Stripes on the wall, stripes on the wall....

looking really good with the stripes on the wall. :) we have painted the back wall of Caroline's room as you see above. big shout out to Teale Yeilding for the design. check her blog here.

we got the bedding in on Tuesday night. we love it!!! we've also gotten the crib and changing table and glider. so we are literally just waiting on the new carpet before we can set everything up!

here are the samples of the pattern for the bedding, and some random decorations:



it's getting really real now! :)

Belly Pics

1st ones we took at 12 weeks


maybe a little bigger at 15 weeks


definitely showing now at 18 weeks


now at 20 weeks



just taken last night at 22+ weeks.

isn't she so cute?!?!? :)

Painting Bedrooms

guess what we did this weekend?

-scrapped popcorn off of ceiling
-patched minor cracks on ceiling and walls
-painted 3 ceilings
-painted 2 coats on trim in 3 bedrooms
-painted 2 bedrooms (all except detail trim)
-wore ourselves slap out

that's about it. :)




^^ original wall colors


^^ Caroline's room color


^^ Upstairs guest bedroom color


^^ Remodeling maniacs!!!

Freaky Eye Wednesday

*****DISCLAIMER: THE PICTURES BELOW WILL LIKELY GROSS YOU OUT BEYOND BELIEF. IF YOU ARE AT ALL QUIRKY ABOUT YOUR EYES AND ARE FREAKED OUT BY WEIRD EYE STUFF, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND SKIP THIS POST. THANKS, MANAGEMENT*****






















so, i haven't had a Freaky Eye post in a while. brooke said i had to post about my patient today, so here goes:

16yoBM at Roebuck today. i had seen him last week for a full eye exam, and he was back today for a first time contact lens fitting. well, this young man was very motivated to wear contacts (because he hates his glasses), but he was scared of letting me put contacts in his eyes...a common occurrence. i could tell he was apprehensive, so i explained how easy it would be and how i would not hurt him, etc. so everytime i would try to put the lens on his eyes, he would squeeze his eyes so tight that i couldn't hold his eyelids open. and i'm pretty good at holding people's eyelids open. :) i would stop, explain to him that when he squeezes his eyes it makes it really difficult to put the lens on successfully, and then try again. after 15 minutes of coercing him to NOT squeeze his eyes, i finally got both lenses on. his vision was great with them....they fit well....they were comfortable...everything was going great.

so i take him to our contact lens training room to start practicing how to take the lenses out and put them in properly. our office manager helped teach him how to do that and care for his lenses. in the meantime, i go check a few more patients. right as i am about to go in with another patient, i hear a blood-curdling scream coming from the contact lens room, followed by our office manager screaming "DR. WILLIAMS!!! DR. WILLIAMS!!! DR. WILLIAMS!!!" i rush into the room, thinking he had accidentally scratched his eye while trying to take his contact out. instead, i saw something like this:



it wasn't EXACTLY like this picture. it was only his left eye. i calmed him down, got him to sit back down and relax, and the eye went back into his orbit like it should be.

for all you nerds out there, here's what happened. remember i told you he would squeeze his eyes? well, as he was trying to put his contacts in, he pulled his eyelids far apart to insert the contact. as he went to put the lens on his eye, he squeezed his eyes, trying to shut his eyelids while holding them open. funny, right? that internal pressure he exerted temporarily pushed his globe forward a few millimeters. once he calmed down, he relieved that pressure, and the globe retropulsed back into it's normal position.

and here's the funny part: he actually put the contact on his eye right before it popped forward! once he touched the lens to his eye, he squeezed so hard that it popped the eye forward. but he got it on! :)

that was the first time i've had to deal with a patient doing this. fortunately, i didn't have to physically push the eye back in. i've had a few of my classmates have to deal with that already.

Peek-a-boo!

brooke wanted to share this little video with everyone. it's like she's playing with us. :)

It's a.........

yes, we're having a girl! everything is checking out wonderful so far! thank you for your prayers!

Tomorrow's the big day!

check back here or on FB to find out if we're having a boy or a girl. until then, here's a weblink you might enjoy (if you're an Alabama fan).

Boy or girl???

Brooke and i will find out Thursday Feb 11th if we're having a little Rick or a little Brooke! any guesses??? vote on our quiz to the right. :)

Not a matter of "if", but "when"

it seems these last few months have been filled with tragedies. maybe that's just my adulthood finally manifesting itself. maybe since i've actually turned 30, i've realized how quickly the years are flying by. regardless, it's becoming more and more apparent to me how tragedy-filled this life really is.

i've had college friends suddenly lose their only child as a victim of a careless driver. i've had a friend lose his leg from a motorcycle accident. i've had a friend lose his wife to an endless coma from a car accident. i've had friends lose babies. i've had friends commit adultery and divorce their spouse. i've personally seen families shattered by marital unfaithfulness. i've had a friend get a brain tumor.

faithful gospel preachers have developed aggressive cancer. friends have suddenly lost parents. family members have dealt with unexpected medical issues that have challenged their resolve.

then there is all that is happening in the world around me that does not directly involve me. the devastation in Haiti has hit me more and more each day. it's so unnerving to think that chaos like that can exist.

brooke and i saw a commercial for Pur water filters yesterday, and something about that commercial struck a chord in us. there are hundreds of thousands of people who don't have clean drinking water. we shower in water they would glad have drunk. how blessed we truly are in this country!

speaking of our nation, it seems that we continue traveling down a road of political correctness, immorality, and humanism. will our great country ever be great again?

i guess alot of this blog has sprung from my frank realization that we are bringing a child into this world. odds are, i'll be dead by 2060 (or sooner), but my children will be right in the middle of this mess of a world. with all the crime, seemingly unnecessary tragedy, disappointments, and losses. and i realize that tough times and heartaches will at some time affect us all.

my life is amazingly awesome. i have a great, stable job that i enjoy. i can support our family. i have my own truck. i have my own house. i have the most amazing wife known to man. i have enjoyed great health. i came from a great, loving family. no true tragedies have struck me. i've never suddenly lost a parent or child. i've never had my job disappear. i've never been a victim of crime (except that time someone busted my window out in the church parking lot....shouldn't have left it there all weekend). but nothing really BAD has ever come my way.

but the more i see of this messed up world, the more i realize that my time is coming. one day, i'm going to get a call about someone dying way too soon. one day, i'm going to have my life turned upside down by a tragedy that i probably didn't deserve, but got dealt anyways. one day, i'll look back at my life and see how good i had it before all this came (whatever "all this" might be).

so, to sum up my rambling.... :) i think we all fear something hitting us out of left field. we probably all think that nothing like that will ever happen to us. we all think that until it does. but we can take heart that God is in control. things probably seem rosier to me than they really are b/c of my relationship with God. believe me: i am NOT tooting my own horn, but i'm always astounded at how people can survive the stresses of this world without a deep, underlying faith in God. if i didn't believe that God was working everything out for good (Romans 8:28), then i'd really be stressed. :)

let's thank God for the blessings we have, and let's not forsake Him if some of those blessings get taken away.

Xmas 2009

we had an awesome holiday season! for Xmas, we visited with Brooke's parents. it was so good to see all of the family. here is a video of our nephew Gage singing White Xmas.



we spent New Year's Day with my family in Montgomery. my sister Casey and her family couldn't make it, but Kristi and her family were there.

things are still going well with the pregnancy. we are just over 13 weeks (i think), so the 1st trimester is almost over. it's sinking in more and more that we're about to be parents. being around our nieces and nephews over the holidays has made us SO much more aware of the demands of parenthood. we're thankful for the examples of our families and our Christian friends as we plan to raise our children up right.

here's hoping Bama can pull through Thursday! it would be so awesome for our seniors to go out on top after coming in at such a low point of the program. RTR.