First Family Photo Shoot and other news

In case you haven't heard, we have some great news concerning our family.

We are expecting our first baby in January. We've seen some cute baby announcements online from our friends over the past few months. So we set out to be creative as well, and this is where our second announcement comes in. Jaz accepted a faculty position at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in Oxford. There are going to be a lot of changes in our family in the coming months. Below are the pictures from our first "family photo shoot". The third picture was our announcement on Facebook about the baby and the job. The sock monkeys did a great job telling our story.

So...news about the baby. We are due in mid-January, which means right now we are at 14 weeks. In fact, we just had our 14 week appointment today. All is well with baby and mom, and we are growing fast. Our Dr. couldn't hear the heartbeat with the doppler machine, so she brought in a hand-held ultrasound and we got to see the little peanut!!! And it was sucking its thumb!! That was unexpected but definitely made our day. Below is our first ultrasound at 7 weeks. The little one looks more like a sea slug, and thanks to a great ultrasound tech, we have a label so there is no mistaking where the baby is. :-)   The next picture was from our appointment today. No labels here, but the head is the bulbous area on the right. As soon as Jeff took this picture, our Dr. moved the wand and a better picture showed up on the screen. We saw arms and head together. Crazy to see that we have a baby that actually looks like a human now, rather than a blob.

 Our next appointment is in 4 weeks with our new Dr. in Mississippi. We should find out gender at that point. Woo!!! It goes slow but fast at the same time and we are looking forward to the other milestones along the way.

Last week we went down to Oxford to find a place to live. We looked at a lot of places and weren't very happy about any of them. At the end of the day, we randomly decided to call a real estate agent and she hooked us up! Below are a few pictures of our new place. We didn't have our brains working while we were inside, so there are no interesting photos of the living room, bedrooms, etc.... But these outside ones are cute. We live on the curve of the U-shaped street. We like the porch on the second story. This is owned by a professional chef, so the kitchen has been upgraded, and he kindly planted an herb garden in the back yard. Now we just need to learn some recipes that use Thyme, Sage, etc....

One family from our small ward lives in the neighborhood. And we are only about 4 miles outside of town, which means mostly away from the students. It takes about 10-15 minutes to drive to school. Very convenient. 

We are excited to move, start this job, and have our baby. It feels like we are real grown ups. Or at least trying to be.  :-)  Seriously though, we are excited about this next stage in our life. We are very blessed and many doors have been opened for us to be in this place at this time. So much to be thankful for. 

Have a great week!