Update | 38 Weeks!

I honestly can't even believe I just wrote that! 38 weeks!! (Today!) I never thought this time would get here! And now it's here! And I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! Freakout can commence.  But really.  Even though I do feel totally unprepared. And the nursery isn't anywhere near finished. And I feel like I still have a million things to do.  I'm feeling more and more ready. More at peace. I can't wait to meet our little guy. I can't wait to see his face for the first time! I can't wait to watch Aric become a dad. So much excitement and anticipation and little glimpses of fear and uncertainty, but every time I start to fear things, I realize that's the enemy.  And a quick prayer will all but turn my thoughts around completely. I know the Lord is in control. He is good and He has a beautiful plan. For our boy. For his life.  For our role as parents. For the timing of his arrival. And I trust Him completely. My hope is in Him alone. 

I just wanted to post a little update of what's been happening lately! It's so hard to be in a consistent blogging routine so I'm sure updates every few weeks or months is the way this whole thing is gonna go, but hey! Better late than never! And one of my favorite quotes (that I have to remind myself often in work and life in general) "Done is better than perfect!" (Thanks Lara Casey!)

We enjoyed Thanksgiving at 36 weeks in Dallas with my family! 

And then we started the Christmas decorating as soon as we got home!  There's a whole long story about the whole stocking situation, but I'll spare you all the details and just be excited that we have an extra stocking hung up this year! :)

AND - the biggest news of all - that fire there? The very first fire in our home (of almost 2 years yes I know!) I've been waiting and waiting until we could have fires in our home and we finally made it happen this year! Now I pretty much start one every day and LOVE it!  I'm excited we will have the option throughout the holiday season and when we bring Kai home!  A fire just makes a house a home!

Ha! See we are all enjoying the fires here!  We had to commemorate Aric's "Movember" beard this year - so we had a date night, watched a movie, had ice cream and a mini photo shoot of the beard before he shaved it! :)

And these!!! OH these! I'm so excited about them! Honestly I HATE having my picture taken.  It's like a pre-requisite of being a photographer - you are just super awkward on the other side of the camera. But alas, I wanted to document this unique time in our lives and our dear friend Deborah did such an amazing job with the pictures! These are just a few of the sneak peeks she sent and I absolutely love them all! I can't believe it's the last photoshoot of just Aric & I! From now on we will have another little person to include in all the pictures! :) (I can't wait)

Anyway - enjoy these few and I'll post more of the rest once I get them! But honestly I don't know how they will get any better than these! ;)

Bahaha! I had to! These funny awkward photos are absolutely necessary to take just for the laughs! ;)

Showered in Blessings!

Showers are one of those things. You worry and stress about who to invite, who you forgot to invite, what to wear, what should I put on the registry? Is everyone gonna think I'm crazy if I put this on the registry.  Is that too much? Etc. etc...  But in the end all I can say is WOW. What a blessing this baby shower was! We are so lucky and so grateful to everyone who came, our family, our friends, our hostesses that put so much time and energy and care into planning and making it perfect.  I just can't believe how perfect it was and how blessed we were by it all!  Kai is one loved little boy already and I can't want for anything more than that! Thankfully my hostesses reminded me to bring my camera so we got some pictures! Gotta start being better about that! ;)

The shower was in the morning and the hostesses made the most amazing spread of brunch goodies! Including Waffles with all the toppings! Delicious pumpkin muffins, sausage balls, bacon wrapped smokies and a yummy yogurt parfait! And look how cute the favors were?? Those little pumpkin treats filled with chocolates! So adorable! And I'm sorry - have you ever seen a more adorable diaper cake??  I'm obsessed! The honest diapers are seriously too much! I can't even handle them and the jellycat raccoon was one of the things I wanted most for Kai! I just think he's so stinkin' cute and those jellycat dolls are the softest things ever!

 Me with my amazing, beautiful, sweet, talented, wonderful hostesses!! (Sad Jalie missed the picture! But she was there too!)

 So many blessings!!!

 I wish I would have thought about getting pictures with more of the guests, but we made sure to get all the family covered! :) Lots of amazing moms represented here!  Thankful for their awesome examples and how much they already love our boy too!

 Hahaha!! Kai's cousins were breaking in his little bathtub for him! ;) 

 And this is just a random iPhone pic that I took because (holy moly) look at that belly!  Still got 6 weeks to go! 

Maternity Photo

This is all we need, right?

HAHA!

Even though I think we both look a little creepy I love this little photo!  We visited our friend Taylor's art gallery last week and she had an artist there taking tintype photos!  It was just a fun little evening and we decided that the serious face was necessary for the nostalgia of the tintype so we went for it! Someone said Aric looks like a serial killer. haha and I think I just look terrified! But still! What a fun photo to commemorate this moment in time. ;)

On the other hand, we will be doing maternity photos soon! And I'm excited to have some photos of just the two of us before this little guy arrives!

Hello there!

Surprise! I'm still here! ;)  I was just reading my sister's blog after she hadn't posted in a couple months and I thought to myself - goodness gracious, I completely forgot I even had a personal blog! Things have been BUSY around here to say the least! In the best of ways.  And before I go any further, I've got the best news to share!

Aric & I are expecting a baby boy this December!!!!!!!!!!  Can you believe it?! I can hardly believe it myself.  This whole process from deciding, okay...maybe we could be ready for a baby... To - oh my goodness we are pregnant!  To the most awful nauseating, exhausting, 4-5 months while this little guy was cooking... To finding out It's a BOY! To everything in between and now we are here at 31 weeks and I can't believe the weekly count is in the single digits. Hello freak out moment!
There's so much to do. So much to buy... We still haven't decided on a name!!!! (Even though everyone thinks we are just keeping it a secret... hello! NO We are not keeping it a secret! We just don't know yet!!)  We just got back from a little vacation that we dubbed our late 5 year anniversary/babymoon trip.  It was a great last getaway just the two of us before we are a family of 3. Woah.
I mean, there's so much to catch up on, that I just don't have time to do right here and now - I just know I want to be able to have a place to share some of the milestones of this little guys life and I always love following other mom's & friends' blogs - so I'm gonna do my best to keep it up here!
For now enjoy some photos from the past several months!

 We told my family by getting my nieces matching shirts that said they were having another cousin!!

We drove down to DFW the weekend of our 5 year anniversary and Aric surprised me with an appointment at Stork Vision so we could find out boy or girl!!

Baby L is a boy!!

We shared the news that baby L is a boy with our friends by using our photo booth! We got everyone set up for the photo and instead of the normal countdown the screen read out... It's... A.... BOY... !!!!... ;)  Love having everyone's reactions captured forever.  You'll notice lots of blue in the picture - we asked everyone to wear either pink or blue depending on if they thought boy or girl! Looks like most everyone was right!

 Look at that sweet profile! Can't wait to see that face!

I don't even know how many weeks this is, it's just one of the few "bump" pics we've taken! Photographers are so bad at photographing things for themselves! 

Same with this one...

Aric snagged this picture of me during a bridal session at 26 weeks

 We found some goodies for baby L's room at the Rose Bowl flea market our first morning in Cali

30 Weeks at Mission Beach in San Diego

 We ordered our rocking chair while we were in Cali and the saleslady made us take a picture in it holding the stuffed animal! ;)

Hello AGAIN!

Whew! Guys! Sorry for the silence! (insert emoji here) (on an early side note I literally feel like I can't express myself correctly through text without emoji's. it might be a problem! ;))

Well. Happy 2014!

And goodbye to all of January, February and half of March! Honestly. Where does the time go?! I can't even handle it! And the crazy part about all this is, my busy season is JUST getting started! (insert another emoji here)

2014 Has already been so wonderful.  I feel like maybe, really in my 26 (almost 27th) year of life I'm really figuring out who I am, what I want out of life. Searching for God's will in my life has always been a challenging, frustrating, exciting journey.  I'm not always ready for some of the things I find out about it - but like with everything else - His will and vision is better than mine and He does everything for my Joy & His Glory. Such a comforting feeling knowing that!

I remember years ago (I know, I feel SO old these days) when I told someone for the first time I wanted to be a "photographer".  I could barely get the word out! It felt so foreign and crazy to me! Like a dream. One that might never come true - but when I finally really believed it and got over my fears, my insecurities about it... Look where I am today.  So whenever a new dream comes to my head I always feel that same way.  Fearful. The fear of the unknown. The fear of failing. The fear of - everyone would laugh at me if I told them this is really something I would like to do! 

Lucky for me, I have this incredible guy in my life who believes in me more than I believe in myself and patiently and lovingly pushes me to get past those fears, to trust God, and to not be afraid to dream or to know that fear is not of God's character and every time I feel this way it's an attack on my heart, my soul, my very being by the enemy that wants to hold me back from my full potential in glorifying God with my talents and dreams!

All that was just to say - I've got dreams stirring in my heart, I see and feel change on the horizon and I'm so excited and thankful for it! I'm ready to jump all in with both feet and push myself to the next level!

I sat down at my blog not really having a plan for what I was gonna write about or if I had any pictures to share - so I'll just leave with some recent photos I've snapped with the ol' iphone! :)

Hopefully I'll be back soon! :)

Just so you know what's going on in all the photos here (starting at the top left and going clockwise) I ordered a couple pairs of floral leggings for spring and they are literally the most comfortable things I kind of don't even care how they look I will wear them forever just because they feel so good and Aric likes to make fun of me for it! haha! Next Aric had ridden Brad's scooter home so a couple Sunday's ago we went for a little joy ride around the neighborhood when the weather was so nice!  On that note, We spent one of our last free Saturday afternoon's with the Tucker's looking for bikes so we could all start going on bike rides together, the day we bought some we tested them out around the neighborhood just the two of us and I can't wait for the weather to be nice so we can do it every night! and Lastly Aric's been growing a mean beard and I have to admit, I think it's kinda cute! ;)