34 weeks pregnant

That means only 6 weeks left until we meet our new baby! I have not been documenting this pregnancy well at all. It is hard to believe that I have been pregnant since last July. As usual I was plagued by pregnancy nausea from about week 8 until week 18. Since then, things have been pretty smooth. I had leg cramps. My other pregnancies I would get the nighttime charlie horses in my calves, but for some reason this pregnancy they struck me in my right inner thigh. Ouch! My only other complaints have been the run of the mill bloody noses, snoring, heartburn/acid stuff. . .you know regular pregnancy stuff. I have always been blessed to have pregnancies with no major complications or sickness. I enjoy the excitement of my baby's movements and growing. This time around we decided it would be fun to leave the gender of our baby a surprise until the birth. We are so excited to meet the little one and find out what we have! Here I am this Sunday after church.

Thanks

I wanted to thank you for all the encouraging comments on my last post. I am feeling excited about keeping up my new work out habits- it has been going quite well for the most part (labor day, a doctor's appt., and Paisley's hurty belly have thrown a couple kinks in). Now the food part is probably going to be the hard part. Anyway, enough of that for now. I have been seriously slacking on the blog.I really need to get a post up about Tucker's baptism. But for now I just have to tell you: I got this email for an exclusive sale at Shabby Apple (shabbyapple.com) a couple weeks ago. I own one of their dresses and really like it, so I decided to check out the sale. I got this dress, that today is listed at $130 for $39 with free shipping. The color I got was Night Lapis (a navy blue with a hint of purple). I got it in the mail yesterday and I love it! Best $39 I ever spent I tell you. Finding a modest, lovely, not super boring dress for that price isn't always easy to do. So that is making me happy today :)

Hating/Accepting my body

So, a couple years ago I decided to get skinny. I worked at it for a long, long, time and got to a weight that was just a little heavier than my goal weight and I was pretty happy with how I was looking. Then, I got lazy. My work out partner stopped going to my gym and slowly my work out habits faded. I fizzled down to doing just one class a week. Since I had lost much of my weight that I had attributed to baby pounds, I figured it would be easy to maintain. I was wrong. The weight crept back on, little by little, and BAM! None of my skinny jeans fit anymore. I am angry that I let it get to this point. I have never eaten great. I don't eat terrible, but lets be honest, I love carbs and dairy and baked goods. My portions are too big. Yada yada yada. I should probably eat vegetables. You know, that kind of thing. Also, I have been having small bouts of depression. It's pretty normal for me, I just go through periods of low motivation and productivity. Or maybe I'm just lazy. Who knows. At the beginning of May my sister's health began to deteriorate and at the end of May I had a miscarriage just a week after finding out I was pregnant. And because I am an emotional eater, I am sure all of those things affected my increasing chubbiness negatively. The point is, I am overweight again and very unhappy about it. I realized that I am not one of those people that can eat whatever and never work out and still look good. I have to make lifestyle changes and stick to them. That is not easy. But I don't want to be sad when I look in the mirror. I don't care if it seems vain. I used to be fit and strong and I know that I can be. I want to take care of my body.  Last week I went and added childcare to my gym membership and managed to go to the gym 3 times last week. I am hoping to regularly go 3 or 4 times a week and take control of my eating habits as well. Wish me luck!

10 years

It is hard to believe it was 10 whole years ago that I married Trent. I seriously love the guy so much! We were so young! Can't wait to have him all to myself in Hawaii in a few weeks to celebrate :)

My dream swimsuit

I want this swimsuit from jcrew so bad. It is lovely in the other colors as well.

J Crew swimwear   (see more one shoulder bathing suits)

Photography Challenge

I saw this on Pinterest from this website and wanted to try it to get me practicing photography. The challenge on the blog was for the 30 days of June, but since it is a little late for that, I am going to start today in honor of turning 30. Then I think it would be cool to do again next year and hopefully see my improvement.

I love my girl friends!

Last night my friend Kathi took me out to get a pedicure with another friend Merrilee. Then we grabbed one more friend, Marianne, and headed to Joe's Farm Grill for dinner. I had been told that these sweet ladies whom I serve with in church just wanted to take me out for a little celebration. Originally I had told Kathi that I would like my other girlfriends to join us for dinner, so we could all celebrate dinner together. Strangely enough though, none of my friends seemed to be available that night. Earlier in the day I had told Kathi that I wasn't sure about the restaurant choice, and maybe we should go somewhere else. She seemed pretty cool with it. But I decided to take a look at their menu online and spotted several things that sounded really good, so I let her know, that would be fine. As we walked up to the restaurant there was a large party seated outside off to the right that was getting really loud. I looked over to see what all the fuss was about to see a bunch of my wonderful girlfriends sitting there shouting to surprise me. it was such a great surprise and completely unexpected. Being the big baby that I am I teared up immediately. I had such a great night spending time with some of my favorite people and I even received my first pair of TOMS. It was definitely a fabulous way to end my twenties!

My point and shoot camera sucks and the misters at the restaurant didn't help, so please excuse the terrible photos. and I don't really have an excuse for my face, but please excuse that too.

Make a wish

Right now I am wishing for:
-new work out shoes and pants
-combat gloves
-a swimsuit
-basically a whole new wardrobe, I need shirts, bermuda short, casual dresses. . .
-a 50mm lens for my camera
-some time to go to a few stores alone (summer is hard that way)
-motivation to eat well, exercise, and lose 20-25 lbs.
-my husband to surprise me with a special date


Right now I am excited to:
Get a pedicure and have dinner with a couple of darling girlfriends tonight!
To have a fun girl's night next Tuesday!

Photography workshop

Today I had the pleasure of taking a photography workshop to finally learn how to use my camera better. I can now use it off the Auto setting! Hooray! Hopefully with more practice I will be able to do beautiful portraits of my kids (and my friends and families and their kids)! I am excited to get more practice if anyone wants to invite me over :) Trevor Dayley is the photographer who taught the class. Check out his site to see his beautiful work. After learning a few things we were able to shoot a lovely model and I got a couple decent shots. I am just happy I finally understand shutter speed and apeture!

The model is Nicole . Apparently, she is amazing in front of, and behind the camera! Now I just need a 50mm lens and some decent editing software!

Early gift

I will be enjoying a photo workshop from Trevor Dayley for an early birthday gift to myself. My husband will be gifting me with taking care of the kids all day. Hooray! I can't wait. Anyone want to join me?

The big 3-0

While I am actually feeling a little bummed about the fact that in one month I will no longer be in my twenties, I figured I could cheer myself up by searching the internet for beautiful things to make my "in a perfect world where I get everything I want" birthday wish list.

(all descriptions are links, click to see where you can get your own- except nobody is allowed to buy the elephant necklace unless it is a gift for me)

This book.

This ring.

This ring in the green or seafoam.

This elephant locket necklace has to my favorite thing on here.

These tunic/dresses that my super talented and darling cousin-in-law makes. I'll take two tunics and two in the knee length dress style please :) They seem perfect! I think they would be great in a print or ikat as well.

Navy tankini from Target.

Shirts

like this

That's all for now.
Happy weekend!

Pinterest (edited to add details)

Recently discovered Pinterest (click here) through my cousin Skye. I am officially obsessed. Such a fun, easy way to keep track of inspiring images. Beware of your time being sucked.

*Okay, on Pinterest you download a button to your toolbar that says "pin it" and then any time on any website or blog that you see a picture you like you can "pin it" to a certain pin board. For instance, you can have several boards, one for home decor, one for crafts, one for clothing and jewelry, one for places you want to visit. . . The possibilities are endless. You can view other people's pins, follow other's pinboards and repin any pictures that you like to your own pinboards. It's so fun and a little addictive!

P.S. The above image is from the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where I will be running away with my husband for our anniversary trip.

Aches

 My kids have had pretty bad night coughing fits and the girls have been running fevers. I have been having daily headaches and battling my lack of motivation and energy. I'm having a hard time wanting to do much of anything. It is one of those funks I rotate through. I want to exercise, but can't seem to find a good time and haven't been willing to get up early enough (perhaps it is time to bite the bullet and pay for the daycare at my gym). Not wanting to clean or cook. I am getting my desire to decorate back though. The girls bunk beds should be here next week and I bought some paint for the boys room and paint for my picture frames. other than that things have been super low key. I am struggling to decide weather or not we want to have one more baby. If we are going to do it, I want it to be sooner than later. I do make excellent babies.

Clothes for me

 For Christmas I said, "I need clothes, bad." I basically had very little that fit or was cute in my closet, I couldn't bare to get rid of all the crap because I knew I would have nothing left if I did. Anyway, I got $300 worth of visa gift cards! I have about $30 left, but this is what I got.

The lighting was bad, but the far left is a navy cardigan.
Target and Marshalls. Also got some work-out pants not pictured.

H&M (my first time)

Downeast Basics (40% off dress sale) Also got a black and a white undershirt not pictured, plus a necklace that I might exchange.

I feel pretty good about my finds. I still needs shoes and a couple pair of jeans, maybe a couple t-shirts. but I'm happy!

I checked out Anthropologie for the first time in person. Such great stuff. But my money would've only gotten me a total of about 3 items there.

For now

I had a post about Charlotte turning five, but we are having major computer issues over here and I have no access to my pictures or many other things, so it will have to wait.

The main things on my mind lately include:
-How to releive my poor Henry from the most horrible ear infection ever.
-New Year's Resolutions to do everything better.
-Wondering why I can't ever get my house clean and why I don't ever want to make dinner, since those are major items in my job description.
-Being irritated that I don't know my pupil distance, cause I really want to order some new glasses from zennioptical.com, like yesterday.
-Wanting to curl up under a blanket and warm up my fingers and toes and fall asleep.