a little glimpse of fall in our yard

A few weeks ago in OCTOBER it snowed. To all my fellow southern (wayyy more southern than VA) friends it was wacky! While it was beautiful, I most certainly did not appreciate the freezing interruption to fall.

I did grab a few quick photos of our house during it's first snow {well, first snow of the Hawkins residence}...

Do you see those green trees that were attempting to turn red back there? Well after the rude winter weekend, fall did come back and those trees were breathtaking!

These pictures really don't do these beauties much justice. It looked like there were on fire! Jay and I would daily comment on how beautiful they were.

How amazing is it that God blesses His children with the colors of fall? I truly believe that it is simply a gift because He loves us. Those leaves could just turn from green to brown, but instead we get red and orange and yellow :) 

We have been enjoying our hammock on several fall Sunday afternoons...

And our sweet Bella girl has loved the fall days in her backyard too!

The 20 Week Baby Bump!

I am officially (and as officially as you can guess the exact due date of any baby) 20 weeks pregnant! The halfway mark seems like a huge milestone in my life... probably because I am finally feeling SO much better, and have the energy to actually enjoy being pregnant.

I decided to celebrate the day with taking my first baby bump shots to share with those of you I don't get to see too often.

Baby Girl Hawkins is starting to show herself :)

Meet Gavin!

Introducing my sweet nephew Gavin Christopher Bates is LONG overdue! He is 2 months old! Man times flies. His little cousin will be here before we know it ;)

I took these pictures when Gavin was a little over a month old and took his first road trip to Virginia to visit us! He is such a laid back baby. I keep telling his Mama, Lyndsey, to make sure he tells his cousin to be just like him! haha, but for real we are so excited for our little Baby Hawkins to have her cousin Gavin so close in age. 

We will get to see Gavin again at Thanksgiving, and I know I am going to be shocked at how much he has changed in just a short time!

Also, check out those baby jeans and his little orange football tee... love it! Little Clemson Tiger fan in the making!

painting pumpkins is wayyy more fun than carving them.

Y'all, I LOVE fall. Love pumpkins. Love all things orange. And, I love when we have our pumpkin painting event at our Chick-fil-A. There were so, so many cute kids and the weather was beautiful... until is rained for 30 minutes, but overall it was a great night out on the patio. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the evening...

A truck full of pumpkins, and it was very important to find the perfect one!

Oh. My. So. Dang. Cute.

This little man was so very intent on his paint that he didn't even notice he now had a green mustache. Adorable. 

Little Miss Strawberry Shortcake would have painted every single pumpkin we had if her Mama would have allowed her!

Check out that face. so cute. 

Some great looking fall masterpieces! 

Happy Halloween! 

Proud to be a Tiger

Not only am I so stinkin' proud to be a Clemson fan this season because we are fun to watch in football, but I am also SO very thankful for the wonderful friends that Jay and I have from our days in Tiger Town. Wonderful college memories and more great memories of our weekend reunions since graduating.

Several of us traveled to Maryland last weekend to hold our breath as the Tigers had a scoring battle against the Terps. It was an amazing, nail-bitter of a game, but more importantly it was fun to all be together. And let me tell you, we know how to tailgate...

 Steve Spangler was our grill master - he made sliders and it was yummy as always!

 I learned that I am officially TERRIBLE at Corn Hole, but please check out my husband's face... oh my. He was the complete opposite of terrible, and as usual was very competitive and quite the corn hole champ. 

Look at that form - mad skills :)

Love, love, love this crew! They seriously are some of my favorite people. And I am also a fan of all that orange! We had such a great weekend catching up, laughing and pulling our Tigers to a win! (By the way, we are 8 - 0! Whoop!)

 My sweet college roommates... this picture makes me smile so very much! Baby Girl is going to love her Aunt Nicole & Aunt Leigha at next year's tailgate reunion! 

** A side note: most pictures borrowed from Nicole & John's photos!

three years.

I love that I have been married to Jay for 3 whole years! I have been thinking about our wedding day today and it feels like it was just yesterday. Some of the details are so beautifully etched into my memory that I remember exactly how I felt and what I was thinking. {I really hope I never forget these vivid memories of our special day!}

I have also been thinking about how drastically different our day to day lives are from what I imagined 3 years ago. In a good way. Just so much has changed and continues to change and it sorta makes it feel like we have always been married. Weird how memories and feelings are that way, huh?

I think I have said to Jay {about 10 times already} "Did you think that we would be doing this right now three years ago?" Of course he says no and laughs at me for the tenth time. Of course we have no idea what we will be doing 3 years from now, but as long as we are married and together to celebrate I will be a content and happy girl. I love to celebrate and take advantage of almost any and every excuse! Our marriage is at the top of my "Love to Celebrate" list.

Our "celebration" this year looks totally different from our prior travel based anniversary celebrations. We love to travel and are still trying to come up with at least a quick overnight trip to mark 3 years. Life if just so busy and there are lots of prior commitments that get in the way {not the least of which is this silly little girl in my belly who has made her mommy feel very yucky and very un-willing to spend money on an extravagant trip}. Jay and I have had time to talk and go to dinner and reflect on our life and dream about our goals, and as long as we continue to do that we can stay in Waynesboro and stare at one another :)

We also looked through our wedding album this morning and I wanted to share a few of my favorites...

I am blessed by my husband!

We're All Things PINK These Days!

Guess What!?!?
WE ARE HAVING A GIRL!!!! 
Super excited is putting it mildly. Pretty sure I would have felt the same way if I was announcing that we were having a Boy because more importantly every inch of our little blessing looking completely healthy to our Doctor on the ultrasound. It was music to my ears. 


With that said, I know it is an ultrasound and we could really be having a Boy, but the Doctor was very confident it was a Girl even though the ultrasound was at 14 weeks. 


Now we are discussing and debating and stressing a little over little girls names... we had the boy name of course but our little trouble maker is a girl so back to the drawing board. Everything we throw around seems just okay... I know if I am patient the right name will come to us and it will be simply perfect. 


When the doctor told us that we were having a daughter, my sweet husband prompting informed me that he knew he had purchased that last shot gun in August for a reason. He is already one protective Daddy! 


Oh, and I have a quick, funny Baby Girl story... During our ultrasound, you could see her mouth moving constantly...I mean non-stop! The doctor kept telling us that she is talking away in there and that we are going to have quite the talker on our hands! Haha! Can't wait to meet our little chatterbox :)