Some Preggo Photos

So, My friend Jessica wanted to practice her pregnancy photography skills on me. She did an awesome job capturing my round belly! She was really creative and wanted to try new things. The shoot was so fun. She has a natural eye and made me feel really comfortable in front of the camera. She has a sample selection of pictures she took of me on her site. check it out.

jessicawhite.wordpress.com

Fireworks Bonanza

Our fourth of July celebration was great.

Justin got to try out his new water gun on the kids. He's a tough uncle.

I decided to have my mom take another belly update shot of me under the trees. This is 36 weeks. Titus is getting bigger by the day and he likes to let me mess with his foot when he pokes it out on my side.

A nice family picture.

Justin and I went over to our new house to see if we had a good view of the fireworks. The view was a little cut off by our neighbor's tree so too bad. Unfortunately we won't be putting lawn chairs in our front yard to watch the fireworks next year. The neighbor's tree was tall so justin sat up on the roof to see the fireworks better. Boys like climbing, you can see the smile on this boy's face :)

My family obtained some small explosives. We definitely enjoy the one day a year that it's acceptable to light things on fire in your front yard.

A spark on a stick.

Fire is gorgeous isn't it!?

Aunt Joanie and her ring of fire.

Frame around the belly.

What Titus Is Up To This Week

34 Weeks.

This week Titus is doing good. He moves a lot and changes positions often. His butt and foot switch sides a lot. I am pretty sure he stays head down at least. He just flips from side to side. He finds these little soft spots on my side to poke his sharp foot into. It's fun because I try to poke and tickle it and he usually slides it around on my hand. 

I try to somehow communicate to him that there is someone on the outside that is intentional about getting his attention. I try to interact with him as much as possible. I can tell he wants to stretch out his arms and legs fully like Justin does when he wakes up in the morning. I can't wait to see him stretch out right when he comes out because I know it will feel so good.

I am still having a good amount of contractions. A few weeks ago it was too frequent so I laid around for a weekend. Since then I majorly toned down my activity, which I am still doing. We even had to miss a our family trip to Cancun this week because of it. Disappointing, but I can't do anything about it. It Ok though, I am just taking it easy and eating healthy here at home :)

The Shower for Titus

By the way, our baby boy's name is Titus Bear. I will have another post on the significance of his name later.

My Showers were great. I had two showers for friends and family on the same day. It was a fun day. I am so glad I got to see everyone.

Some of the decor at my shower included a clothesline of Justin's old clothes. Justin's mom did a great job of saving his clothes so Titus is going to have some authentic 80's style for the first couple years. 

We also did some block painting. We got some natural wood blocks and everyone had a chance to paint their own design on them for Titus. Everyone did a great job making them look awesome! Later I will varnish them and Titus will have them as his personalized toy blocks.

Blythe did an awesome job reading a section of the book "Horton Hears A Who" By Dr. Suess. She cried both times she read it because this book is so great and meaningful. I cried too and had some mascara under my eyes the rest of the day. The book is special because Justin likes to read it to Titus. The story is awesome because there is this little guy that doesn't think his contribution would make a difference, but with convincing he helps save his little world. The book was passed around and everyone signed it with a special message to our little family.

We got some great gifts! Everyone was so generous to us. Titus got some awesome stuff that was handmade, super cute, and/ or off our registry. Titus has some good supplies now to start him off. We are so thankful for these sweet gifts.

At the end of the day I finally got a picture of my baby bump. This was about 33 weeks. 

Thanks to everyone who helped put my showers together! I feel so loved and am so thankful to have friends and family that love us.

Yeah, We're gonna be Parents

So, this week I am 32 weeks along... that's apparently 8 months. 

Wow, it's been a while since that positive pregnancy test. Sometimes it seems like the baby takes a long time to develop and get big, but since the process is constantly moving forward, it nears the end before you know it.

Justin and I are so ready for this new part of our lives. We love talking to others and learning everything we can about each part of the process. Over the pregnancy we've gone through some emotions like: How are we going to afford a baby?... Is the baby healthy and doing good?... What is the best plan of action for our new family? 

We have survived on prayer and trusting the Lord. When Justin didn't know how he was going to support his family, he prayed and trusted that God would give him what we needed. Now Justin has a new job that makes him happy and a consistent paycheck that allows us to make a budget and stick to it. We also have the ability to afford our own home. When I was worried not knowing if the baby was doing good, I just had to trust and relax. Then at 11 weeks we got the joy of seeing our healthy baby jumping around on the ultrasound. I couldn't feel the baby so I had no idea how good he was doing. At 16 weeks I began to feel the baby move which was another gift. At 20 weeks we saw not only that our baby was healthy and fine, but that he was a boy.

The Lord gave us chances to trust and even though it was hard and scary, we were able to do it. We feel so blessed and we are so excited to have a new member in our family. Even now we have other fears about certain things, but we try to do the same thing and ask for prayer. 

We feel like the best way to for us to feel prepared for this baby is to learn as much as we can about pregnancy, labor, and newborns. We are half way through a Bradley Method birthing class. Look forward to more posts on this subject! :)

Overall, We love this whole process and we're gonna be parents soon!! Yeah!

A Visit To Connecticut

A month ago we went to New Haven Connecticut to visit Justin's brother and his wife, Cambry & Heather. It was a fun trip and seemed too short.

Here we are posing on the beautiful Connecticut shoreline. That's the 7 month belly.

Heather and Cambry look nice against that classic Lighthouse background.

Sometimes when Justin and Cambry eat the same salad with the same hand you can tell they are brothers :)

We went on a harbor tour of the Thimble Islands. There were many gorgeous little houses (or Mansions) on almost all the islands. It was a beautiful foggy trip.

We love the timer feature on our cameras. The best way to get everyone in the shot.

Too bad Connecticut isn't just a little bit closer. We don't get to see C & H enough and Connecticut is a really beautiful historic place.

Justin and I had our 2nd Anniversary on May 19th. The following weekend Justin took me on a trip to Scottsdale Arizona. We had a great time hanging out at our hotel. Really, we just relaxed and did... not much. We like doing that.

This is the view from our balcony. It was pretty much overcast and rainy the whole time. We actually liked it, but it was weird to experience sunny Arizona like that. It almost felt tropical which was cool.

Here I am on the balcony with Justin. We ate two delicious breakfasts out there (Thanks to a $200 food credit at the hotel including room service!!) and we played a fun game out there called Banana Grams. I won that game to Justin's great disappointment.

We spent an afternoon at the pool. Even slathering ourselves with sunscreen to lay out under the clouds. Look how cute Justin is in the pool. We went swimming for a while. It was pretty warm (That's saying a lot if I think a pool is warm enough).

Here are my white legs and big belly hanging out by the pool. It was fun although I was disappointed to not get a satisfactory tan.

We found a random hammock. We made sure we tried it out before we left. 

Actually the last 30 minutes we were there, the sun came out. It just works that way sometimes. 

We had fun and are glad to be married for two years now.