What's Up

So much has been happening lately and it is hard to keep up!

Since the wedding we have been busy bees. The basement is shaping up! Over the weekend Peter primed and painted the entire, yes ENTIRE basement! Very different colors from what it was before and I am looking forward to the finished product. We are hoping our contractor can start working on putting in the floors this week, which would be awesome! We are doing pergo throughout.

I was busy as well this weekend. I had five photo shoots and in between the photo shoots I managed to weed whack the hill, clean the upstairs do all the laundry and start to tarp the hill. My goal for this summer is to have the weeds on the hill gone and it all tarped so that next summer we can lay rock or mulch.

Nora was so sweet this weekend and played so well while mom and dad worked. We are so blessed and I really hope that this next one is as good as her. Peter and I did manage to sneak in dinner and a movie on Sunday evening, which was really nice. I don't even remember the last time just the two of us did something alone. I really do miss that. I am hoping we can do that a little more this summer before the baby comes. There are some really good movies that we want to see ;)

I had a doctor's appointment this past Thursday and things are looking really good. We had our big ultrasound and I bet you are dying to know! Well, sorry, not in this post...you will have to wait until June 12th to find out if Maverick is a boy or a girl. We have been calling the baby Maverick because for some strange reason Peter likes this name and wants to name a child with that name. So it has become a joke and the name has kind of stuck for in-utero. Maverick is measuring great and weighs aprox. 8 oz! This baby was very active during the ultrasound and so it was hard to get some really good shots, but we did manage to get the 'money' shot. We also got to see this baby's mouth move, which was pretty neat.

I am officially 19 weeks and this picture was taken this morning after my workout. I have been lucky enough to have kept up with my running and step class. I am working out 4 times a week right now and hope to continue that as long as I can. It is getting harder to run, well harder because my heart rate is getting harder to stay down. If I didn't have to pay so close attention to that I would be fine. I have a 5k this weekend and I am thinking this will be my last race. I hate running slow and it will be hard to find someone to run with me that slow. I am thankful to my friend Cyndi who is running with me this weekend. I just really want to keep exercising in hopes it will help me keep some of the weight off and help me post-pardem.

This is my last week of school!!!  YIPEE! I am so excited and ready for summer break. Nora and I are headed to Chicago on Saturday to visit Naomi! I cannot wait to hold that little girl.  We plan on being there for 4-5 days. Naomi was born on May 21st, yes my sister got married and my niece was born. She weighed in at 6 lbs even and was 19 inches long. She has a head of dark hair. I will be posting some pics of her next week.

Well I guess that is all for now! A really long post, which is not typically my style, but there is a lot going on!

The Royal Wedding

Well, I cannot believe the wedding has come and gone! It ended up being a beautiful day and we had soooo much fun! Nora did a great job and looked so stinking cute. The ceremony was good, the pics were great and the reception was AWESOME! We are all recovering and resting.  Here are some pics from the day!!

rehearsal dinner

grooms cake

grandma and nora

handsome jalen

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17 Weeks!

Well here we are 17 weeks into pregnancy number two! You know that I wasn't going to go too long without posting pictures. I did this for Nora and of course am doing it again for this little peanut. I cannot believe it has been 17 weeks already. This pregnancy has for sure been different that my first one. I was very nauseated for the first 13 weeks and nothing seemed to help that. I have really bad acne too, which totally stinks, but a part of being pregnant. I have had cravings this time around...did not have cravings with Nora. What have I been craving, for a few weeks at the beginning I could not get enough orange sherbet, I don't eat sherbet so that was weird for me. I have been craving salty and sweet together which is odd for me and most recently I cannot get enough rootbeer! Normally I would rather not drink root beer at all and now I want it all the time!

We have had a few dr. appt's and they have all gone well. Our first ultrasound was fun and Nora got to be a part of it. We are very excited that on May 26th we will be finding out, as long as this little peanut is cooperating, what the gender is. Please don't ask, we are not "revealing" the gender until June 12th! I will say that I think it is a boy this time around and my gut has been right with the last 8 out of 10 pregnancies of people I know. We will just have to wait and see. 

Everyone has been asking if Nora is excited or not. We talk about the baby, but she hasn't said too much about it until last night. It was my turn to put her to bed (yes we take turns and I could do a whole post about this little issue) and we were sitting in the glider and she got up on my lap and I started to read. A few minutes later she said "mom i am sitting on the baby". I looked at her and she smiled and put her hand behind her back and left them on my stomach for the rest of the time we read together. It just made my heart melt! I know we will have some jealousy issues in the beginning, but this is the making of a great big sister!

Nora's 3rd Birthday!

Cheese!

Birthday cake

opening gifts

make a wish

Nora had a great birthday. I cannot believe that she is already 3! Thursday Nora and I had pizza for dinner and waited up for Grandma and Grandpa to get here and opened their gifts when they got here. Friday they took her to the zoo and later that night we opened gifts from Aunt Candace and Uncle Tim, strawberry shortcake stuff!!  Nora opened our big gift, which was an outside water table, which I can't wait for her to play with. I decorated the cake Friday night and my daughter came up, out of no where and said, "Mom, thanks for making my cake!". She is just too sweet! I know I am a little biased, but she is so good, despite the times she drives me crazy.

So Saturday rained and was cold and nasty and we still had a great party! All of our family and friends came over and my dad made some really yummy deep fried nuggets and french fries. She was so excited to open presents and eat cake. We had a lot of fun.

I am not sure how the three's are going to be, but hopefully we will get through them. She is starting to be more bossy and she told Grandma that she yells at me! I don't like that she is bossy and not doing what I ask of her all the time, but I know it could be worse and she is still a really good girl! I watched Nora's birth story on her birthday and it made me cry! But it also made me super excited for our little peanut to be here!

Aunt Candace's Baby Shower

Centerpiece and giveaways

gift table

Grandma and Nora

Aunt Candace and Nora

We headed to Chicago this past weekend for Aunt Candace's baby shower. It was a quick weekend, but a fun weekend. Grandma and I planned the shower for Aunt Candace, it was so much fun planning. We made the diaper cakes centerpieces back in march when they came to visit. Two of them had blankets and lap pads in the center and the others had baby wash and lotion in the center. Then the outside was surrounded by pink and green ribbon. We also had candy bars for the giveaways and they had personalized wrappers on them that I had found on Etsy, they were super cute. They went along with her owl theme.
Nora had a lot of fun a the shower and was a total trooper. We got to hackney's at 11:00 and we didn't end up leaving until 4ish, so no nap for her and she did excellent. She talked to people and helped Aunt Candace open gifts and did a great job for being almost three and surrounded by only adults all day. Aunt Candace got lots of great gifts and then we headed to their new house and helped unpack and sort and Nora played with some of the new toys. It was a great weekend and we cannot wait to meet Naomi!!!! Aunt Candace is dialated to 3 cm already, so we are thinking she isn't going to make it until May 30th!

Happy Easter

We had a great Easter! Nora had a great time and loved hunting for Easter eggs and coloring them and eating tons of candy!  She I swear, had at least a half a bag of jelly beans and ate more candy than she has ever eaten. We went to church and she was so funny because the pastor said Hallelujah and she gave a big Hallelujah! It was pretty funny. We then went to Grandma's house for brunch and headed to Great Grans for dinner. It was a great Easter and we are so blessed and surrounded by so many people we love!

Big Girl Bed

We turned Nora's crib into a toddler bed a couple of weekends ago and she loves it!  I was a little worried about it, but she is doing great! She loves sleeping in her big girl bed. I can't wait to see how well she does when we give her a bigger bed. She also found a Barbie my mom had given her for her first birthday and she loves it. She needs to always know where it is at and she has been sleeping with it! As you can see in the picture she has barbie all covered up with her!

Katie's Bachelorette Party

The Wedding Party (minus the irish twinkie)

Katie had her bachelorette party on April 17th. We started at Katie's house and had apps and drink's and then the bus came to pick us up at 8:00 and we went to D's, Big Daddy's, McGurks and Carsons.

MOH and MOB

MOH, Bride, MOH

We had a great time and it was a great party!  I am so glad that I remember all of it and get to tell all the good stories!