Wow, so I failed the blog...

 Found this as an old post I failed update....more proof of how I failed the blog and how things got crazy when you move and welcome a new baby all within 60 days of each other. Throw in a tornado through your hometown and it is a miracle Rider James did not come sooner! This is me again, committing to the blog as best I can to keep everyone updated on our little life between homework, the baby and traveling back and forth to Missouri as often as I do.


So, there has been a lot going on in the Green household over the last few months! Though that is no excuse to have let the blog fall by the wayside!

To give a recap of our little life over the past 4 months, I have been growing our newest little surprise Green and @ 6 1/2 months pregnant we PCS'd (an Army move), for the second time in a year, and are now located outside of Atlanta in Fort Benning Georgia! The good news in we will be settled here for 2 more years until Barry's contract with the Army is up, the bad news is we had to move even further away from all our friends and family right before the birth of our first little one. Thus is the life of the Army!

We are now 31 1/2 weeks pregnant and preparing for the birth of our little man, life has been coming at us fast but we would not have it any other way. Our life has been blessed beyond measure and we cannot wait to share our love and joy with God's newest and greatest blessing in our lives.

Just last weekend I was blessed to have my mom and sisters drive down to Georgia for a super quick weekend visit to help us finish putting our house together and help us put the nursery together. I CANNOT wait to show and tell with all the details of his nursery. I had an idea for a nursery theme and my amazing family and all their creativeness was able to come up with all these amazing details and we were able to put together what I think is the most adorable nursery! Though I may be a little biased the room itself means so much because there is so much love and handmade goodness that went in to making this little guys room. So look for pictures of all the details very very soon! I promise to get them up here before he actually makes his debut.

We also have a crazy amount of wedding pictures that I have finally been getting around to going through and printing out for everyone - yes I really need to handle that before our baby gets here or it will never get done (lol)! There are a few details I'd like to specifically show off and like the nursery there was so much love and hard work that went into making it happen I feel as though some things need a specific spot light and story on the blog.

So this is me re-committing to the blog and promising to do a better job updating!! We live so far away from everyone so this will be a great way to share what's going on in our little world here in Georgia, as well as share our bundle of joy when he makes his appearance in roughly 60 short days!

Bridals

I was horrible about updating the blog in the months leading up to the wedding so I will try to be better with all the wedding details!


I posted some pictures from my bridal shoot taken a few weeks prior to the wedding by the fabulous and talented Beth Chambers - check her other work out, she is amazing!

I decided that a select few of the portraits needed a blog of their own. These pictures were taken as a special moment full of memories and a forever keepsake for myself and my family, I decided to share them with you.

My grandpa taught me how to vault along with my cousin Tom and started the great tradition that is the Williams family and the pole vault.

These pictures where taken at the track where my grandfather and I spent most of our time throughout my junior high and high school years and where he spent most of his retirement coaching the pole vault. Though I was yelled at, challenged, and fought with from that metal folding chair in the stands, I have some of my very favorite memories in live from this very spot.

We pulled out a track jacket of his my mom has and one of his hats he always wore in the sun and of course the metal folding chair that was a constant in the stands. So though my grandpa Bill was not able to be at our wedding in the physical I have a new memory of us from a spot dear to our hearts, and I know he and my grandpa Joe were there with us every moment of our day.

 I cried through a good portion of the beginning and end of these.

There were so many amazing and sentimental moments from our wedding and leading up, I can't wait to share them all with you over the next couple weeks as the pictures come out.

Wedding Party

We, (I) thought it would be nice to have a little bit written about each of our wedding party. These are incredibly important people in our lives, so much so we asked them to be a part of our big day! So we wanted to dedicate a little time on the blog to telling our stories of them and what they are to our lives, and I thought it would be great to have a little story someday for our kids of the very special people in our wedding!
So over the next couple weeks watch for their stories!

The world's most fertile Wedding

Now. No one jump to conclusions from the title without reading it first! It's not me!
However two very important people in our lives and in our wedding are expecting, and they are expecting weeks before and believe it or not right after our wedding!

 My cousin Leslie Williams- Finley who is also a bridesmaid is expecting a little boy on November 11th! I cry all the time when I see her sonograms - there really is a baby in there! We found out about Leslie and Casey's baby on Easter when we were home, our grandma Willa had known for a week and could not hold it any longer, so an announcement was made to the whole family and I can't think of anything better!

Barry's sister, Angel Barton and her husband Chris are also expecting what I know what will be a beautiful baby girl, Rilee Marie! Now the due date of Barry's new niece, and Barry's parents first grandchild is set to make her entrance to the world ...(drum roll)....just days after the wedding! lol
Now, we know most babies don't come on their due date and they have even given her until the first of December as an approximate due date - so its all good. Either way it doesn't matter what days the babies come on as long as they are healthy! I only hope for Barry's parents sake baby Barton doesn't make it's debut the day of the wedding!

 I actually think it is perfect and could not be more excited to celebrate the birth of two members of our family while celebrating the bringing together of Barry and I's families! I also know my grandpa Bill would have absolutely loved it, we get closer to his magic number 100 he wanted all the time.

I cannot think of anything better than having so many incredible things to celebrate this fall than 2 babies and a wedding!

All Because Two People Fell In Love

Yesterday would have been the 61st wedding anniversary of our grandparents. It has been just over a year since my grandpa passed away, he passes just short of their 60th wedding anniversary.

Today is a day that I wish I was better with words, I am no writer but this Anniversary every year deserves to be acknowledged.

When I look at and think about my family, all that I have from them, all that I have learned and all I hope to carry into Barry and I's new family and life it always comes back to one point, to two incredible people that simply fell in love and lived a life for each other. They loved each other with a passion and commitment that lasted almost 60 years on this earth but will carry on for an eternity.

 It is all because two people fell in love.

Sixty-one years ago Bill Martin and Willa Mae made a commitment to each other to build a life and family deeply rooted in love and most of all Faith. That love and commitment would produce nine children, seven boys and two beautiful girls. Those nine children would produce 30 grand-children and those grand-children have only just now reached the point that we are marrying and creating families of our own. We may make it to our grandpa's great mark of 100 sooner than we realize!

So often at a family get together I am in awe that all the people surrounding me, the mass chaos of love that is a huge family came about because two people fell in love.

Then,  I also think of all the lives that have been touched through or by our grandparents and family, it is just un-fathomable what a huge blessing our family is.

I have always believed that everything happens for a reason, and I doubt my grandparents imagined all that their falling in love would produce. I know through them my mother learned commitment and love in a marriage, which my parents carried on and taught to my sisters and I, lessons that we will carry into our marriage and family.

I so often now think of how much I will miss having my grandfather at our wedding, to celebrate and to dance with my grandmother - a family tradition that will be dearly missed at this very first wedding since we've been without him.  Though he will not be there to help celebrate our wedding day, I know all I will have to do is to look around the room at our wedding and know that I am surrounded and embraced with his love even with him gone because I am loved and embraced by the family that his love created.
Love, so simple as it may seem can build something you never imagined, all by loving and making a true and lasting commitment to the one you love.

Love Changes Everything.

What will your love change today?

Village of Williams

With the 4th of July having just rolled by it becomes that time again for the annual Williams family get togethers. Somehow over the years the 4th of July became a family reunion of sorts for us, not by any plan necessarily but because we have such a large family and with other holidays most of us split time with the other sides of our family. So the 4th became this huge get-together with fireworks, all the food we could eat -often including a huge breakfast of grandma and grandpas famous pancakes, pop (when we were little it was the one time a year all of us could have as much pop as we could stomach), hospital visits for burns and broken apendages, grandmas aloe vera plant, roman candle wars, shooting bottle rockets out of old cut off pole vaulting poles and the kind of family love that leaves your heart wanting to burst.

Our grandpa used to love getting everyone together, his favorite thing was counting off as a group right after the family prayer and right before a meal while we were all together, to see just how many we had  - this is actually a tradition we still do at almost all of our family get together's. In fact at Barry's 2nd Christmas with us this year he was literally shocked to see just how many people you can fit into our grandma and grandpas house - up to 80 sometimes people, we seriously don't mess around. His comment was - 'isn't this against some kind of fire code or something?" - which of course we William's have never been much for rules.

This will be the second 4th of July we've had since our grandpa has been gone, I actually did not even make it back last year from Texas for it - I think secretly I just wasn't sure I could handle it so soon without him. I have now made a promise to always try to make it back to see my family and to always make it a priority to keep these kind of family traditions alive through my children someday.

this is just a small portion of the family trying to take a group photo lol

This time of year always makes me so thankful for my family, not everyone has the chance to grow up in something so special or so chaotic. When you need them they are there; and even when you don't need them they are always still there.

We have this huge family that is sometimes chaotic, sometimes makes you want to pull your hair out but always, always makes you feel endlessly loved. It has been one of the most amazing gifts to grow up in a family surrounded by so much love. I have 30-some cousins alone on the Williams side, so we grew up with built in playmates, graduated together, we have been in each others weddings, been all up in each others business, been there for broken hearts, fought, laughed, gotten in some trouble, sometimes alot of trouble - but most of all we've loved. We were at all of each other's sporting events, and recitals, graduations, homecomings, Prom's, births and birthday's. They say it takes a village to raise a child and we were raised by just that, the Village of Williams.

Still trying - and this group is only the tip of the iceberg

Try getting away with anything when you have 7 uncles; they are going to find out and then they are going to give you the same lecture your parents gave you- trust me. I've been there. Mulitple times.
I've even had our Grandpa refered to as the Don of Joplin by friends, which may not be too far from the truth with him sitting at what we refered to as the 'guido booth' in the back of Moe's, always with some group of our family on any given day.
We always knew we belonged; we belonged to something so big and so special and I think it took many of us a while to realize just how incredibly rare a family like our's actually is. Not everyone was blessed with the kind of family we were. In fact, over the years we have adopted many many new members in the the family that may not be blood related but that never mattered to my grandparents, we're like the mafia, once your in - your in for life.

Its a chaotic life to have a family so big and so close, but it's our life and I would not change one second of it.

So at the 4th of July I remembered our grandpa and I look forward to celebrating the love we learned from him and our grandma at our wedding.
Celebrating with the Village of Williams

Our Start- How we met (again)

It started with Middle School Girls Basketball. True Story.

It was hard to decide where to start with this story; I really have to go back to my high school and early college days, when my sisters were in middle school and playing with my dads traveling basketball team -The Starz (I have to find a picture soon to post b/c they will both die but they were so little and cute!). This basketball team did a lot of playing at the Boys & Girls club, and my dad & family did some volunteering there as well. Unknown to me my future husband was working and interning with the Boy's and Girl's club through college and friends with our family.

Now, I did not have as much contact with Barry as my family did, but I remember him always being around the Boy's & Girls club. He recalls always seeing our family, and when I say family I am including grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins (some that played on the team as well! Lauren and Jess!)and everyone else watching games. When I say I come from the big-fat Greek Weddings of Catholic families I honestly mean it! (that is also for another post ;) I adore my huge ridiculous family). Barry also called at times to check on my dad throughout the time he was suffering from kidney failure prior to his transplant in May of 2003. My dad even had Mary Beth (my sister) volunteering @ the B&G's club running clock, Barry tried to pay her - to which my dad promptly responded that she was doing it as as a favor to and not to pay her, so Barry asked to take her to McDonald's as payment for working the tournament. If you know my family at all you know that, 1. My dad trusts very few with his girls and 2. At that age the quickest way to Bethie's heart was with McDonald's. Barry and Beth have a friendship today that rivals any other ;). So from the start Barry knew the importance of my family and had already begun to love each of them before even starting to love me.

Fast-forward about 6-7 years until after college, I had moved back to Missouri from Oklahoma for a job with a pharmaceutical company after graduation. Now this next bit I hate to admit but it involves myspace. I know. I die, and not in a good way. Barry saw a picture of a very grown-up set of the 3 Bourne girls through of post of a friend of a friend on myspace, while he was on the end of his first deployment in Iraq. One day I received a much surprised comment on this picture saying "Are these the famous Bourne Girls!?".  He thought it looked like us but couldn't be sure with as grown up as the girls were so many years after the Boys & Girls club years.

After this began a string of emails and eventually texts when he cam home from Iraq, and finally phone calls about 6 months after that initial picture.

Our relationship began as a friendship, thinking back now its strange that we started by talking about our individual relationships and breakups with other people and working through so many changes in our lives. At this point the pharmaceutical company had just downsized and I found myself on the job search again 2 years after graduation, Barry just back from his first deployment from Iraq and making decisions on what to do next.

What I did next would change both our lives forever and. I was ready to make a change, to move away from home and really spread my wings, really for the first time. So I made the decision to move to Texas for a job and live with a friend whose husband was deploying for the 2nd time- everything seemed to be aligning. Funny thing is, at this point I hadn't even realized that Killeen and Fort Hood Texas were the same place (I knew nothing of the Army then)! As soon as I announced my decision to move to Texas to Barry and told him and I bet we'd be living close enough to get together sometime, he informed me that I was in fact moving to exactly where he was living. Killeen is the military town surround Fort Hood , I was obviously militarily inept.

After moving to Texas, Barry and I started to spend more and more time together and very quickly he became my best friend. I wish I could say a romance budded immediately but I fought it every step of the way. I knew I wanted to kiss him early on, I also knew if I did kiss him it would change everything and I couldn't risk losing my best friend at that point. I also knew he was re-deploying soon, and not only was I petrified at giving up my best friend for an entire year, I also knew we had to be totally in to make it through a deployment to make it as a couple.

But Barry, in his very patient way continued to wait and work for that  first kiss because he was certain of what he wanted. We talked everyday, he showed me around and we continued to spend a lot of time together. He was even grilling steaks for my roommate and I - every Sunday we would sit and have dinner like a family. He was working so hard for that first kiss he was even mowing my roommates lawn every other week. This went on for quite some time, a couple months actually, which he will never let me forget.

I knew once I gave in and kissed him nothing would be the same.

The moment did not disappoint. I can only describe it as fire works follow by weak knees. You know the scene in Princess Diaries (yes Princess Diaries, stick with me) where she has her first kiss and she had no 'foot pop' and she's so disappointed? Then she kisses the right boy and she gets it? I got my 'foot pop' ;)

 It was bigger than me and I knew from that very moment, the moment of our first kiss that he was the last man I would ever kiss.

Our very first ever trip together to San Antonio

Love him!

I told him from the beginning I was a lot of work and required a lot of attention, but that I was more than worth it. I am so glad he continued to wait and work to earn my trust, he is such a good man and is going to make the most amazing husband and father.

I know it sounds like a cliche to say it but he is truly my very best friend and I cannot wait to marry him in 5 short months.