Thanksgiving

We all have something to be thankful for and this Thanksgiving I feel more grateful than ever! I can't list them all here because the list is too long, but particularly family:

Gobble, gobble

Family Photo

Cousins

Men only pic

Knox was full after his dinner!

More pictures as promised...

Also, here are a few more recent:

First bath

Sleepy Knox

Finally asleep - which can take some time

Beautiful blue eyes

Happy Halloween!



Matthew Knox Mantooth

Knox has made is arrival and he is the most perfect little man! We got up, packed our bags and went to the doctor on Thursday, October 14th and were told that it was time to induce due to my blood pressure. A very excited Bo loaded me up and took me to the hospital. On the way we stopped at Chick-fil-a so Bo could have lunch and I could have an ice cream cone per the recommendation of the midwife. It was weird and very exciting to sit there and think that I was about to have a baby and we were going to be a family of three! Several people asked when I was due and it was even more strange to tell them that I would be having him anytime now! We got to the hospital about 1:00 Eastern time, notified family and got the party started. My parents had been anxiously awaiting this call so my Mom left work and my Dad headed home right away to get here as soon as possible. After hours of poking and pricking I elected to get some pain meds - those things are great! I wasn't sure what was going on when I woke up around 2:00 am and was feeling contractions. Bo woke up and went to get the midwife - it was time to start pushing! Bo was a trooper and a great help. Knox was born October 15th at 4:31 am weighing 7 lbs 5 oz, 20 inces long. It was beautiful and I will never forget the first time that I saw my son! Now what you really wanted...pictures.

More pictures to come very soon...not much free time these days!

10/10/10

Bo's wish was that today would be Knox's birthday just because it was a cool date but so far no dice. We still have 9 days before the due date, and I feel like Knox may wait it out to the last minute! We have finally completed the nursery so we are ready when he is!

37 weeks

Labor Day Weekend in Gatlinburg

We just returned home from a long vacation with the family in Gatlinburg. We all got the cabin Friday and left today, so plenty of family time! Saturday Bo, Mrs. Mary, Jamie, Porter and I went to the Vols/UTM game - lots of fun! We went to a joint university tailgate before the game and got to see several people that we haven't seen in a while, and two more couples at the game. We enjoyed the game, although it ended 50-0. Knox really enjoyed his first Vols game, and somehow Bo's request that Knox hear Rocky Top for the very first time in Knoxville also happened!

Sunday Bo, Hunter and I had lunch at Bubba Gump's and went to Ripley's Aquarium. The aquarium was super packed but still very informative! They are currently housing some penguins, which was Bo's favorite part. Sunday night Bo and I went back to Knoxville for Boomsday, and if you know my love for fireworks then you know how excited I was for this! And although we missed the first 10 or so minutes (thanks Mattie) it was still very cool. We will be going back so I can get the full experience!

Today, now that we are home, I am spending some time resting and Bo is doing homework.

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday Mom! I love you so much and couldn't think of anyone better to share my birthday with! Bo was super sweet and took me out to eat then brought me home to share some ice cream pie with Jamie, Porter, Betsy and Jack.

Me and my yummy ice cream pie!

I have also been getting a lot of questions about my belly button - apparently Knox is not fully baked...

I can't wait for this weekend - football time in Tennessee! It will be Knox's first game in the stadium and hopefully he stays in my belly! Bo has decided that we are reserving his first Rocky Top experience for the stadium. Go Vols!

Lots going on!

Lots of stuff has happened since the last blog so I will try to go in sequence...have patience - it is going to be a long one!


We had our first baby shower! Thanks to Bo's Mom, my Mom, Uncle Ed, Aunt Patti, two wonderful friends, Amy and Lauren, we had a very successful baby shower back home. Thanks also to Laurel Ann for letting us use her Sunday Place for the venue. There was a great turn out and we received lots of wonderful things!

Opening the gifts was fun!

Betsy was really cute!

The aftermath - Grannie and I were both exhausted!

Jack wasn't at the shower so he gave me and Knox some love when we got home.

It was an eventful weekend because the very next day was the McCroy Family Reunion. Every year on the first Sunday in August all the family gets together to celebrate. We had a great time! We finished off Sunday and our weekend by having dinner with 4 other couples from back home that we miss very much!

The guys that in charge of the chicken - Granddad and Burt are in charge of saucing then Bo and Jacob handle the turning.

Betsy and Jack had a good time!

GiGi and Porter played some once we got home.

Betsy and Jack wanted to hear a story from Grannie.

The next weekend I had to take a work trip to Cleveland, Ohio so boy made a trip to Memphis to see the boys. I left work about lunch on Thursday with a co-worker headed for the airport. Neither of us are airport veterans (I just follow Bo's lead when we travel together) so we thought that we would leave plenty of time for mistakes. We arrive at the airport to find out the flight had been delayed but happy that it was only 30 minutes! We go ahead and get through security, pick up lunch and arrive at the gate with more than 2 hours left before the flight. We are at the end of C terminal with 10 other gates all making announcements - two flights had overbooked so every 3 minutes one of them would make an announcement enticing passengers to give up their seats (at one point they were offering $400 in Delta dollars and dinner vouchers to wait until 10:00 that night). Our original take off time was 3:00 then delayed to 3:30 when we checked in so about 2:55 I started getting worried that they weren't making any announcements at our gate so I got up to check the board...Cleveland, OH - Closed. Ummm...what does that mean? Did they cancel the flight; no, it would say canceled like the others. Oh wait, it looks like they changed the gate! I walk back to Hannah and sadly declare that I think we have missed our flight. We walk down to the gate and sure enough they had just closed the door, therefore, were not letting any other passengers on - not like they we would have a seat since they gave them to stand bys. To make a long story short (well, shorter) we went to the desk and got confirmed for the last flight of the night (9:50) and were on standby for the two before then (5:15 and 7:15). We waited and when the 5:15 flight came around they let two standbys on - not us. We had dinner and waited for 7:15. We knew we were first in line for standbys so it was looking good! Yah, we made it on the 7:15 flight, BUT they grounded all flights and we still didn't take off until after 11:00! Got to Cleveland and picked up the rental car then drove to the hotel (which looked like it was from The Shining) and got into the room after 2:00 am. Yowza, I had to be up and at breakfast by 8?!? The rest of the weekend was a little better. I got to go to Progressive Field to watch the Indians versus the Twins, which ended in a walk-off homerun. I saw T.O. and Ochocinco and the rest of the Bengals at the hotel and the conference went well, but no sign of LBJ - I wanted to give him a high five! I was ready to head home on Sunday, so much so that I carried my bags down 6 flights of stairs since the hotel had locked all but one elevator for the Bengals! Bo's trip was pretty uninteresting comparatively!

Most recently Jamie graduated from Auburn University with his doctorate in Educational Psychology! Congrats Dr. Mantooth!

Summer's over, so school has started back and football is around the corner! We will be some busy people anxiously awaiting the arrival of Knox!