Back At It Again...!

My teacher friend Tricia Hackfeld was right when she told me that I would get caught up in blogging at the beginning then totally loose interest. That's exactly what happened! I was so excited about picking out our little Bella Blue but once she was here life happened and I just stopped blogging. She has been the joy of our lives this past year and a half and I'll upload some pics of her! :)

Meeting Bella for the first time at Kitty's in Minnesota!

Flying back to Texas to become a part of the Harris family!

@ 9 weeks!

After her spay surgery

@ 1 year

Hanging out with her best friend Jasper!

Hanging out in the nursery!

I guess I stopped blogging because nothing else that exciting was happening in our lives. It was pretty much the same ole same ole which I cannot complain about because we are very blessed to have such normal, peaceful lives! We have since celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary and still live in the same historic home that was built in the late 1890s constantly renovating and updating! I still teach at Aledo High School but am now teaching Pre-AP World History and starting up the AP World History program next year!! Hunter still works for his family business and business is going well. Another school year starts on Monday but that's not why I'm here...I guess its appropriate that I am here again ready to blog about another addition to our family! Although we had to wait 8 long weeks before we could meet Bella, this time we have to wait 9 long months before we can meet Baby Harris!! Luckily we are already 3 months down! And what a 3 months it has been!

I won't go into all the details but basically I got off birth control in April, we tried in May and I got pregnant in June! We were shocked that it happened so fast! The crazy thing is, June is exactly the month we were hoping to get pregnant. God is good!

So we found out while we were on the Harris family annual vacation to Cancun, Mexico. Thanks to the oh so helpful (not really in my case) ovulation calendar, I knew I was scheduled to receive a visit from Aunt Flow the week we were in Mexico. I went ahead and packed a couple pregnancy tests (American...I wouldn't trust a Mexican one! haha) just in case! :) I had a gut feeling that I was pregnant that month...even before I took the pregnancy test. We decided to wait until Wednesday of the week to take it since I'm usually a Monday/Tuesday starter and when Aunt Flow hadn't visited, I knew that Wednesday was the day. We had been sleeping in each day until about 10:00am so OF COURSE I would wake up at 7:30am that morning not able to go back to sleep. It was God's way of telling me "Its time." Hunter was still asleep so I crept into the bathroom to take the tests and let me tell you...it didn't take long for that stick to show two lines on one and a cross on the other! My gut feeling had been confirmed. I was pregnant!! Now I had to figure out how I was going to share the good news with Hunter!! The day before, to get a break from the sun, I painted a piggy bank purple for TCU and painted Baby Harris on the pig's bum. Remember, this was the day before I had even taken the pregnancy test...that's how strong my intuition was! (If the test had been negative I would have either saved it or left it behind in Mexico) My plan was to give him the piggy bank and tell him it would look so cute in our nursery but the piggy bank wasn't ready to be picked up until 11:00am and it was 8:00am by the time I was ready to tell him. There was NO way I could wait 3 hours with this news!! So I decided I should just go back to sleep since that would make the time go faster. When I walked back into the room, Hunter was already awake reading the news on his phone. He said he couldn't sleep either so I knew that God had woken him up as well and decided to forgo the piggy bank and tell him a different way. I got back in bed and texted him a picture of the two positive pregnancy tests I had just taken. (It seemed fitting since he proposed in a similar way) I swear, it was the slowest text message ever!! I laid there waiting for his notification to go off that he had received the picture and I guess because we were down in Mexico with slower service it seemed like eternity!! When it finally came through though Hunter was stoked! He asked it if was "official" and I told him yes...no more intuition...its official!

It's official!!

The infamous Piggy Bank!

The bottom was the only spot big enough to write "Baby Harris" haha

Blue or Pink? What do you think? We'll find out in October!!

I immediately logged onto one of my pregnancy apps and figured out that I was just 4 weeks pregnant. It was a little too early to tell anyone and a doctor's confirmation would have been ideal but were were on vacation in another country with his family. Since I had been drinking wine at dinners up until this point we decided we needed to tell his family because I would obviously not be ordering wine at dinner anymore! We decided to wait until dinner that evening to tell them and by that time the piggy bank was ready! They were SO excited! It was actually nice to let out the news even though it had only been a secret for one day. That's a big secret! The rest of the trip was so much fun talking about nursery decorations and what the next 9 months would be like. I will admit, it sucked not being able to drink for the rest of the trip while everyone else enjoyed margaritas and beer by the pool but I kept reminding myself the reason for not drinking! :)

Since his family found out so soon it was only appropriate we tell mine! Of course I wanted to call them the day we found out especially since I knew we were going to tell his family but I didn't want to make that kind of phone call thousands of miles away and not be able to hug on my parents. They had been keeping Bella while we were away and brought her back to Fort Worth the Sunday we returned and we showed them the piggy bank the same way we had shown it to the Harris family. They were over the moon excited! It felt so amazing to be able to share this good news with my parents who, everyone pretty much knew, had been making the baby/grandparent comments since the day we got married!! Since we didn't tell either family we were trying or had even been planning to try, they were genuinely surprised which made it all the more special! We Face Timed Javan that evening to share the news that he was going to be an uncle!

So our immediate families knew...Johnny, Pam, Clint and Hayden Harris and Dennis, Andie and Javan Townsend. We hadn't even gone to the doctor yet so we wanted to wait as long as we could before we shared the news with the rest of our families and close friends. We finally made it to the doctor to confirm the pregnancy at 5 weeks and had our first ultrasound at 7 weeks. I am not a very patient person at times so the waiting to tell everyone was the hardest part! At least for the next 3 weeks it would be easy to keep the secret because we'd be in Africa!! Oh wait... (until the next post!)

First ultrasound at 7 weeks :)

Picking Our Puppy: Bella "Blue" Harris

Bella "Blue" Harris



After 6 long weeks, we can finally say that Blue is our Bella!! Kitty called Friday evening after dinner to tell us that we had the final choice between Blue and Green. She said Yellow was everyone's first pick and she ended up keeping that one for herself (how nice of her..I even offered to pay extra to have yellow but she shot that down quick!) White was the next to go followed by orange. Since we had the fourth pick, that left blue and green. I am so thankful that at least one of those two had been in our top three this whole time! If you remember, Blue was our #1 choice in the first round. She stood out to us with the first impression and you know what they say about a first impression...! Kitty said that Blue is a very elegant, mild mannered dog and Green is very rambunctious and has lots of energy. Naturally we went with Blue!! She will fit in with our family perfectly. Plus, Hunter even let me know that he preferred Blue over white the whole time but knew I liked white so he didn't want to say anything. haha

I will admit it...I couldn't help but be just a little disappointed after getting of the phone with Kitty but I think I was partly in shock. It was official! We've been going through this process for 6 weeks now (and so have y'all by keeping up with us!) and we finally know which one is going to be a part of our family in a couple weeks!! I absolutely cannot wait to meet her. She is going to be so spoiled. :) I don't have any updated pictures of her since  my last post, so I decided to post a few of her throughout the "picking our puppy" process!

Bella Blue Harris

born 3/24/2011



@ 1 Day



@ 1 Day



@ 3 Weeks



@ 3 Weeks



@ 6 Weeks

@ 6 Weeks



Picking Our Puppy: Round #3

The puppies turned 6 weeks yesterday! I remember the day they were born and it seemed like these 8 weeks were going to take FOR-EVERRRRRR to go by! Two weeks from today I will be flying up to Minnesota to pick up our little Bella! Yep, we went with Bella. I've been wanting to name a dog Bella for a few years now. I'm not going to say that she is named after the Twilight character because she is not. However, it was while reading the Twilight Saga that I realized how much I liked the name and decided that the female dog I eventually adopted would be named Bella! I love the Bella character in theTwilight books a lot more than Kristin Stewart's movie character so while most people may picture Kristin Stewart when i say the name Bella, I picture the original character I created in my mind who surprisingly looked more like myself! ;)

When we got the email from Kitty yesterday telling us to make our final picks, I realized that this is probably the last round of pictures, and the next time I see them will be in person. I also second guessed every thought and reason I had for picking the top three that we did. Its so hard to choose a puppy based on their looks because they can have such different personalities. Hopefully, when Kitty calls to ask for our picks, she will give us insight about their personalities to help make our decision. There is a good chance we may not get our number one choice, especially since we only had the 4th reserved female. But Kitty said she would try to make sure we each get one of our top three so I am praying she sticks by her word.

A former student came by my room the other day because she is graduating and going to TCU next year. She plans on rushing and wanted to talk to me about the whole process. So I sat with her for about 45 minutes and talked about what to expect, what to wear, and how the process of choosing works. I told her how I had a hard decision to make because I really liked my top 3 choices for the final "pref" round. I literally did "eenie meenie miney moe" to decide between my first and second choices. I would have been happy with either sorority and ultimately left it to chance (well really God's hands). I knew that when I opened that card on Bid Day, I was going to be where God wanted me to be. It turned out that the sorority I had ultimately chosen as number one choose me too! And I can't see myself as anything other than a Pi Phi. So I relate sorority rush to picking my puppy. All three of our top females are absolutely beautiful and come from great parents and even grandparents. I will be happy with any of them!

It may seem silly to some, but I have been praying for our puppy for the past 6 weeks. I have been praying that she is healthy and well-raised, that she is mild tempered and has the right energy for our household. I have been praying that she gets along well with her siblings and is not too dominant but not the most submissive of the litter either. And I have been praying that she fulfills this need I have had since middle school of a faithful and loving companion to both me and Hunter. I pray that God gives Kitty the direction and wisdom that she needs to match her puppies with their owners. And I believe in my heart, that God will bless us with the exact puppy he desires us to have whether she be yellow, white, or blue!

So without further ado, here are our final puppy picks! One of these precious puppies will be our Bella!

1. Yellow

2. White

3. Blue

Let the countdown begin continue...!

A blog is a blog is a blog

When I started this blog I wasn't quite sure how it works. I'm still not quite sure about 'blog ettiquite' or if there is such a thing. My goal was to blog frequently enough (approx. once a week) to keep people entertained but not too much to be overbearing. Then I realized that this is just a blog...MY blog. I can post however much I want and people can decide for themselves if they want to read it! In essence, if people get tired of hearing about us adopting a puppy then they can choose not to read my blog! With that being said, here are a few more puppy pictures from the breeder! I just can't help myself since they are just so darn cute at only 3 weeks!

Yellow has become our #1 choice this round!

Blue has moved to the #3 spot in Round 2.

 White has remained steady at the #2 spot both rounds!

The litter turns 4 weeks today so we only have 4 more weeks to go! We are halfway there to having a puppy in our home!

Picking Our Puppy: Round #2

Just got these ADORABLE pictures of the puppies at just 3 weeks old!!! May 20 seems like it will take forever to get here!! Luckily I have a lot going on before then...

This weekend of course, is Easter and my parents will be here! They've never spent Easter in Ft. Worth/ Granbury so I am very excited to have them! I am bummed my brother won't be able to come though. We have done some renovations to our house and will be switching master bedrooms this week so when they come, our house will be pretty different and I can't wait for it all to unfold.

Next weekend is Elizabeth and Xavi's couples shower that I am hosting with her two other bridesmaids! Miles and Lindsey's going away party is that same night so Hunter and I are going to try to make it out to Dallas after the shower to be a part of their farewell. That Sunday is Taylor's birthday so of course there will be celebrating! Wow...that will be a jam packed weekend!

We actually have a weekend with no set plans May 6-8 which I am really looking forward to!

The next weekend Hunter will be in Vegas for Taylor Chandler's bachelor party. Our friends Molly and Tanner are getting married that same weekend in Alabama so I am really bummed we won't be able to make it. I'll have to keep myself occupied I guess...I think Beer Olympics at the Burke's will be a must!

Finally...May 20 is the weekend after that and I CANNOT wait!! Its also Colonial weekend but I doubt I'll make it out there at all. I imagine I will be spending the weekend with one of these adorable little puppies!!

I've included all of the female puppies this time. I will distinguish our top 3 rankings from "Round #1: at 4 days" but we haven't ranked them at 3 weeks just yet!! Its getting harder and harder! At least we know from all of these pictures that we will end up with a beautiful dog.

Yellow was our #3 pick from Round 1

 Blue was our #1 pick from Round 1

(not sure why there is only 1 picture of her)

 Green has a little too much white on her chest but is still a cutie!

 I originally dismissed Orange immediately because of the amount of white on her chest as well but she is turning out to be one beautiful puppy!

White was our #2 pick from Round 1



Kitty said there should be more 3 week pictures so I will add them as soon as I get them!! I'll also update our ranking for "Round #2: at 3 weeks"!

Can't wait to see them again for "Round #3: at 5 weeks"!!

Picking our Puppy: Round #1

In just 6 weeks Hunter and I will have a little addition to our newlywed home! I cannot wait for our puppy to get here!! I will be flying up to Minnesota on May 20 to pick her up! Yeah...you read that right...Minnesota! I was hoping to find a breeder in Texas but none of the breeders I found had a litter planned that would work with our timeline. When I found this breeder online, I contacted her to see if she had any upcomming litters of all liver puppies! Once we found out that she did, Hunter called a guy he plays tennis with at River Crest who has become a GSP expert and he recommended the breeder! That was all we needed to hear so we paid for a puppy in full! :)

So here's how it works. Our gsp breeder (ironically named Kitty), periodically sends pictures of the puppies. Since she is located far away from most of her clients, she asks for the soon-to-be owners to rank their top 3 favorite puppies based on the pictures and information she sends at that time. The litter has 5 females and 3 males and techincally, Hunter and I should have the fourth pick of females. I like Kitty's process though because she lets us choose which puppy we would like and tries to make sure everyone gets one of their top three. We can change our mind as often as we want until we make final picks between 6 & 7 weeks. So here is the first round of our top 3 puppies at 4 days old!

1. Female #4 Blue

2. Female #8 White

3. Female #3 Yellow

The next set of photos should be around 2-3 weeks when their eyes will be open and they get up on their little feet. Looking forward to seeing those!!