Maternity Photos

J's wonderful sister took our maternity photos for us. I love them! I feel beautiful and I think they show how excited we are for this wonderful time in our lives.

Check out her blog at this website.

Or check her out on Facebook: Laney Photography

I really like this one a lot.

Most of the time, I couldn't stop smiling. Before this one, she said, "ok, now don't smile." I'd laugh and pull this face. Cute, huh?

Being silly and dancing.

 I think my eyes in this one are really pretty.
Just sayin...

 He still sweeps me off my feet. What a wonderful guy.

I really like this one and I love the Curtis & Co thing. We got a tile from a friend when we got married with this engraved in it. Then, it says Est 2009

What's cool is that we really are becoming a company of Curtis's!!

He loves getting kicked in the ear. Silly guy

J's dad read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to them all the time. He had it memorized and would "read" it as fast as he could. I think J has that goal in mind for his little kids, too. 

I love that he's reading it to the baby here. So cute.

This is our favorite name for him. If he doesn't look like a Clark, we're going to be frantically searching for a different name.

This was the only bare belly picture I wanted. And I think it turned out beautifully. When you google images of maternity photos, you get a lot of naked women...awkward. I like that this is simple, shows the cute tummy, and pretty modest.

Look, Mom! Monkeys!! 

I really like the gift bow look, so we did this picture. So cute!!

34 Weeks

34 Weeks Taken on July 22

 

I've been feeling more and more tired this week. 

*The belly has definitely grown, but no one really believes me except J since he sees it much more than others do.

*Birthing Class was about how to breathe, what positions to help you out with labor, and how to relax. I'm definitely feeling more confident in my abilities because of this class. It's still pretty scary to think about, but a lot less terrifying and more of something I can do since I can't really avoid it.

*I went shopping with my dear friend who is helping throw my baby shower next week. We chose papers for the activity we're doing (I don't like shower games...). 

*J and I have been keeping our weekends super busy because soon, we won't be very social while we figure out how to be parents :)

*OB appointment went well. I brought my mother in law and two sisters in law so they could hear the heartbeat. I lost 4 lbs (not sure how) but the baby has grown, so they weren't too concerned, but hopefully I've gained more weight this week since I go back next week. 

*We're in the weekly visits now!!! Eeek!

I made another blanket for one of J's coworkers. She's having a girl a couple weeks before I'm due. But she doesn't like classic pink for girls. Girls can do any color, so I used the green I had from my jean picnic blanket.

There are two kinds of greens in the blanket. The middle one is the one I started with with leftovers. I used the green and a shiny white together for the pattern. Then, I ran out. YIKES! Walmart and Hobby Lobby didn't have the right dye, so I just bought one and decided to make a border of sorts. 

It still looked funny when I had it all together, so I did a small outline of white. Looking through my small stash of craft materials, I found some white ribbon. I weaved it into the spot where the colors changed and it looked sooo much better!

So I weaved it in, hand stitched it closed and was very satisfied with the end product. Go me! (I just hope the hand stitching doesn't come out...that would be embarrassing...)

3 Years Ago

Mushy post alert!! :)

Three years ago today, I said yes to my eternal companion.

On July 5, 2009, we both knew that we should get married. The night before, we decided to fast together to see if we should get married. It was the first time we had fasted together. We were in Sacrament meeting in Bountiful, Utah, where J's grandparents attend. During the Testimony meeting, we both received the impression that marriage was the right thing to do.

A couple weeks later, my family and I were playing games, I was moody from losing and being tired from work and camping out and lots of traveling. MMae told me that I needed to be happy today. The way she said it confused me, so I asked her why. She just said that it was a good day to be happy. 

Weird.

Throughout the day, J hadn't been able to text as much as usual. He had several meetings he was in, and then this evening, he was going to see Transformers 2 with a friend. But he finally called at 10 or 11. yay! So I went into the other room to talk to him. He asked me if I had gotten a package. I asked my mom and she brought in a box about 1x1. He told me to open it. Inside, there was a note saying I couldn't open it until I was on the phone with J. It said it about a zillion different ways. By this point, Mom, Liz, and MMae are all asking what's going on and bugging me. So J told me I could open that up and pull out what was inside. 

It was a teddy bear in tux and top hat holding a ring. Then, I got really really confused. J went on to talk about a friend's friend who had a ring making business but was backlogged or something like that. I didn't get much because everyone was asking what he was saying and I was confused about him sending me a really cheap looking ring in the mail. What was going on??

Then he asked me what I thought...uhhhhhhhh no idea...

I told him I didn't really know what his point was. He said, "The point is: that's not your real ring. Your real one is hidden on your front porch."

Thinking Mom must have missed a small box on the front porch, I walked over to the entryway. My parents have glass doors with opaque curtains. When I looked into the dark entryway, I saw a silhouette of someone standing outside. I gasped, flung my phone, turned on the light, and swung the door open as fast as I could.

                                                

There he was! J was there, in slacks, white shirt, my favorite green tie, and orange and yellow gerber daisies (also my favorite) in a vase next to him, holding a ring box. Before I could react to the real ring, I had to react to the real guy! He was supposed to be in Idaho, not Arkansas! I tackled him in a huge hug. Poor guy was kneeling on a brick floor, so he ended up with some scrapes on his shins.

He got me to let go of him and stand back so that he could ask me to marry him. I'm crying and through my blubbering, I managed to say yes, put on the pretty ring, have him stand up and hug and kiss him until it all felt real. It still didn't register in my head the next day. I woke up in a daze and looked at my hand. Oh my goodness, there it is!!

 The last 3 years have been so wonderful. The engagement was fun, the wedding was perfect, and we've come so far since then! We have a house, a healthy baby boy on his way, and lots of love. We have our struggles, but all I need to do is remember my feelings and thoughts from 3 years ago and I'm back in love with that wonderful guy.

What a handsome man! I am the luckiest girl alive.

100th post!!! and 33 weeks!

Happy 100 posts!! yay!

33 weeks! Taken on July 15

*I'm soooo warm all the time now!! 

*I'm complaining quite frequently about Little Mr's cute little bottom in my ribs. It's not quite as comfortable as it's cute... 

*We started a birthing class this week. It was the first time I'd seen a birth all the way. Kinda freaky, if I may say so...But at least now I've seen it before it's me...

*J's sister, Jolyn, took our maternity photos. The several we've seen are beautiful!! (much better than my lovely hairdo here. :) )

J's parents were assigned the letter N for our wall decorations so when they were in Kauai, they set up some wood on the beach to be the letter N and took a picture. Then they printed it on a plate through shuterfly. Cool, huh?

This is old, but I was tired of having it sit around for me to take a picture. When J and I went to Utah, we got sucked into the amazing smell that is Tiffany for men Sport cologne. Oh. My. Goodness.

Amazing.

J puts it on and I just melt. It smells sooooo good!

It was the first time we'd bought anything from Tiffany, so we figured we'd take a picture of the pretty blue with the white ribbon. :)

32 Weeks & 4th of July

On the 4th of July, we went to J's family's place for the day. First there was a breakfast with our ward that we went to. It was nice.

Then, we brought our good friends, Tami and Eric, with us to Star where we had 4th of July festivities!

We played games, ate yummy food, relaxed, did crafts, and shot off fireworks!

This is the fruit pizza I've been dying to make. I LOVE fruit and this was sooo yummy! We put mango on it, but I don't think we'll be doing that again.

I can't find a way to rotate this picture, so just turn your head to the left and admire the pretty fruits

In the baby's room, we're putting the whole alphabet up. I've asked some friends and family members to decorate letters for us so that it has lots of variety. 

These are the ones we did on the 4th.

I made my own mod podge and it worked really well. Just did half water half elmer's glue. It did pick up the paint on Tami's letter, so watch out with mod podge on paint!

This is the C that I did. :)

And I signed the back....I signed as Mom. weird!!

Tami's letter P for Porter

Paraiso means paradise in spanish and portuguese. 

She did a beautiful job! I think it looks stunning.

This is the Y that J did. He had this train that wouldn't work, so he painted tracks on the Y and then glued it on. It's so clever!!

After he finished, he realized that he needed to sign the back. And he couldn't just put his first name. He needed to put "Dad." He freaked out a little... :) But after leaving it out on the table with the marker conveniently by it for about 4 days, he signed it. So cute. He may not agree, but I know he'll be a wonderful dad.

Friday, I got a rebate for my year supply of contacts that we bought 4 months ago... yay! 

So since we had a bit of cash again, we took it to Burlington Coat Factory and bought a crib mattress! It's new, not lumpy, and seems like it should last a long time!!

Earlier that day, I found out that the crib set that we registered for isn't available anywhere in stores or online pretty much here or in Utah. So when we were at Burlington, we looked at crib stuff. We had liked doing neutral colors so that we could reuse it for a girl one day. The set we chose for the Babies R Us registry was adorable. I loved it. But we wouldn't be able to get it.

The mattress we chose had smudges of dirt on it because the protective plastic had ripped. So the manager gave us 10% off. When we told her we had a 15% off coupon, she said she'd give us 15% off and we could get another thing with our coupon. SCORE!

So we pulled out our favorite crib bedding sets and eliminated choices. We realized that if we got a gender neutral one for our boy, we'd be thinking it was too boyish for our girls one day. Soooo we figured why not go boyish now?

So we bought this one!!

It's planes, trucks, cars, scooters, buses...and it's really cute with blue, green, and brown. I like that it's not all cartooney but it's patchwork. I'm so excited about it!!

Saturday, we played DnD with J's family. It was fun. Then we watched The Vow. I cried. It wasn't quite what I expected, and J really didn't like it. But I think it was good overall.

This is my 32 Week picture. Taken July 8.

I think I really look big and pregnant here. I certainly felt big and pregnant.

Church was a HOT, long 3 hours that day. I came home, hiked up my skirt and laid under the fan until J came home to take my picture so I could then take off the sunday clothes.

 Today, I had my Dr appointment. Everything's looking great. His head is down, so we're getting to a point where he doesn't have much room left. :)
One day last week, he was shoving sooo hard on my right side, I thought I'd split open. It was as if he was saying, "alright, I want to knock out THIS wall so I can put my couch here!!" It's not like I was hunched over or something!!! Silly, defiant Little Mr!!!