Preggo pictures from Sweet Whimsy Photography

I am really sorry that haven't been blogging lately. Trying to get everything prepared and ready for baby Zoe's arrival. T minus 5 days until due date!

Here is the link to view the pictures and our password is "legos"

http://www.sweetwhimsyphotography.com/index2.php#/proofing/

Sneak Peak of Pregnancy Pictures from Sweet Whimsy Photography

Awkward Family Photos....this is what I usually think of when I see pregnancy pictures posted online. Posed in front of an inanimate object that is the size of her belly, smiling at nothing, bad lighting and silly clothes. Please check out the link below to get the picture in my head. Awful.

Awkward Pregnancy Photos

So when I got pregnant the last thing I wanted were pictures taken of me while huge, because of this scar that they would be horrible. But after a few months and growing very fond of my new body, I started to get sentimental that the belly would be gone. I no longer think of the belly has this big, over grown, stretched marked flesh object, but as the house that is growing a person inside of me. So need less to say I have grown emotionally attached to the belly and what it represents. Soon the love that is growing inside of me will be in this world as a little human, but until than I want to cherish what I have accomplished so far....growing a human inside of me. So please enjoy the sneak peak of my pregnancy pictures and hopefully you will see them as I do...ART and a house of love.

Sweet Whimsy Photography

Also, I found this picture very touching and it also helps me to remember that no matter what my body will look like after this, I will always be thankful that I was able to grow a miracle.

A Mark for Every Breath you took

***If anyone in the Austin area is looking for a photographer for weddings, family portraits, newborn pictures or any other events that you would need a photographer, please contact Brandi Brown at sweetwhimsyphotography.com.

30 weeks pic, cravings and freezer meals

30 week pic

I have been in super prepared mode lately and kept thinking if I am going to breastfeed and pump, I am going to need somewhere to store all this milk. We have one of those dinky side by side refrigerators and you can store about two pints of ice cream, one frozen pizza and a few frozen meals. So in order to solve this problem we bought a deep freezer on craigslist for $50. Best money we have spent! So now I have a place to store my breast milk, but what about all the other things we could put in that deep freezer........ice cream, freezer meals, home made baby food and half a cow. So I sat down bought an e-recipe book and started buying food in bulk to make our own freezer meals. So the thought process is that we are not going to want to make meals once the little one is here and how nice it will be to pull something out of the freezer and heat it up in 20 mins and voila we have dinner. Here are some of the recipes that we have made so far:

Herb Crusted Pork Chops

Chicken and Broccoli Quiche

Bacon and Leek Quiche

7 different types of Marinated Chicken

Goulash

Sausage, Spinach Cheese Tortellini Soup

Frozen Fruit Cups

We still have lots of room for more, so my goal is to make a meal every week until she arrives.

So one last thing...my cravings. I usually spout off what I am craving and Derek looks at me like I am crazy. My cravings are not weird things put together like peanut and pickles, my cravings are usually something I ate as a child. Just to name a few.....

Nerd Cereal-this product is directly from the 80s.

Hamburger Helper, Skittles, Sprite. And although I have not caved into the cravings listed above. I did manage to make the recipe below. Oreo stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Step 1-Make chocolate chip cookie dough, you can find any recipe online. Grab a bag of double stuff Oreos.

Step 2-Take a small scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough and press an Oreo on top of the cookie dough ball. See picture below.

Step 3-Add another small scoop of cookie dough a place on top of the Oreo. Than gently mold the cookie dough around the Oreo. See picture below.

Step 4-Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 350 degrees, just like regular cookies.

Step 5- Grab a HUGE glass of milk because you are going to need it to wash down these cookies!

Baby Showers

Nursery Room-Budget $350

Who says you have to spend a ton of money to have a great nursery. I sold a queen bed, coffee table and a huge IKEA picture and used this money to establish my $350 budget for the room.

What have you been doing and why are there no pictures...

This is the statement that I have heard from several friends and family members. Post more pictures! Post more updates.

Excuse: Okay so this is what Derek and I have been up to lately...working, we got kayaks, I bought an Ipad, finished the nursery, had a baby shower in Oklahoma, had a baby shower in Houston, planning for the arrival, cleaning, crafting and trying to sleep as much as possible before SHE gets here. So as you can see I have been way to distracted to blog about anything (or maybe just a little lazy)

We are in the final countdown 6 more weeks till this little one pops out and turns our world up side down. We started birthing classes this month and it has been great to meet other couples who are due around the same time as us. I have been going to meet up with a group of 3rd trimester mothers to be the last couple of weeks and it is so nice to sit down and talk about being pregnant. If no one has heard of meetup.com, go check it out, it is a way to meet with people with similair interests or situations as you.

So the next several posts will be of all the activities we have done lately....

Babymoon in Colorado 06-26-11

Derek and I have been together for a year! Wow how the time has flown by and how much our world has changed in a year and how will be completely different by next year with the addition to our little family.

23 Week Baby Bump

21 Weeks Pic

21 weeks pic is posted for all you who keep asking!

Weekend of Austin Fun

Our Austin weekend started off with a trip to the Alamo Drafthouse, a unique movie experience where you can eat great food, drink imported beer and see great movies. (Don't worry I drank a BIG RED) We saw Thor and I have to say it was a great movie! Was completely surprised by the cinematography.On Saturday we finally went and registered at Babies R US and I think maybe Derek had fun picking out things for the baby. People might be surprised how many blue things we picked out, but I tell you what, I just don't believe in the whole "Pink is for girl and blue is for boy." Since Derek is color blind, the only color he can really see is the shade of blue and to me it is my favorite color, so naturally we would choose blue shades. Cool tones of blues, purples and greens we picked out with very few pink things.

So here are some common questions we get about the baby:

1) What is your theme for your baby room?

A) We are not doing a traditional baby room(GASP) We believe in not over-doing things and since we are taking the co-sleeping approach, attachment parenting(Gasp again) we do not think we will need a crib anytime soon. Plus, the extra room in our house is better suited for the million guests we will be having stay with us in the coming months after Baby is born. So Baby will be sleeping with us, in either a co-sleeper attached to the bed or a bassinet.

2) Cloth Diapers vs. Disposable Diapers?

A) We will be using cloth diapers .... for all the regular reasons and to save money. Yes, I will be doing more laundry but just think how many diapers will NOT be in some landfill after my baby has used them. After doing some research and talking to a few friends that use cloth diapers, it really isn't as inconvenient as others have portrayed. No longer are the days of thin cloth diapers and a million pins trying to hold them up.

I almost made it completely through the registration process, when I picked up this little book. I read the first page and started bawling like a baby in the middle of the aisle. I just know that this little girl is going to love her daddy so much and he will be forever changed when she gets here. There is no greater bond than that of a little girl and her father. Derek will forever be her hero and protector. And that made me tear up again just thinking about it.

18 Weeks Preggo Pic

I really hate taking pictures of myself. Everyone continues to tell me that I will miss my bump and if I do not take pictures of it I will be sentimental about it later. So after the advice of a friend I am going to attempt to take a picture every week!

I know that this is suppose to be the best time of my life, where my hair, skin and nails are suppose to be long, glowing and strong but I completely disagree. I think this little girl is pulling every vitamin from me and keeping it for herself. Do I mind? Not at all, however I do not feel the need to take a picture every moment.

Here's to another week of pregnancy. (By the way as I am writing this I am 20 weeks and never took a picture at 19 weeks)

Smith Goes to Washington

Julia Childs Kitchen in the American History Museum

White House made out of legos ***Look at past posts to see Derek and I's obsession for legos.

St Louis Arch made of legos

Lego City

Jan Hancock made of legos

Empire State Building made of legos

Washington monument

The Capital

IT'S A GIRL!

1:59 Find out she is a Girl

13:00 She waves to us on the screen

RAIN HOUSE

Our view from the backyard after a storm

Fridays nights and pregnant mommies

Friday nights use to be the night to run around downtown, drinking, listening to music, catching up with friends and now it is being spent on my couch. BORING.....I know. But some nights I am just to damn tired to do anything else. Most of the time as soon as I sit(lay) down on the couch, I am out in 5 minutes. I spent all Sunday sleeping, the only thing I did when I got up was eat and than back to bed. I am pretty sure my body must have been growing something very important for the baby like a brain stem or an extra limp because I was out all day. I keep thinking this is the time to sleep and to get in as much as possible because I will never sleep again without interruptions.

Back to my Friday nights, lately has revolved around legos and board games.

****NERD ALERT***Derek and I stumbled upon a Lego store at the mall and we are completely obsessed. So far I have put together a small repelica of the Space Needle, the White House and I have the Empire State building and the John Hancock bulding waiting in the wings to assemble. Derek on the other hand has put together a crane, an excavator and a freaking robot that can solve a Rubiks cube. Yes, I have let a nerd impregnat me with his nerd baby and I can not wait for her to meet her father.

The other thing we tend to do on Friday nights is home projects, check out our new spice rack after a trip to IKEA and a label maker for my first mothers day!

New Spice Rack

Derek organizing his Legos

Deja vu preggo

Feb 16 2011

I was 4 days late and was not thinking I was pregnant, I thought something else was wrong. I called my best friend in Kansas and she told me that I needed to go take a pregnancy test as soon as possible. I had only taken one test in the past and honestly thought it was to early and had no idea that you could actually take it 5 days before your missed period. I went to CVS and bought 2 pregnancy test and a huge bottle of water, I was so nervous that I forgot my wallet in the car. After I returned back to the cash register person, she looked at me and told me it would be okay.

I went immedialy home, drinking the water the entire way home. I raced to the bathroom to pee on that awful stick. I sat it down on my bathroom floor and waled out, pacing back and forth down my hallway. I snuck back into the bathroom as if someone was going to catch me looking early at that stick that would determine my fate.....it was positive after 30 seconds. I thought there was no possible way this could be true. I took the second test...still positive!

I went back to the CVS and bought 3 more pregnancy tests, if I was going to tell Derek that he was having a baby I wanted to make absolute sure. side note: I had only taken one other pregnancy test in my life and had no idea how accurate these tests really were, i really though there was a margin of error. Drove back to my apartment and took a third test....positive! I grabbed a backpack, threw some clothes in it and texted Derek that I was on my way to Austin.

Driving to Austin, crying and calling my friend back in Kansas to just talk to me the longest 3 hours of my life. Of course I had to stop to pee, so why not go ahead and pee on another test to make sure.....POSITIVE. That makes four POSITIVE pregnancy tests! The funny thing is I look back and remember still thinking that I may not be pregnant...it was denial than anything else.

Derek called me when I was 40 minutes outside of Austin, he wanted to know why I was coming to see him on Wednesday, although he was excited to see me, he knew something was "wrong." He wanted to know why, he wanted to know right now and I wouldn't tell him over the phone. He got short with me, the first time he had ever done this and I actually contemplated calling him back and telling him over the phone, but I knew this was something I had to do in person.

Traffic was horrible and that last 15 miles to Derek's place took forever. As I ran out of my car and up the stairs to Derek's apartment, I had a fleeting thought that he may not "want" this and I had to prepare myself for anything. Silly thought, I know Derek and he would never walk away from his unborn child. I threw open the door, started to cry and proclaimed, "I AM PREGNANT!!!!!"

His first reaction was a big smile, but he was holding it back to gauge my reaction, he was trying to figure out if I was upset or happy. I was neither...I was scared. I told him not to hold back and that he was allowed to have whatever reaction he wanted and that smile got wider. We spent the rest of that night up talking about all our possibility for OUR future. We were going to do this together and all I have ever wanted for my future children is two loving parents in the same household.

My pregnant dreams..the start of it all

Feb 9 2011

Derek I have had only been dating since late June and keeping up with the long distance relationship was starting to get to both of us, we both just wanted to be in the same city. We had started to discuss our options to try and live in the same city. (we had no idea how quickly it would become a reality)

I had another pregnant dream, but this time it was actually about telling Derek that I was pregnant, it played out in my dream just as if it was written as a play. I remember every vivid emotion and tear in that dream. I woke up thinking that this was such a real dream, but there was no way I was going to tell Derek that I was having these pregnant dreams. (At this point in the story I wasn't even late yet)

***Come to find out later, that Derek had a pregnant dream too, but instead of me being pregnant his neighbor Emily was pregnant and we all lived in a house with Emily and her partner to help raise the kid***

I would have multiple pregnant dreams leading up to the time I found out I was actually pregnant.