BBBlocks

How cute are these?  I was clicking through my blog reader today and came across an ad for this adorable product!  I love the idea of documenting baby's age with a picture, and up until now I had only seen it done with a little sign, either hand written or printed off the computer (which is what I had planned on doing).  You get 2 square number blocks and one rectangular block that says weeks, months and years.  They seem a little bit expensive (although if you look on the website, they are a pretty good size - much larger than you'd think), maybe I'll look for some blocks and try to make my own for a fun craft project?  I think these would make a great shower gift too for anyone not wanting them for yourself; totally unique and thoughtful!

Nursery Inspiration

I have been working on an idea board for the nursery – and we don’t even know what we’re having yet, but I have been obsessed with saving inspiration pictures to get me started.  You can see that I have a tendency to lean towards girl rooms more so than boy rooms.  I don’t have the furniture picked out yet, but I know that it will be white.  I am also pretty set on painting the walls a grayish-beige color.  If it’s a boy, I might go with more of a blue-gray color, but not sure.  For now, enjoy the pictures I’ve saved that have inspired me in one way or another!

From Restoration Hardware – I love the gray color on the walls below

Love the wall color and soft pink in this room from Making it Lovely

The below images I grabbed off of decorpad.com (great site for inspiration pics!)

Love the color schemes in these pictures – “greige” with pops of pink, turquoise and lime green

I love the cornice on the wall (although I don’t plan on doing something like this over the crib – I can just imagine how quickly it would get pulled down once the baby starts pulling up in the crib.)  And I like the harlequin design painted on the wall too…

Again – love the color combo here :)   Look at how organized that closet is!  This is one of my favorite rooms from decorpad.com

She even has the diaper bag I think I want… 

That’s all I’ve got for now (well not really, but that’s all I’m going to post.)  Hopefully I’ll finish the nursery design board soon and post that!

Baby C’s first presents

I have a feeling this might be one spoiled little baby…

First bib from all the way across the pond!

 

My first key chain from The Riehl’s!  Thanks!

And what baby’s wardrobe would be complete without an outfit exclaiming how cute they are?? My friend Liz made this for us – thanks Liz (& Brian & Baby James!)

Goodbye First-Tri!

Even though I went through most of the past 13 weeks without anyone knowing I was pregnant, it’s still hard to believe that I’m already in the second trimester! 

I can’t say that I’m sad to be moving onto this next stage, but there are some things that I want to kiss goodbye remember about the first trimester:

* Food cravings: FRUIT, fruit & more fruit; spaghettios; lemonade; mac-n-cheese; grilled cheese; cheese & crackers; pizza; chicken nuggets (until one day I ate like 30 of them and haven’t been able to look at them since without throwing up)  **as you can see I’ve been eating really healthy lately**

:: Initially I was eating yogurt with granola and saltines EVERY day.  Then morning sickness kicked in and I couldn’t stand those any longer

* Food aversions: VEGETABLES – cooked, raw, steamed, whatever… they all made me gag; meat; whole grain bread – especially the crust (apparently baby doesn’t like the healthy stuff)

*I was feeling ok (just tired) until about 6 1/2 weeks or so, then the morning sickness really kicked in.  I was sick from 6 1/2 weeks until just into the 13th week (my doctor prescribed Zofran for my nausea just so I could make it through our trip to Spain).  Add that to the fact that I have been SO incredibly tired – some days I could barely make it out of bed.  I am so thankful that I was out of school for the summer… there is NO way I could have been on my feet teaching all day feeling this way.

*My skin has completely broken out – I can’t do anything to control it right now (one of the wive’s tales I’ve read says that if your skin gets worse, it means you’re having a girl, as they ‘steal their mother’s beauty’ – haha!  we’ll see…)

*I am taking flintstones vitamins with separate supplements because my prenatals make me sick.  So every night I take 3 separate pills – one of which is chewable (helps tremendously with the gag reflex!)

*Although I am a bit emotional to begin with, pregnancy has definitely kicked the hormones into high gear.  Biggest mistake so far – watching Dear John with my sister-in-law.  I was practically gasping for air I was sobbing so hard while she didn’t even shed a tear

::I told my Doc about this and she laughed and said she is forbidding any Nicholas Sparks for the rest of my pregnancy

*Since my morning sickness (AKA: all day sickness) has kept me from leaving the house much, Matt and I created a new way to “go to church” for the time being.  We have been downloading pod-casts from 2 of our favorite pastors (Matt Chandler and Matt Carter) and loading them on our iPods while we go for a walk – that way we can do it at any time that I happen to be feeling okay

*Last but not least – Matt’s favorite memory from first-tri was waking up in the middle of the night to hear me crunching on whatever type of cracker happened to be on the nightstand.  Hey – it was either that or throw up in bed – so he preferred the late night munching.

Ok, I’ve been wordy enough, without further adieu… the first belly picture:

Coming in January…

The newest addition to our family!  That’s right, Matt and I are excited to announce that we are expecting another family member in January (and maybe this will help explain to you my lack of blogging)! 

Backyard Patio before & after

We decided this spring/summer would be the time to finally make some improvements on our backyard.  Here are some pictures of what it looked like when we moved in…

BEFORE:

And, after extending our patio and adding stamped concrete, and adding some garden beds, here is the patio today…

AFTER:

   

The plants still have a lot of growing to do, but so far we are loving our new backyard and can’t wait for fall to get here so we can enjoy some cooler weather on our new patio!

Yet again…

More than a month has gone by since my last post.  June was a really busy month for us.  We were out of town for 13 out of the 30 days and have had company in town every weekend since!  Matt has been in two weddings, we’ve been to two baseball games (that may not sound very impressive, but when you aren’t fans of the team in your city – it says something!), we spent a week in the south of Spain, we improved upon our backyard and we’ve got even bigger news to share… all of that to come! 

First up, a quick photo update of our summer.

The Brushwood wedding – the happy couple at their rehearsal dinner.  Plus my in-laws and Matt and I at the rehearsal.

 

James and Kaylan’s first dance and Matt giving his best man speech :)

Matt was also a groomsman in Kyle and Liz’s wedding in Houston.

Matt’s old roommate Joe and his girlfriend Jamie came to visit us from Florida.  We had to go see the Astros while they were in town too :)

My family came into town for the 4th of July – unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of all of us together, but I did take a picture of the cake I made!

And last, but not least, a couple pictures from our trip to Spain…

In Ronda…

 

On the beach at the resort/ in one of the harbors in a small little port town

In Mijas…

and last ~ Matt and I in Gibraltar with the monkeys!

Blog Design

This is a little overdue, but I wanted to post about a blog design I did a little while back for the sister of a friend from high school.  This was the first design I had done for someone that I’ve never met, and she wanted something totally different than what I had done before, so I was a little nervous.  The blog is a food blog – Megan has just graduated from culinary school and has a great story if you read her “All about Megan” page. 

Anyways, without further adieu… here is the design.  You can click on the picture to get to her blog. 

Let me know what you think!