pregnanter and pregnanter.

let me just preface this by saying i really debated about posting these. i mean come on, who is CRAZY enough to post pictures of themselves 23 weeks pregnant in a bathing suit??! especially when you're not exactly one of those super model types that looks like twiggy + a baby bump.

but then, i thought, why not? i spent way to much time in my college days (easily the most fit i will ever be in my life- thank you USU gymnastics) feeling like i wasn't good enough. looking back, i wish i would have appreciated myself for what i was! i would seriously KILL to look like that again! and now, even though i have a big belly, even bigger boobs, and a round face (that part just gets worse. oh boy.), i want to appreciate this time in my life and embrace this fuller version of myself. i don't want to look back and wish i could have seen the beauty of my round pregnant body. and you know what? i like these photos. i felt special and proud of my body and proud of being a mother. preggy pics in hawaii was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and i am so glad i did it! so here's to feeling pregnant AND beautiful. and we always thought it was an oxymoron. =)

oh, and the photographer? none other than my beautiful, talented mother. thanks mom!!

i love this one- good shot mom! my flower fell out and she caught me legitimately putting it back in. just so you don't think i am the biggest dorkiest poser ever.

on a second note. i have for yeeeears loved red lipstick, but usually i don't have the guts to just WEAR it. my goal in Hawaii was to wear it a lot and get used to it! Officially consider me a red lipstick wearer. HA!

oh man. am i really clicking publish? i think i am. here goes nothin'.

back to reality...

after an amaaaazing week in cancun!! we have been loving every second of the sun, and now here we are just in time for a storm warning tomorrow. ha, welcome back to springtime in salt lake! oh brother. anyway, here are just a couple of pics from last week! more to come. =)

aslo, if you left me a voicemail or text message last week, i just received them tonight back in the u.s. so i will be getting back to you tomorrow! i will also be trying to catch up on e-mails- sorry for the delay!

happy feet

i have been loving baby girl's little feet, because suddenly, i can feel them. at exactly 17 weeks was the first little flutter, the one that startles you and makes you think "wait! was that my baby?! ...or more indigestion...?" but sure enough, i have been feeling those happy little feet all week long and i just love it. the funny thing is, i am noticing how different boys and girls are already. even from the beginning, max's kicks were miniature kick boxing sessions. it was always sequences of "POW! POWPOWPOWPOWPOW. . . POW.POW." They were fast and jabbing, in fact I confused them for a muscle twitch at first. This little one is totally different, and I must admit, a little more enjoyable. =) Soft and calm, really a fluttery feeling. I have loved the little hello's from her all week, especially amidst the hustle of las vegas while attending WPPI. of course i also did a little shopping while i was there (helloooo! H&M!), and it all makes me that much more excited!

and come on. can't end the post without talking about those SHOES!! brittany brought them to me from california while she was here last week and i seriously DIED. they have got to be the most adorable things ever! i really sortof can't get over them and i am planning all kinds of outfits to go with them so they get LOTS of use. i bought a ton of red to go with them already! thanks again britt! as you can see i am beyond obsessed.

yum.

strawberries. i have always loved them, but i have REALLY craved them with both pregnancies! when i was pregnant with max, i ate plain mountain high yogurt, sliced strawberries and granola almost every. day. this time my stomach is a little more forgiving, so i have been able to be more creative. i get the big costco packages of berries and put them on everything! salads, desserts, and breakfasts. like this one. oooooooh!

my new favorite: french toast made with pugliese bread (oh my goodness, this totally MAKES it!) topped with strawberries and powdered sugar. deeeeeliiiiicious. the little lady (see previous post!) liked it too.

P.S. this dashing young fellow thought it was good too. he really is a GEM in the morning.

the bun in the oven. it's a......

my belly. 17 weeks.

today, my whole little family payed a little visit to Doctor J. and you wouldn't beeeeleeeeeive what she told us!!!!??

max's baby brother (so i thought), is in fact A GIRL !!!! say whaaaaaat? i officially have the WORST motherly intuition ever. dead wrong on both pregnancies! although i would have been happy with either, i have been secretly hoping for a little pink in my life. i am soooo shocked, a little scared (the drama, oh, the drama), and a LOT excited. the doc says that it's a little early to know 100% since i am 17 weeks tomorrow, but that she had a reeeeally clear shot of the area in question, and there were no little boy parts sticking out. even though she says she is veeeeery rarely wrong (she misses maybe 4/year. we know. because danny ASKED!), maybe keep any receipts until my next visit just in case. =) Let the shopping BEGIN people!

max is in denial. he seriously almost cried in the doctors office when she broke the news! danny just asked if she would double check. HAHA! when we asked max what the baby's name should be tonight, he first said "sid" who is our neighbor and basically like a favorite uncle. and probably his future father in law (heather's dad fyi). then he said "sammy" (heather's little brother). then he just said "ummmm.... BOY!" uh-oh.

three comes with attitude.

you know, i have always been thankful for max's (mostly) mellow personality. laid back, happy, cooperative... that sort of thing. lately, oooooh boy. life is changing! we may have skipped the terrible twos but we are hitting 3 hard. we have been getting attitude left and right! he has this gruff little cranky voice that he does and just loves to disagree with us. he has quite strong opinions about nearly everything! it can be so funny and entertaining (secretly!), but other times i am ready to pull my hair out!! especially when he is mean to other kids. ooooh it makes me mad! speaking of which, any of you moms out there want to recommend a favorite toddler parenting book? i would love to hear it!!

i took these funny shots of max right when he woke up from a nap the other day, and i thought they captured his little attitude perfectly. haha!

this is what i get when he doesn't want his photo taken. which is, umm, all the time. haha!

max is 3! arf.

well folks. i officially have a three year old and there was a puppy party to prove it. for those of you who don't already know, the whole reason we did a puppy party is because for the last 6 months or more, max believed he was in fact, a puppy. he would make me feed him out of my hand, he randomly would start crawling and barking (like, no matter where we are), i would say, "let's go max" and he would immediately correct me: "wet'th do puppy!" thus, the puppy party.

i will be sharing all my sources for this puppy junk, let me just say, i have got to be the LUCKIEST shopper alive. i usually feel like i'm a lucky shopper and find good deals or thrifty stuff, but i purchased and made EVERYTHING but the dog bowl and pinata(which i purchased TWO days before the party!) the evening before the party. now seriously, that's luck.

birthday boy with his party stuff.

ok. the fire hydrant? 50% off at hobby lobby. no lie, i about peed my pants when i saw it. see what i mean? lucky. i will never again believe the people who have been telling me how bad it is to procrastinate. our super fancy table runner is stamped butcher paper.

bone sugar cookies. cookie cutter: hobby lobby.

puppy food (aka coco puff) cake! bowl: petsmart

the puppy pinata which he named sylvie (after sawyer's dog). or occasionally wilson (after my parents dog). sylvie/wilson: zurchers

party favor bags! bags and paw stamp: hobby lobby

each contained a bag of puppy chow, a giant bone cookie, and a ball- to fetch of course! balls, zurchers, i made the scallop chow labels from label paper, a little die cut thingy, and another hobby lobby stamp.

i toooootally scored and found 10 of these little stuffed puppies at the dollar store ( i swear i had like a spiritual experience telling me to go to the dollar store in centerville. you think i am kidding. i am only kindof.) and again lucked out BIG time on the red bone take out boxes.

each child opened the takeout box with puppy inside after max opened his presents. because it's hard for three year olds to watch another kid open presents!

GAME TIME!!

here's most of the puppies getting ready for OBEDIENCE SCHOOL. we had all the kids roll over, bark, sit, lay, etc. and fed them skittles when they obeyed. it was a riot!

FETCH. we threw the bone and each kid took a turn running to get the bone and bringing it back to danny, who then threw it for the next puppy. long after this game was over, max kept throwing the bone for hadlee and would yell "DO DET IT HADEE!!" who would fetch it and bring it back. oh, i was rolling.

PUPPIES! i made these puppy ears and dog collars for all the kids out of felt and plain head bands. they all looked sooooo cute!! of course all the kids wore them... EXCEPT for MAX. go figure.

CAKE TIME!

we spread butcher paper out on the floor and let all the kids eat like dogs- without silverware. so funny! i was hoping to find a bunch of cute cheap dog bowls so all the kids could have one, but that didn't work out as planned. pretty sure if i had planned enough time to go to multiple dollar stores, it could have been pulled off. =) but that's what you get when you're a procrastinator!

aww. i think this means he loved it! hahaha. no but really, it was just short and sweet and fun. thank you soooo much to max's little friends for coming! and of course to natalie who helped me set everything up in the morning. she saved me.

happy birthday to my little puppy! i love you SO much and can't believe you are 3!!! in human years. =)



NOTE: THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR NICE COMMENTS AND E-MAILS ABOUT THE PUPPY PARTY! ALL OF MY SOURCES FOR PARTY ITEMS ARE LISTED UNDER THE PHOTOS. THE FIRE HYDRANT IS NOT FOR SALE (IT BROKE). SORRY! AND HERE IS THE LINK FOR HOW I MADE THE DOG FOOD CAKE. ;) 

let him have cake. and make it too.

the day before max's party, we decided to make his cake in the morning. then i proceeded to do every BIT of the shopping and preparation that night! i work best under pressure i guess! i thought this little baking time deserved it's own post. because a. max had the best time ever and b. i thought his cake was kindof awesome. and we created it. and it was truly and max and jessica original, meaning sometimes i feel like everything these days seems to be borrowed off someone or other's blog, and this wasn't. do you ever feel like that? but that's a whole other story. anyway...

i think the germs get baked out. right? who cares. it's his birthday. he can eat his cake batter i guess!

oh. my. cheesey. where did he learn that one!?

we poured the batter in a pyrex bowl, coated with pam and some wax paper strips to be SURE it didn't stick! thanks for the tip celeste! i just followed the instructions on the box for temperature but you do have to bake it for quite a bit longer so the cake gets cooked in the middle. just keep sticking a fork in it. the finished cake was pretty brown on the outside but still tasted good!

totally missed the focus, but this is my child's FAVORITE expression right now. a wrinkly nosed scowl. ALWAYS a scowl these days.

the finished product!! we flipped the cake over into the dog dish (which is real. we got it at petsmart), spread on the chocolate frosting, and then covered the whole thing in coco puffs so it looked like a mound of dog food! you should have seen people's reactions, kids thought it was so cool, adults thought it was pretty unappetizing. we will post about the rest of the party soon!!

15 weeks

i have been hoooorrible about taking belly shots, so i had my friend tiffany take this really quick after max's party on saturday! i actually look bigger in this shot than in real life (carrying high + loose t-shirt = extra grande appearance. haha!), but at least you get the idea. i can't BELIEVE how big i have gotten so quickly this time around! i guess you really do "pop" sooner on #2. but honestly, i love it! i would so much rather LOOK pregnant than just feel pregnant. =)

p.s. i am a little in love with this headband- and it was $3.50 at old navy in the little girl's section! score.

p.p.s. max's true love heather asked me this week if my baby was "in HERE?" (pointing to my belly) or "in HEEEERE?" (pointing to my boobs). i died laughing! but really, i can understand the confusion. they. are. massive.

Unfortunately, it's only February.

Dude. I really don't know how I am going to survive the rest of the winter! Max and I are sooo tired of being cooped up. We went to st. George over the weekend and were loooooving 65 degree weather, but I was ready to cry when we got to cedar city and saw snow. Here is Max and Heather trying to live it up on a warm salt lake day, yea, it was like sunny and 40. Waaah.













Ps. Why on EARTH did I ever leave orange county. Pretty sure it's like 70 there.

it's how you know.

my monday at a glance.

9:30- peel your face off the john

9:45- get dressed, button pants with rubber band, choose a cozy shirt (and cute necklace and shoes as consolation)

10:20- head to pictureline, feel like you might cry because you want to keep the equipment you rented, and then get warm and fuzzy while you dream about the camera you want to buy.

10:35- eat three street tacos at the taco truck on 8th, and profusely thank the lovely mexican woman for making such amazing carne asada tacos. many times. you think about saying it again in spanish, and think it may be too much. contemplate weather tacos can lead to spiritual enlightenment.

10:40 consider seriously ordering just one more, but then you remember that it's breakfast time, you are eating tacos (street tacos, at that), it's before 11 am, and your tummy can be a fickle thing.

10:45- decide to eat half of a cupcake at mini's instead. because it's like, sooooo small. and i deserve it.

in my book, that's pretty much how you know

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YOU'RE PREGNANT.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

=)

STATS.

14 weeks.

looks like 20 weeks by first pregnancy standards.

(really people, if you have seen me in the last month, this is probably no shocking announcement)

due august 12th.

we think it's probably a boy.

friends think it's probably a girl.

still puking, boo.

not nearly as much as last time, yay!

so so so so HAPPY.

3 years ago today,

this was us. i can't believe it! is he really three? really? three years ago this little boy burst into our lives quite ahead of schedule. it was the craziest, scariest, best day of my life, and we have never been the same. i am so thankful for this little man who keeps us on our toes, growing, learning, challenging us and loving us every day. i knew i would love my child unconditionally, but i am also amazed at the unconditional love he shows me. i feel so lucky, and often undeserving of this perfect little boy and i can not BELIEVE how fast he is growing up. i love you max, happy 3rd birthday.