Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta 2015

Well we have our first official family tradition.  Aric grew up in Albuquerque so he's been watching the balloon fiesta since he was a little kid!  I started coming with Aric when we were just dating and now - we got to bring Kai to his very first one!  It was so much fun and I so look forward to the years ahead as I know he'll just love the experience more and more as he gets older!  He was the best baby!  We made it to mass accession in the morning and then later on after naps we headed to the Albuquerque Aquarium!  It was the perfect getaway and I look forward to many more trips in the future!

Thoughts at 4 AM

Motherhood.  What an incredible gift. It's 4:20 AM and I'm wide awake after only 2 and a half hours of sleep and I'm staring down at the most beautiful and previous gift I've ever been given... I want to remember this. The way his tiny hands are always up right next to his face. The sound of labored breathing through his nose as he suck suck gulps... Pause... Suck suck gulp... Gulp gulp gulp... The touch of softest skin against my arm, my fingers as I admire the most perfect little cheeks with the slightest amount of peach fuzz. Awesomely crazy bed head with hair flying in every direction some matted to your head... Legs stretched out across my torso, tickling your back and feet to keep you awake to eat... I stare down at you and a million emotions run through my head. Intense love and admiration that cannot be described... Hope for the future while crying inside at the thought of you changing and being anything but this tiny human that I can't stop holding and smothering in kisses. Heartache knowing you will inevitably one day feel the same... Gratitude that The Lord would entrust such a special gift to your dad and I that we get to be your parents... What an amazing Grace! And to think God's love is infinitely more abundant than anything I have to give... I don't know how many strands of  hair are on top of that perfect little head but He does! I could never imagine even the thought of giving up my son to save all of humanity... I wouldn't even entertain the thought... But God did that! He selflessly loved me and my son and gave up
His own to save us! Wow! I mean can you even fathom??? These are the thoughts that run through my mind at 4 AM... As hard as it can be some nights I'm so thankful for this time... The quiet stillness  that gives me room to reflect and pray and dream. I love you, little one! With my whole heart!

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! ;)