McAlister faves taken by Special K

3 generations of Stephen McAlister Jones!!

Cupcakes for Jesus!

I know a great pediatrician...and he told me not to take the baby out on Christmas Eve even though I really wanted to! So we made cupcakes for Jesus' birthday and read thru the Christmas story after bathtime. It was a great family night...and I guess it is good to start thinking about what we want "our" traditions to be as a family. I am thankful to be able to celebrate such a wonderful, faith building holiday with my family.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas with family and friends...and mostly with Jesus. What a blessed reminder of how He came as a dependent baby into the desperate world. Thanks be to our God for this precious gift to us and for us!!

The MAC is back!

I'm just talking about having our MAC computer finally back in action! No we haven't yet started calling McAlister by any nicknames...although everyone seems to have a suggestion. Just thought I'd post some of my favorite hospital pics that I wasn't able to post due to our crashed computer. We're all settling in well. We enjoyed our first week with Big Daddy and Special K here helping keep the house running with yummy meals and clean clothes. My parents are on the way on Christmas day and will be here thru the new year to help us out some more. Gotta love family that wants to help!!

Right after the crazy fast delivery!!

Family of 4 now!

Abby meets her brother for the first time

Homecoming Day!!

McAlister is here!

We're home...and our computer seems to have crashed or I would have posted pics on Saturday. Here are some my sister took when she came to visit.

Stephen McAlister Jones III was born on his due date on December 11th at 2:24am. He weighed 6lbs 12ozs and measured 20inches. He came so quickly there was no time for an epidural...I think he was excited to finally come out and meet us! We're recovering well at home. Abby is so sweet with him, but can't get too close yet b/c she's still got a bad cold. I'll post more pics when our computer comes back from the sick shop!

Due Date

So my due date is tomorrow and lots of people are wondering how I'm feeling about that. I am fine with it and excited about it. He's now officially done cooking, but maybe he likes the warm snuggly environment he's in! I know we will meet this little boy soon and I am not worrying about the details of how, when, etc. I know God's perfect timing will get him here at the very right moment!! We are very excited about meeting him. Physically I feel ready to be done with the pregnancy thing. Am I emotionally, mentally, spiritually prepared for all that this new addition will mean to our family? Can you ever be? Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to wait. We'll post pics as soon as we can after his arrival.

Recent Christmas fun

This past week we've had fun preparing for Christmas!! We got our tree from the farmer's market again this year and finished decorating the house. Stephen said it was already the best Christmas yet because Abby got so excited about the ornaments and loved dancing to our favorite Christmas tunes. We've also enjoyed Greenville's downtown holiday events the past 2 nights. The free carousel was a big hit and the annual Christmas parade was chilly!! I was glad to get to participate in these fun holiday events and see Abby's face light up at each event. One lady turned around at the parade and said she'd never seen so much wonder in a child's eyes. Abby was truly excited and it reminded me to not take the simple things in life for granted. I want to live really excitedly like that. Right now I'm living excitedly and patiently in anticipation of this baby boy being born any day!!! But for now, I'm so excited about celebrating Jesus with my dear family. What a glorious season!

Our "gingerbread" graham cracker house attempt...it's not winning any awards and she mainly just wanted to eat icing on graham crackers (which is really good!)

The tree...can't you tell where Abby was hanging ornaments?

Downtown FREE carousel ride

Aren't these some cute parade watching girls!

Waiting on the parade to start with the Roemmich and Hatten families

Waiting....

Just for those needing an update on baby news. We're just waiting on him. At my dr appt this past Tuesday I was 2cm dilated and 70% effaced which people stay at for weeks. So we'll see when the big debut occurs. We're still hoping he arrives before the December 11th due date, but only God knows!! Thanks for your prayers as we wait...

Gobble, Gobble

We have great Thanksgiving memories from this past week. Aside from me feeling like a stuffed turkey, we had lots of fun with friends and both sides of our families.

Family of 3...soon to be 4!!

The Davison family

Special K helping Abby finally get to eat the "big meal"

Abby & Abby enjoyed the day we made pinecone turkeys, cookies, and played pin the red dangly thingy on the turkey...

House for sale...know anyone??!!!

I know I don't have a wide reading audience, but my hubby has convinced me that word of mouth helps out a lot usually. So anyway, most people have no idea we are even moving! We found a place really close to Stephen's office on some decent amount of land so we're relocating after the 1st of the year. So our lovely house (I really do love it!) is up for sale by owner as of today. If you know of anyone moving to the area or looking for a charming old place convenient to downtown, send them our way! Thanks!

Battle of the colds...but so thankful

Our family has been battling the cold season head on already this week...just one of the perks of being married to a pediatrician right?!! Not much fun and we're all trying to get well before this baby boy is born. AND we want to feel better before both sides of our family join us for Thanksgiving in just a few days. We are so thankful our families get along well and enjoy getting together for the holidays. It sure makes it easy on us!!

Not to be ridiculously cliche, but we truly have so much to be thankful for...even in the midst of a fallen world, a yucky economy, and a swimming head. God is so gracious and merciful to us. We praise Him alone for the blessings in our lives.

Hope you all have a very safe and happy thanksgiving with loved ones!! I cannot wait to get my grub on...in very small portions however thanks to lovely pregnancy reflux (TMI sorry). Hopefully we'll have baby boy arrival news soon after thanksgiving!!

Abby's 2nd haircut

Finally we went in for the big 2nd haircut. Abby did really well at Snip-its and I was thankful for our coupon. Bunny of course went with us to help ease any worries. The lady took about 2 inches off to get rid of split ends...and b/c I wasn't sure when we'd get back in for another cut since baby boy will take up some time.

Before:

Our nice lady


Bunny along for the fun!

After:

The face of what's to come!

Here's our little boy's sweet face at 36 weeks!! We can't wait to meet him soon!

HIS HEAD IS DOWN!!

Good news for my hopes to attempt a VBAC today. Baby boy Jones is head down where he's supposed to be!! We were excited to see him on the ultrasound and got some neat 4D pics of his face. He's already looking chubbier than Abby. They estimated him to be about 5lbs 5ozs right now so we'll see how big he gets after all my thanksgiving eating!! They weren't able to further confirm the boy status because of such cramped quarters. But I'll go ahead and start washing his clothes soon and hope he's really a HE!! Can't believe he's due a month from today!

Black Mountain trip

A big thank you to Big Daddy and Special K for a wonderful long weekend at a beautiful Montreat home!!! We enjoyed being someplace so nice and enjoying all the fall colors. The whole family went to the Western Carolina Nature Center one morning...which was even better when we figured out we could get in free with our zoo passes! Abby loved following Blythe around and seeing the "big bad wolf" since her new favorite book is the "Three Little Pigs."



My new favorite picture of Stephen & Abby!!!

Halloween

Since we were in Black Mountain at Montreat for Halloween Abby got to go trick-or-treating with her cousins in one of the dorms. She was a butterfly/fairy with her cousin Blythe. Cousin Grant was an adorable Indiana Jones. Stephen got talked into being Michael Phelps and his sister Jennifer does a great Sarah Palin impression. They were all really cute...and since Abby is allergic to milk I got to eat lots of her chocolate. Her new favorite food item from the weekend is marshmallows!!

Family pre-baby pics

We're getting asked this question a lot..."so will you all be done after this baby?" Well, we don't know the answer to that, but we did decide to have Special K (Stephen's mom) take some pics of us as a family with my belly this weekend in Black Mountain. And here are some of my faves.


Copied this idea from the Osborns...was it copyrighted?

Seabrook Island R&R

Stephen and I had a fabulous little vacation while his parents kept Abby for us. It's the first time we've been away from her for more than one night. We had so much fun doing nothing, walking on the beach, talking lots, eating yummy food, etc. And we finally decided on the baby boy's name...which will be revealed when he's born!!

Here's the lovely house (thanks to the Dobson family!)

Here's the view from the top balcony where we hung out a lot

Here's me on our little mini-visit to Charleston