Happy Thanksgiving!

In this time of thanksgiving we would like to reflect on all that we are thankful for including our family, friends, good health, our sweet puppy and for the blessing of our little girl who we will get to meet in just a few short weeks. There are many more reasons for us to be thankful and we continue to give thanks every day for all of them. We want to wish all of you a blessed thanksgiving and hope you all feel as blessed everyday as we do! Happy Thanksgiving!

Beautiful Baby Shower for Mommy and Katelyn

Yesterday Katelyn and Mommy were blessed with a BEAUTIFUL baby shower brunch! It was hosted by Wendy, Blythe, Christy, Stephanie and Leah. We had the most beautiful day and everything was top notch! We were blessed with the company of many family and friends, some of who came from out of state to join in the celebration of our little blessing, Katelyn. I can't even begin to thank the girls for all they did in organizing such a beautiful party for us. We are so truly blessed and love all of you so, so much! Thank you to everyone for all the lovely gifts and for coming to share in our special day.

Opening gifts... we received so many beautiful things. Our little girl will be the best dressed baby in Tampa :)

My dear friend and college roommate, Monique drove all the way from South Florida the morning of the shower to share my special day.

Wendy and Stef... Wendy was one of the hostesses of the party and said a beautiful blessing before we ate. It was so special and sweet... it made me cry.

Steph, Wendy, Stef, Blythe and Christy... thank you so much for everything!

Here is Leah, another one of the hostesses. She was reading answers to one of the games.

The tables we all set up on Steph's beautiful lanai area. The weather was just gorgeous.

Katelyn's diaper cake made by her Aunt Wendy... It's too pretty to take apart so I'll wait until I'm desparate for diapers :)

Here was the cake table... everything was just so beautiful!

Getting the Nursery Ready...

With only 7 short weeks to go we are finishing up getting Katelyn's nursery ready for her arrival. We are very excited to meet her and as you will see below her daddy has been putting in a lot of work. Below are some pictures of him putting her new crib together. Now we just have to get the dresser/changing table and we will be all set :)

The final product!

Happy Birthday Todd and Rose!

Todd and his mom Rose share the same birthday, 10/20. It is a tradition that they celebrate together so this year we went to Grillsmith. We had a great dinner and evening and both the birthday boy and girl seemed to enjoy themselves :) Below are some pictures of the evening. I forgot the regular camera (oops) so these were taken on my phone. Please forgive some of the ones that are a bit dark :)

Happy Birthday Todd and Rose!

Rose and Todd

Todd and nephew Drew




Blowing out the candles

Todd's favorite... Carvel ice cream cake!

Opening gifts

Rose, Drew and Dylan

Todd was getting birthday calls through dinner... not sure who he was talking to here.

Rose opening gifts

The boys helping Grandma Rose open her gifts

Fall has FINALLY arrived in Florida!

We are happy to announce that fall has FINALLY decided to arrive in Florida this weekend! yeah! We have had such intense heat and humidity recently that we thought our taste of fall would never arrive. Today we have very low humidity and about 75 degrees. Lows tonight will be in the 50's! Can't wait. We have opened up the house and are enjoying a beautiful breezy, cool day :) Thank Goodness!

Baby update... We are approaching 29 weeks of pregnancy and had a good check up at the doctor yesterday. The belly is measuring appropriately and Katelyn's heartbeat was strong. She is really much more active lately... finding it fun to step directly on my bladder at times :) I am really happy we are now getting into the third trimester which means that we only have approximately 12 more weeks to go until we meet our little one. Last Monday we attended our first childbirth class. I won't comment too much about it other than we both felt the first day wasn't the most informative. We will see what this Monday brings :)

Other news is that Todd has been working night and day on his days off to complete the wood floors in our house. He is officially well into the third and final phase of the house and everything is just beautiful! I've posted a couple more pictures of the house to share his beautiful work. A huge thanks to my wonderful husband for all his hard work.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful fall! We'll post more updates later.

I could resist taking this picture. Meg is sound asleep in the kitchen enjoying the breeze coming through the sliding glass door.

Baby Alt- 24 Week update

Hello Everyone! Things are going well here. We just had our 24 week appt. this past week and everything checked out very well. The belly (which you will see below) was measuring right at 24 weeks and her little heartbeat was strong. This was the appt. where I had to do the routine glucose test to check for gestational diabetes. It wasn't too bad... Doctor said no news is good news so if I don't hear from them that means I pass (I guess) :) We'll pray for no news! Next appt. is at 28 weeks and I think we get another sonogram so we can see how much she has grown and changed. She should be about 2 pounds by then. Hard to even believe! Otherwise I have been feeling well, watching my belly grow and enjoying a lot of kicks now that she is really moving around a lot.

Todd has been very busy working on projects around the house. He and brother Dan spent two days this week hanging the rest of our crown molding. It turned out really beautiful. The baby's room is painted too as you will see below. The paint colors took me some time to decide on but I think it all turned out perfect! Next step will be the furniture for her room :)

These are sort of out of order but here is the 24 week belly. I've been getting requests for pictures of the "bump" so here they are :)

For comparison purposes, this was the 13 week belly. I know they are different shots, but you get the idea :)

Here is Baby Katelyn's room. The green actually looks a lot greener in the picture than it really is in person.

Here is another angle of her room and I had to show the rocking chair too. It's a pale pink as you cannot really tell in the picture. I'm sure we will get a lot of use out of this :)

2009 Walk For Sunshine Fundraiser

Every September Todd's brother Jeff coordinates an annual charity walk for the Sunshine Home which is where their brother Aaron lives in Toledo, OH. The walk is not only to raise funds for the Sunshine Home programs but also to instill in participants the importance of exercise and physical activity in ones life. The walk was inspired by Jeff's through hike of the Appalachain Trail several years ago and he has also written a book about his hike called a Walk For Sunshine. You should read it! ;) This year Team Aaron Alt alone raised $4,000 for the Sunshine Home and that was only part of it. There was also record attendance at the walk!

About our weekend... it was wonderful to see all of Todd's family and friends as we only make it up there every couple of years. The weather was GORGEOUS! It was great to be out of the Florida humidity for a few days. Unfortunately with my pregnancy brain I forgot our camara (can you believe that???) so I only took a few photos with my phone, which are below. It was a great weekend.

Todd and brother Jeff checking in the morning of the walk

This is Madison, Jeff and Beth's little girl. All the kids did GREAT in the walk!

Here is Todd's brother Aaron and sister Steph gearing up for the walk. Aaron was SO excited to be there!

This is Todd's dad Mike and his wife Sue.

Here is Todd and his little Godson William. William is Jeff and Beth's little boy. He had such fun playing with his cars before the walk started.