Thursday, December 19, 2013

A Storybook Photography Photo Session - The Waltmans

About a month ago, there was a Saturday where I had 3 photo sessions in one day! It was a fun, but busy day! I've shared the other two sessions with you earlier, but this was the last of the three. :-) They are friends of ours that we met through church. They are such a sweet family. 

We did a few poses that were for their Christmas Cards. I just love this family shot. :-)


Then we did some individuals of each of their children.

 Big Brother Matthew,

Ella,
 

 Ali,

and the baby, Gracie.
 

We also took a few more family shots and just some fun shots here and there.




Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Jackson at 2

I realize, I haven't written an update on Jackson in quite a while. I used to do this once a month, but I've failed at this the last few months, so here are a few things that I don't want to forget about Jackson at this age!


- He is starting to say more and more words. He's been a little bit behind in his speech, but seems to be picking up more words at a faster pace in the last couple of weeks. He's even put a couple words together, like "more juice" and "got it".

- He's become a big time Momma's Boy lately, like to the point of crying when I leave him in the mornings with my mom or with our niece who sometimes watches him. Thankfully he doesn't cry for long and is happy after just a minute or so. I have a love/hate relationship with this new phase. On the one hand, I love that he wants to be with me and misses me when I'm gone. But on the other hand, I hate for him to be sad when I leave and it sometimes makes it hard for me to get anything done around the house because he wants to be by my side all the time.

- He loves watching t.v in our room for some odd reason. He often prefers to lay in there on our bed for t.v. time rather than be in the living room with his toys! Crazy boy!

- He still loves cars and trucks and he's really been loving "choo choo's" lately.

- He also loves playgrounds!! We have a mall close by that has an indoor playground, perfect for these cold winter months. He loves playgrounds so much that on one of the last warmer days we had, we took his Lightening McQueen car that we got him for his birthday, up to the park to drive it around in the tennis courts. Well once he saw the playground, he couldn't have cared less about his car. Ha.

- Now, everytime he gets the tiniest of boo boos, we have to kiss it. Kissing it makes it all better and I love it! Its so sweet how our kisses are like magic boo boo healers. :-)

- He has started giving the best hugs. We say, "give me a squeeze" and he comes over and hugs us tight and says "sqeeeeeeze"! It's so sweet.

- I've been telling him about the baby in my belly and at first he didn't quite understand. I would point to my belly and say baby, but when I'd point to his belly and say "what's that" he'd say baby. Ha.  He may at least be kind of understanding to a certain degree now because he will point to my belly if you ask him where the baby is. He's even kissed my belly a couple of times when I've told him to give the baby a kiss. Melts. My. Heart.

- He loves playing with my hair. He puts it all in my face and then smiles. Then he brushes it all back and looks at me again and smiles. It's super sweet.

- Bathtime is hit or miss these days. Most days he loves it though and will play in there for a long time!

- His "juice" (sippie cup) , his "ginkie" (binkie) and blankie are all comfort items to him and he often carries all three around. We are trying to transition him to only having his binkie at night, and so far he's doing pretty well at this.

- He certainly loves his Papa and his cousins Landon and Mason. When he sees Landon, he usually runs over to him and gives him a big hug. It's super cute!

- Anytime he gets a hold of a phone or camera, he holds it up close to his face and says "cheese"! Ha. I wonder where he's heard that before. ;-)

- Despite knowing what to do when we get the camera out, he often times won't smile or say cheese! He never wants to cooperate for me when I get the camera out. 

- We're deep into the "terrible twos"!! As sweet as he is, he can sometimes be so ornery! Like when he doesn't want to hear us tell him not to do something, he points his finger at us and says "NO"! Or, he crosses his arms and/or straightens out his arms and grunts "humph" and looks down at the ground. Two year olds can be so much fun! Ha.

- Nonetheless, the good most certainly outweighs the bad. I live for his sweet snuggles, kisses and squeezes! I feel so blessed and honored to be his mommy and I can't even put into words how much I love and adore him. 

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Baby Girl's Nursery Plans

So I've been thinking a lot about our sweet girl's nursery! The plan is to get through Christmas and New Years and then get started on moving the office downstairs and making the office a nursery!

We have 3 bedrooms and a finished basement. The third bedroom has always been Jake's office, but we always knew that if we had 2 children while living in this house, the office would become a bedroom at that time and we'd just move the desk and computer to the finished basement. My dad is in the process of building us a bathroom downstairs, so that will be so nice when it gets done. 

But, back to Baby Girl's nursery! I'm loving everything about this nursery.
I love the crib, the colors and I love the idea of a chandelier for a light fixture!

So here are some of my ideas that I've pinned on Pinterest. 

I love this gallery wall and would love to do this on one of the nursery walls. I already have a couple of frames ready for paint. :-)

My sister is going to make the bedding and curtains, but I love this and would like her to make something very similar but with a little chevron mixed in.

I've pinned these 2 chandeliers, but haven't decided which one to go with yet. The nursery isn't a big room, so we may go with the smaller one. They are both from Home Depot.
The smaller one...

and the larger one

I'd love to make some of these to hang on her walls.

Then I saw this yesterday and just love it! My dad said he can make one for her room, so I can't wait!!

I still have to pick out a dresser for her and I definitely want to make a cute little banner and a mobile for her room along with decorating letters that spell out her name, same as I did for Jackson's nursery. I also will make some pom poms and other decorative things I'm sure. I really can't wait to get started!! :-)

Monday, December 16, 2013

20 Week Bump Date

How Far Along: 20 Weeks Today!! 
(You can check out my 20 week post from when I was pregnant with Jackson here.)

Size of Baby: (According to babycenter.com) 20 weeks: Your baby is about the size of a banana. Your burgeoning baby now measures about 6 1/2 inches from head to bottom or 10 inches from head to heel, and weighs roughly 10 1/2 ounces.


Total Weight Gain/Loss: At 17 weeks I had gained 10 lbs total.


Maternity Clothes: Yes, all maternity clothes.


Gender: Its a GIRL! Still nameless, but I think we're narrowing it down. My husband really likes Peyton and I'm now leaning towards Lyla. The two names are names we both like, so it's just a matter of agreeing on one. I'd love to hear your favorite of the two. :-)


Movement: Yes, feeling movement. The movements seem to be getting stronger, but they are still few and far between.


Food Cravings: Nothing really at this point.


What I miss: Nothing really.


Sleep: Sleeping okay.


Symptoms: Just a growing belly and some slight sciatic nerve pain.


Best Moment this week: Getting some Christmas shopping done over the weekend.


What I am looking forward to: Coming up with a name, my next Dr. appt. a week from today and I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year!

Friday, December 13, 2013

5 on Friday



Yay for Friday!!!

 We sent out our Christmas Card earlier this week. I think it turned out so cute!
 I got the idea from this blog and used her steps for taking our picture. Then,  I ended up going with this template from walmart.com for our card.
(It is a much clearer picture in real life, but I can't seem to figure out a way to copy it from their website without it being a little blurry.)

We took Jackson to Santa's Magical Kingdom this past Monday night and we took a train ride through the lights! It was so fun. Jackson loved it and I think this may become an annual tradition.







We are done with our Christmas shopping for Jackson (other than a few stocking stuffers) and I'm also done with Jake! :-) We have a few more people to buy for, but I'm happy to at least have the major ones crossed off my list. Here are a few things we got Jackson. 

This will be his gift from Santa that we'll set up and have ready to go for him on Christmas morning. (He loves to color right now, so I thought this would be really fun for him. Plus it can turn into a chalkboard or a dry erase board. :-)

Jake picked up this cute little digital camera for Jackson all on his own. :-)

My nephew has one of these and loves it, so we got one for Jackson and a game to go along with it.

I really want to make this bunting for our living room. I have a similar, everyday bunting that is very similar to this and I'd love to make one to change out for Christmas.

Jake and I are having a hard time agreeing on a name, so I came up with a name poll earlier in the week and then we narrowed it down to this name poll. I'd love for you to vote and tell me which one you like the best. :-)
Baby Girl Name
  
pollcode.com free polls  

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

19 Week Bump Date

How Far Along: 19 Weeks + 2 days
(You can check out my 22 week post from when I was pregnant with Jackson here.)


Size of Baby: (According to babycenter.com) 19 weeks: Your baby is about the size of an heirloom tomato. Your tiny tomato now weighs about 8 1/2 ounces and is roughly 6 inches long from head to bottom.
{Baby Girl is actually a little bit bigger than this as she weighed 10 ozs. last week during our ultrasound. Hopefully this doesn't mean she's going to be bigger than her brother who weighed only 8 ozs. at our 18 week ultrasound and went on to weigh 8lbs. 12 ozs. at birth!}


Total Weight Gain/Loss: At my 16 week appt. I had gained 10 lbs total.


Maternity Clothes: Yes, all maternity clothes.


Gender: Its a GIRL!!


Movement: Yes, feeling movement more, but still not very often. I did feel her give me a few kicks Sunday night though, which was so cool.


Food Cravings: Still no real cravings.


What I miss: Nothing really.


Sleep: Sleeping okay.


Symptoms: Just a growing belly and some slight sciatic nerve pain.


Best Moment this week: Feeling those first few kicks.


What I am looking forward to: Coming up with a name for Baby Girl!

And because we're having such a hard time deciding on a name, I thought I'd add a poll here, with my favorite girl names, to see which ones you all like the best.

Baby Girl Names
  
pollcode.com free polls 

A Storybook Photography Photo Session - The Fitzpatricks

A few weeks ago, before the frigid weather hit St. Louis, I had a session with my sweet blog friend Becky (Weezer Words of Wisdom) and her adorable family. Her kids are just so cute!! I had a lot of fun with this session! Here are some of our favorite photos from that day. :-)


 See... I told you they were cute! :-)