Meredith

Meredith is at an incredibly fun age right now - she's 22 months old and HILARIOUS! She's a little parrot. Right now, some of her favortie phrases are, "It hurts!", "Where's Chloe?", "Yes." She loves chips, her Papa (my daddy), her 'bets' (her blanket). She entertained us last night with counting to 10 and saying her ABCs, singing "Jesus Loves the Little Chilren" and "The Wheels on the Bus." She sat on the counter in the kitchen and enjoyed playing in the candy and eating Doritoes!...and I thought this picture was pricelss!! (By the way, my sister is a GREAT mom although I know this post may make it appear that she just lets Meredith eat junk...she didn't eat any candy, but did have a couple of hands full of Doritoes.)

29 weeks

Here we are...at 29 weeks.

Family in Fort Worth

Last week Mama, Daddy, Jenny, & Meredith came to visit us. They came bearing fun gifts from them as well as from friends in Ruston. Meredith has learned many new words since the last time we saw her - over a month ago. She was a chatterbox all weekend...and so much fun!!!



It was a whirlwind of a weekend and we had a blast! We were packed in our small house - 2 in the guest bedroom, 1 on the couch, and Meredith in her pack-n-play. They came to baby shop with us and help us make some decisions about a crib and a glider. And...we made a decision about a glider!! The style is like this one, but it's custom made, so we got to choose a fabric that will go with the baby's room. We hope to have the glider delivered by the end of September... THANKS SO MUCH, Mama & Daddy!

Have I mentioned that Jenny is also pregnant? Surely I have. She's due October 1 and we're due November 3. She's been such a big help to me in this pregnancy. I've enjoyed our time as preggos together. She's full of great advice and I'm very happy to receive it.


Sunday we visited Ashley, her husband, and her baby. We were all Sigma Kappas at LA Tech and Jenny & Ashley were roommates in grad school.


We'll all see each other again Labor Day weekend. I have a couple of baby showers that weekend!! Until then....

anniversary in Granbury

Again, I'm a bit behind on posting, but if you remember from a few posts ago, Daniel and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary on July 29. We had decided to go to Granbury for a weekend get-away. For those of you living in the DFW area, we HIGHLY suggest going to Granbury for a fun weekend.

We drove about 40 minutes from home to find this quaint little town - it has a main sqare in the center of the town with absolutely adorable specialty shops, bookstores, and eateries in the 'square'. We stayed at a bed and breakfast on the square, appropriately named, "The Nutt House," named for the Nutt brothers who built and owned the house in the late 1800s. We stayed in the "General John Hood Room." Although this man wasn't a relative of mine (that I know of), the pretty cool thing is that both my great-grandfather's name and my uncle's name is John Hood.

This B&B isn't your typical flowery-country-style bed and breakfast. Rather, I'd describe it as classy, decorated with exquisite antiques.

We enjoyed our evening with dinner and a walk around the square. We had a HUGE breakfast and found an arsty little store on the corner of the square the next afternoon. We spent a couple of hours at The Bisque House making a mosaic together. We decided to make this cross, for the baby's room!! It was so fun to create something together for him!!

We had such a great weekend! Here's to the beginning of our 3rd year....crazy to think that this time next year, our son will be 10 months old!!

visit to Maryland

This is completely out of chronological order, but since we forgot our camera the weekend that we went to Maryland and we've just now gotten some pictures from the trip, I thought I'd post...even if it's a bit late!

The 2nd weekend in July we went to Maryland for an Audi family fun weekend. We hadn't been with Daniel's whole family since our vacation to Virginia Beach last summer. It was great to see everyone and the kids were really intrigued by my growing belly bump. They constantly asked to touch my tummy and wanted to know when the baby was moving. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite big enough to move a whole lot at that point. Too bad, for their sake, we didn't go just a couple of weeks later - they would have definitely seen him move then.

The kiddos having a picnic - I caught Isabella on camera as she was thanking Jesus for her food - so cute!

These are the oldest of the girl cousins being silly, enjoying watermelon on the swing and 'Grandma' and 'Grandpa's' house.

The weekend was so relaxing! We just hung out around the house, mostly, and went down to the neighborhood pool a couple of times. The nieces and nephews had some picnics in the backyard - it's a bit difficult to get out and about with 21 of us! One afternoon we took a trip to DC, though. It was hot, but fun! We rode an elevator to the top of the Washington Monument that day, my first time in all of our visits to do that. What's so amazing about DC is that our tax dollars pay for all sorts of great things - like visiting fascinating museums for free and going up to the top of the Washington Monument for free!

Here we are, the three of us - me, Daniel, and our son - standing at the base of the Washington Monument.

Orange girls...at the Monument

The bird's eye view of the World War II Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial from the top of the Washington Monument

Laura, Trish, and Becky with Julia and Isabella waiting to go up the elevator to see DC from the top of the Monument

The family surprised us Sunday night with a baby shower. Daniel's family are such loving, giving, generous people. We were really blessed by a sweet evening with everyone being showered with so many gifts. These are two great outfits for our little boy! Thanks, Rachie!! Among lots of other things, Daniel's mom made our baby a blue crocheted baby blanket. He'll love it!! Thanks, everyone, for a fantastic weekend together! We love you!!

"boys will be boys"...or should i say, "men will be men"

We really do love our small group! Our small group consists of Josh & Elizabeth, Caleb & Michelle, Brendon, and Nikki & Craig. It's been a 'hit-or-miss' summer with 2 couples going on overseas trips and others out for vacation. The night Caleb & Michelle returned from 3 weeks in Turkey, most of us met together for coffee at the Coffee Haus in Arlington to hear stories from their time there. Caleb gave each of the guys a 'Fez hat' and here they are, being silly together!

Guess who's the upside-down-one in the picture?!?!!? Yes, my extremely mature husband! ;-) I definitely didn't marry him because he's boring. On the contrary, I LOVE having lots of fun with him!!!

Couldn't this be the cover of a cool-band CD album?!?!!

2 years ago today...

I became Mrs. Kimberly Audi.

Last year at this time, Daniel and I decided to start a Word document of memories that we wanted to record over the past year. And, I'm so glad that we did. I know that years down the road when more and more memories have been added and more and more time has elapsed, and our brains are older, it won't be as easy to remember the random fun, sad, scary, exciting things that we've done in our history as husband and wife. We've yet to make time to that again this year, but it's definitely a tradition we intend to continue.

Another tradition we began last year was to watch our wedding video on our anniversary. Glory Productions did a fabulous job capturing the wedding day and even the night before, at the rehearsal dinner. We LOVE reliving that evening and the following day. For anyone reading this who is not yet married, I highly suggest spending the money on a videographer when your time comes. The memories are so fun to relive!

On to reflecting: I recently saw a friend of mine's blog (Carrie) who posted pictures from her wedding day on her anniversary as well. I thought I'd do the same. (Pictures are all courtesy of Melissa Breedlove, our photographer.)

We didn't see each other before the wedding, so this was our attempt at calming any butterflies we had - a greeting through the door!

Our wedding party consisted of my sister, my 3 best friends since high school, Daniel's 2 brothers and 2 of his best friends. We were honored to have such fantastic people stand with us, supporting us as we became husband and wife. And Jim Reynolds, a mentor of Daniel's and friend of ours since we began dating, officiated our wedding.

When we started dating, Daniel said to me, "I think we should set some boundaries, so I just wanted to let you know that if I ever kiss Kim Hood, I'll kiss her at the altar one day." And well, he kept his word, and this was our very first kiss!

And here we are, "Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Audi!!!" I can hear the music now, Chris Hanchey singing, "You're just too good to be true. Can't take my eyes off of you. You'd be like heaven to touch. I wanna hold you so much...." as we walked out of the sanctuary!

We couldn't have had such a beautiful wedding without the sweet support of my mom and dad. Thanks, Mama and Daddy, for a perfect wedding. Really, it was the perfect day for us!!

My family expanded - these are my new in-laws. Along with them, I also gained 4 sisters-in-law that day as well as 4 brothers-in-law, and 8 nieces and nephews!

We left the church and drove to the reception in this great Model A car, I think it's a 1928 model.

Who needs to be serious at a wedding??? Weddings are for celebrating two people God has joined together. Let's celebrate big!!!

The reception was so much fun - seeing many friends who came to support us, dancing, eating yummy cake, and celebrating that we were now husband and wife! Ah...it was a great day!

after almost 5 years...

....Daniel will say good-bye to Catholic Charities. He's worked in several jobs of the refugee services program with Catholic Charities, most recently being an employment case manager. His last day of work with Catholic Charities will be the 31st of this month - just a few days away. He'll have a week off, then begin the next chapter - new teacher orientation. Yes, Daniel is going to be a Spanish teacher, teaching at Dunbar High School. We're looking forward to the change of pace. Who doesn't get excited about a week off at Thanksgiving, 2 weeks off at Christmas, spring break, and the entire summer????

Hawa (Somali), John (Congolese), Tory, me, Daniel, Kerby, Jen, and Jari (Albanian)

Brian, Anita, Faith, Stephanie, Sar (Cambodian), Brendon, and Peter (Sudanese)

However, he will definitely miss co-workers and the refugees he has served. Catholic Charities has been a fantastic place for us - great people to work with, both co-workers and clients. Our hearts are for the nations, so it's been such a joy to get to be 'in the nations' day in and day out. Friday Daniel's co-workers took him to lunch at Red Cactus, a small Mexican restaurant near TCU. They gave him one of his favorite candies, TWIZZLERS, and a really sweet card. I know he was so honored by words of blessing and encouraging words thanking him for his desire for excellence in his work and for his hard-working ethic. I must admit, I was beaming with pride to read all of the sweet notes to him - he is a fantastic man of intergrity, a hard-worker, compassionate, and excellent in his work ethic.

25 weeks...and counting....

Funny Faces and Friends