my best friend from high school, Krystal's, mom made for baby Cockrell. It is precious and she made this blanket from scratch! (Except I don't think she grew her own cotton, so saying from scratch is probably pushing it) but she sewed it and did an amazing job!


The bag in my right hand is a Noah's Ark bag. That is the theme of the nursery. I loved this bag!

And finally, me and my sweet husband. Doesn't he look ready to be a dad!?! I think so :)

30 weeks

30 weeks, that's right 30. So much has happened since I have last posted. I think I have become to wrapped up in my paper journaling that I have certainly failed to attribute any attention to my blog. So sorry for that, but I am still feeling great! I feel baby Cockrell move all the time these days. He or She likes to flip and turn and I swear my baby loves to be moving around every afternoon around dinner time like clock work.

Casey has felt the baby move. He even saw my stomach do what he describes as a "little hiccup" when we were at the doctor about a month ago. I love feeling our baby move around. It is so amazing. I just got over being sick with a sinus infection. Boo! It was awful, and I had beginning stages of bronchitis too, which was not good. So I made an appointment to see my doctor and she put me on some meds that took care of the problem real quick. I am back to my old self again! Thank goodness!

I have had 2 baby showers already. Two back home in April. One was thrown by some of my dear high school friends. It was lovely and so sweet of them to think of us. I loved seeing them and visiting with them and being able to share this experience with them. Then my Mom and Casey's Mom did a shower for me with family and friends. It too was wonderful and everyone was so generous at each shower! I have wonderful friends and family.

My nephew turned 1 on the 15th. One. I can't believe that at all. I remember when he was born and I got the call from my mother about him coming into the world.
Now here I am bringing Drake a cousin into the world come July. Our family is so blessed to have him! He is so sweet and so precious. He loves to walk, run, and jabber to anyone who will listen. I love that! He's amazing.

We are currently working on getting the nursery put together. Casey has set up all of the furniture in the baby's room. Every time I walk in the room now it overwhelms me with joy. And I just can't wait to see how I feel when we bring our baby home for the first time to his or her things that will be in the nursery. I just can't wait. I will post some pics of the nursery once we get it all together. I'll also post some preggo pics of me for those of you who would like to see my growing tummy :)

Casey loves to talk to the baby. He is so sweet, and I can already tell he loves this baby so much. Seeing him like this makes me fall in love with him even more.

In Between

The "in between" stage, is the stage I am in right now. I can't decide if my pants are too uncomfortable for me to already buy a pair of maternity pants, or if it is just in my head since some days are still OK. If any of what I said makes any sense. It is a bit frustrating at times. Any advice would be most helpful.

It has been so windy here the last two days. You walk outside and you are literally blown away if you aren't careful. The weather is so nice outside. I wish I was outdoors instead of indoors. You would feel the same way too if you knew how beautiful it is outside today. Sunny, breezy, in the mid 60's....just beautiful :) Definitely park weather for when my baby is here and old enough to run around and play :)

Here is to a beautiful day! Thank you God!!!

Been so long...and 17 weeks later....

Hello out there! I know it has been quite some time since I have last posted anything going on, but believe me, I have something exciting to share. On November 3 (my Mom's birthday)...yes I know all the way back to November....anyway, on November 3rd Casey and I found out that we are going to be parents! We are going to have a precious baby come July 2ND. We are both so very excited about this. I am 17 weeks along. We have been to the doctor several times already. All visits have been delightful! My favorite so far has been the visit where we got to hear our baby's heartbeat and then see the baby waive to us with their little hand when we had our first sonogram. It was the most amazing thing! It was also very emotional. I loved that moment!

Valentine's Day is my scheduled sonogram where we get to find out the gender of the baby. However, we are not wanting to know. We want this to be a surprise.....we call it the surprise of a lifetime! My Mom, who had 4 kiddos, waited for each one of us. I thought that was neat and it really is very exciting. It is funny to hear the responses of others when we tell them we are waiting to find out until the baby is here. Some completely understand and smile and totally understand the excitement. Others, well they think it is a crazy idea and they go on and on about how stressful it is not knowing and so on. There isn't anything stressful to me about not knowing so far, so I think I will be OK :)

Casey. Oh Casey, what an absolute sweet husband I have. I am so blessed to have him be the father of my child. He is very excited about becoming a dad. When we were shopping for my nephew, Drake, for Christmas, he went goo-goo over all of the cute baby clothes! He would hold up a little outfit and just wink at me across the store and say look at this little thing here! It was so sweet to see him this way.

I haven't been able to feel the baby move so far. My doctor says that I might be able to feel a small "flutter" at 18 to 20 weeks. So, I am on the look out for that feeling. I really have had it easy so far. No terrible morning sickness, just queasiness here and there. In the beginning, I was so tired all of the time, but that has slowly gone away. I have experienced the horrible indigestion. That is absolutely terrible, but with a few Tums, and a banana with some milk, I am usually fine. I am told that it will only get worse.....gees, thanks! It is all worth it though :)

I am just so happy about this pregnancy. I love our baby so much already and can't wait to meet her or him. I will try and keep this updated with more fun stories. This is news worth sharing :)

Basketball

Monday night, a good friend from church called us to see if we would like to go to the Rockets vs. Mavs game here is Dallas. Our friend has season tickets to the Mavs game and she knew how much Casey & I loved watching the Rockets play....so we went! It was amazing. Just being at the game a watching these extremely tall men run up and down the court with their long legs and arms was a site to see! Not to mention, getting to see Tracy McGrady live in action. We ended up losing the game by about 8 or 9 points, but we gave the Mavs a good game that kept them on their toes. I even got a free massage! It was heavenly.

Then...last night we played the San Antonio Spurs, and WON! 89-81 Rockets! I of course fell asleep at home during the game, but Casey said it was a good one. And not to mention, the Texans won against Oakland this past Sunday! What a good week for the Houston teams!

The Lion King

My gracious mother-in-law bought us tickets to go and see the Lion King. It was hands down, quite possibly the most amazing play I have ever seen! All of the animals looked so real and it made me feel as if I were really in Africa surrounded by all of what was going on. This play was not about the acting, it was not only about the performance, it was all about the visuals and the set up of the animals in the play. They even had an elephant (not a real one, but it looked real) walking down the isle in the beginning of the play. I sat there and cried, it was so amazing.

I recommend everyone to go and see it if you get the chance to go. I promise you won't be disappointed! So thank you Lynn....that was a wonderful gift and I will always remember it!