Davis is one!

Davis is one.
8:06pm January 30th 2008.
A date that forever changed our life.
Words fail me on this day.
How do you put words around an incredible year.
12 words for each month he has been alive:
Healthy, Big, Funny, Happy, Playful, Flirt, Alive, Loud, Sweet, Amazing, Gift.

Big Bath

Davis has always loved taking a bath and it is with great joy and sadness that this week he started taking full fledged baths. It is filled with sadness because that means no more Duck in the bathtub. For the last couple of months he has taken his baths in this big blow up duck, which was awesome, but no more.
My camera on my phone apparently is not as quick as Davis. All you can see are his arms as a blur, but you can see that he is creating some waves in the tub. If you are ever asked to bathe Davis, prepare to be soaked.



I felt Annie kicking and moving around for the first time this week. She is very active, which is great. At least I think so, but then again, I don't have to feel her kicking all day like Katie. 24 weeks, that is already 6 months! Amazing.

Family Tradition

A Neely Family Tradition was continued this weekend. We loaded up and went to Regas for Davis (and my) birthday. If you don't know our birthdays are two days apart. Davis is Jan 30 and I am February 1st.
Growing up papaw, my grandfather, would always take us to Regas for our birthdays and the tradition continued on Saturday evening. Davis was a real trooper. He eats out ALOT, so this was nothing new and he did great. I do think this was his first meal to eat off of linen though. The dinner took 1 hour and 45 minutes and he was great the whole time. There was one man waiter who Davis absolutely loved. Every time this waiter walked by Davis would just smile. We (Katie, Muma, poppa and myself) got steaks, seafood platters and schrod. Davis went with a cheeseburger. He did have cherry tomatoes for the first time and loved them.
It was a great dinner and hopefully there will be many more!






He did try to go for the candle at one point and started crying. We were afraid the candle or hot wax got him, but we think it was everyone yelling, "NOOO" that scared him more than anything.

Being a dad

I really like this video.



He is OUR father.
Not the sketch in the paper or a part of a skit on tv.
Many people will think that they know him.
But they will have no idea how he felt the day you were born.
The pride he felt on your first day of school.
Or how much you both love being his daughters.
Remember who your dad really is.

I first saw this on another blog I read and thought it was really good stuff.

Name that baby...

I hesitate to post anything else right now. Every time I would come to the blog to put up something new I would see the pics of Davis in the snow and think, "Well I can leave those up for one more day."
One week from today he will be 1 year old. Amazing.

I realized that we have never put on the blog our new little girls name.... We have landed on Anne Kathryn Neely! And we will call her Annie. This was the name we also had for Davis if he had been a girl. Once we found out we were having a girl we put all of the names back on the table but still landed on Anne Kathryn aka "Annie". Anne is just a name we both like and Kathryn is after Katie. Neely is simply her last name! So from now on the blog will not refer to "our little girl" or the "baby" but rather Annie.
I like announcing the name and knowing the name because now I can be praying for Annie by name. I know God already knows who I am talking about, but it is still neat to be able to pray for Annie specifically.




I went down 1 pound this week. Next week I have to be careful because it is both Davis' birthday and mine is 2 days later. Needless to say- plenty of cake for all!

Snow Day

We had our first "snow" day today. We took Davis outside and put him down on a blanket, for some reason he wouldn't stop laughing. We tried to put some gloves on him, but that just wasn't happening. At one point he did try to crawl around only to find out that snow can be very cold on his little hands.
So many good pics of him. Here are a few.

cold, baby, fire

We had a great weekend on the winter retreat. It was literally freezing all weekend, but a good time was had by all. I felt really good about my messages and it is always fun to reconnect with old friends from Central.
Davis had a great weekend with Muma and Poppa and picked up a rocking Semester at Sea hoody from muma's trip to the Turks with Semster at Sea two weekends ago.
Today we both had the day off because of MLK day. So we spent much of the day pretty low key. We had a great breakfast at Waffle House, then this afternoon Katie had a doctors appointment to check on everything and all is going well. The doc said she was doing great. After the doctors visit we went to Babies R Us to start looking at double strollers and cribs for the other nursery.
Now we are just hanging out watching tv sitting by a fire. We have found out that Allie loves a good fire.

Frostbite and BabyFat

I realize that title leaves a lot of room for questions.

Katie and I are headed out to Frostbite, Central Beardens Youth Winter Retreat, today. This year Frostbite is actually possible! The retreat is in Crossville, up on the plateau and the forecast is straight FREEZING. Luckily the facilities are created for lots of indoor activity. I will be speaking 7x in 36 hours, so prayers for energy, clarity, focus and Christ to be central, would be appreciated. It is always such an honor to work with Central because of the excellence of their youth program and ministers. Dave Hunt is leading worship, that is reason enough to go on the retreat. You should check him out at www.davehunt.com if you don't know his music. He is amazing at genuinely leading you into worship.
My challenge is to speak about the power of friendships over our lives, so true for middle school and high school students, but very difficult to speak about in "real" ways. It would be easy for me to rail against their friends, drinking, smoking, sex, facebook, etc... and no one hear a thing. I would much rather challenge them, and myself, to honestly evaluate the path my life is heading down and is it Christ honoring? Do my friends and I pursue Christ or are we "comfortable"? It is requiring me to pray a lot for these students because nothing I can say will convince them of this message, only the spirit of God can do that. Thankfully.



I was honestly suprised this morning. I was hoping for a good 2 pounds this week and I was surprised by a 4 pound drop this week! That puts me at an even 20lbs. Its hard to believe I only have 10 more pounds in my original goal. I'm thinking about extending the goal until our little girl actually arrives, because it looks like I may reach my goal before May- hopefully!
Lets see what this weekend does- from what i hear church camp food is the best thing in the world for you!

doormat

I'm pretty sure Allie thinks she is a doormat. Davis literally crawls all over her. He pushes her, grabs her ears, rolls over her- literally, and she just sits there.
Shes a great dog. He's a better son.

Usher would be proud

David Chapman, a friend of ours, received Usher cologne for Christmas from his parents. They had no clue Usher was a rapper and not someone working at a restaurant, theatre, etc...
Well Usher, the rapper, would have been proud of Davis yesterday because he was the p-i-m-p.



He is defintely a little man.

We have returned to full force in our schedule. We talked on Saturday that we have 9 straight nights of activity. That my friends, is crazy. But here we go. 1 down 8 to go. I am speaking at a winter retreat retreat this weekend, so we will be without Davis for two of those nights. He will be roughing it with Muma and Poppa.(my parents)

Adding to the hysteria is the fact that ALL the good shows are coming back on currently. Here is our list. Prison Break, 24, House, Greys, Private Practice, Biggest Loser, Friday Night Lights, The Office, American Idol and of course Mickey's Fun House. Our DVR is about to be put to the limits.

our kid

There is no doubt that Davis is my son. He has looked a lot like me from the beginning. But more and more he is looking like Katie. And there is no doubt where he got those eyes, those are straight Katie.
Mr. Blue Eyes

Ahead of Katie and Baby

Its hard to believe that this week Katie is over 21 weeks. As this semester begins again for those in school, it is unbelievable that when school is over, we will have a little girl! As I pray for Davis I am trying to get more and more into the habit of praying more specifically for our daughter.
Here is a description of what is going on with our little girl this week.
"Your baby now weighs about three-quarters of a pound and is approximately 10 1/2 inches long — the length of a carrot. You may soon feel like she's practicing martial arts as her initial fluttering movements turn into full-fledged kicks and nudges. You may also discover a pattern to her activity as you get to know her better. In other developments, your baby's eyebrows and lids are present now." Crazy.

Weekly Update:

I went down 3 pounds this week. Katie said I passed her today, I have lost more than she has put on! But I am sure she will catch up quickly as she continues to grow.
It was good to be back in a routine with work and eating this week.

Top8 in 08

2008-What a year.
It was a great year, many unexpected things happened in 2008 and many wonderful things happended in 2008.
Katie and I spent some time talking about the top 8 things that happened in 2008. We didn't actually come up with a list, but it is always good to look back and remember.
Here are a few things that made our list.
Davis.
Davis' Health (how healthy he's been)
Beach- between vacation, family and weddings, Katie and I were at the beach 6X in 08

Pregnant...again!! So excited for our little girl.

and last but not least- Iphone!!! (please click here if you have forgotten.


Only kidding about the iphone, but it was a great year.
Here we come 2009.

Check In

Well, after Christmas and staying the same for a couple of weeks now, I went down 2 pounds since last check in.
That leaves 17 pounds and around 19 weeks until our little girl arrives. So I am staying on track with a little less than a pound a week to go.
Happy New Year.

Christmas

Sorry for the delay, but we sort of took a break from everything the last couple of weeks.
As we were going through all the photos from Christmas they were a bit overwhelming, so another little video.
Enjoy and Happy New Year.



sorry for the terrible quality, still trying to figure out how to get better quality on here.