17 Weeks Pregnant With Baby #2

  17 Weeks Pregnant With Baby #2

Hey loves, I have been meaning to do an update for ya'll on how pregnancy is going this time around. Im just about 17 weeks and this bump is growing at rapid speed and has been so much earlier on than when i was pregnant the first time around. 

How far along: 17 Weeks

Gender: GIRRRRL!

Maternity Clothes:  Maternity Jeans and leggings yes please.  What are your favorite work out maternity brands??

Sleep: Its actually been pretty decent. Im not that uncomfortable anymore, I only wake up once for a bathroom break.  I have been using this incredible BUMP NEST pregnancy pillow i'll share more about below.

Miss Anything:  working out and not struggling to find something to wear.

Cravings: No current cravings, they've been gone since 14 weeks

Adversions: NONE!! WOOHOO! im pretty much eating how i normally do now.

Symptoms: Ive been off Zofran for nausea since last week!! i started taking just one dose a day in the morning around 14 weeks and tapered off at 16 weeks and a day or two.  I am so glad to be feeling better, i still get nauseas if i havent eaten in a few hours which i think is normal for any pregnant woman.  I honestly am pretty much symptom free right now. I just have a tiny bit of fatigue left over from the first trimester, but i relatively feel pretty normal.

Belly Button in or out: OUT!

Mood: Emotional, blessed, grateful

Best Moment this week: Well nothing really that crazy this week but last week i was pretty certain i felt the baby move! SUCH AN UNREAL FEELING!

Looking forward to:  Being able to work out again, ill say more below

Exercise: I stopped exercising for the whole first trimester because as i explained in the last pregancy update i had a small bleed show up  in my uterus on my 8 week ultrasound so the dr. told me to take it easy just incase, so of course I wanted to be as careful as possible! I had this same thing happen with Cash in my first trimester and rest helped it heal quicker. It was a nice break where i could just rest and be tired and lay on the couch and I was totally fine with that. (;  Then at 13 weeks I got really sick for over 2 weeks. And now the last week or two its just been crazy busy with Christmas and my hubbys new work schedule, Im too tired to work out at night and too sleepy in the morning. So i'll try to figure out a new schedule that works for the upcoming month and stick with it for  2-3 days a week to stay healthy and active during this pregnancy.

I will say that being pregnant with a girl you really do carry differently! With Cash I was all up front, with this baby I totally see more all around, so in my hips and front and back! lol It must be true what they say, Girls really do steal their mamas beauty dont they?

BUMP NEST sent me this amazing pillow a month ago and I am one happy happy prego because of it!! They have so many great options for fabrics for your pillow case that you can see below or on their website.  What i love is that it is a machine washable pillow, it comes with a travel case, a little matching baby beanie, and has a variety of patterns to pick from.

^^^Arent these just adorable??!!^^^

See you next month for another pregnancy update. 

Merry Christmas!!! {2014}

Merry Christmas!!! {2014}

(*Some recent unedited photos taken by my sweet sister Kelsey Steindler Photography)

I just wanted to hop on here real quick and wish you all a wonderful beautiful blessed joyful Christmas day! Christmas is all about Christ's arrival and what that means for all of us! We are so blessed to have a relationship with our Heavenly Father and to remember that each year by celebrating Jesus' birth is just so special and important to us.   Im so thankful we have a son and now a daughter on the way to teach about Gods love for us and why we celebrate holidays like Chritsmas and Easter. We can quickly lose sight of the real meaning behind Christmas with all of the chaos of parties, decorating, traditions, cookies, etc.  Christmas is my favorite holiday because of all the goodness of family tradition and the many many blessings around celebrating all month, but really its about the coming of Christ and giving, being an example of His gift of love/life by giving to our loved ones, neighbors, friends, coworkers, and strangers.  My in laws do such a wonderful job of showing us this by gifting us all with a donation to make to a charity, this year and last year it was to the families of Malawi, Africa, and I cannot wait to share this tradition with our children and teach them to give of themselves, their talents, time and money to help others and to teach other's about Christ's love and His example.  

I hope you all have such a special day with your loved ones and stop soak it all in.

XO

ITS A GIRL!!!!!! Gender Reveal Party Recap:

ITS A GIRL!!!!!! Gender Reveal Party Recap:

^^^Crown c/o Love Crush Bowtique^^^

ITS A GIRL!!! I cannot even believe I am saying those words, still! Its seriously so surreal that we will have our little boy and a little girl, what more could a mama want than at least one of each? Thats always been my wish, I have never cared about order or anything of that sort but I always knew I wanted at least one girl and one boy, the best of both worlds.  So I know the best part of this post is the reveal so lets just begin there...

^^^The anticipation was killing me and oh so exciting.. you can see it right there on my face how happy I was to be finding out our little babies gender.  This Giant 36" balloon with pink/gold confetti was provided by D Art by Design . It was perfect for our party and my sweet sister in law made it into an ornament (which i didnt sneak a photo of in time). 

^^^We were AMAZED to see pink!!!! We are having a baby girl!^^^

^^^What shocked looks like. ^^^

^^^Our pin didnt do the trick so we opted to use a knife, lol.  This was my favorite moment when we looked up at each other in amazement. so so so utterly happy and surprised. ^^^

^^^14.5 week bump^^^

^^^SO incredibly happy^^^

Okay so lets talk party details because isnt that so much fun?! I love party planning, like seriously in another life  it would be my job. When we found out we were going to know the sex during the winter months i knew instantly that we wanted to to a holiday gender reveal party. How much fun would glitter, gold and silver be?! UM YES PLEASE.  The best part is I can reuse everything for future holiday partys and NYE parties would be perfect too.  

^^^By far that Little Dovie & co. Banner and Sparkle Soiree Table cloth took my breath away and made the party that much more glam. I wish i could keep them up year round! Enter SEQUINLOVE at checkout for a free matching runner with any full sized linen from Sparkle Soiree.^^^

^^^I made the black and white triangle sparkly banner using scratch book paper from Michaels along with the table labels. I bought ornaments and clear string and sprayed them with adhesive spray and sparkles for the hanging ornaments.  The silver Christmas Tree center piece was from Hobby lobby. The mason jars are also sprayed with sparkles and left over from Cashs first birthday. Fidn more table details below VVV

^^^We served home made cookies, brownies with powdered sugar, peppermint bark pretzles, and marshmallow chocolate pies with hot cocoa and toppings. ^^^

^^^if you guys wants this incredible home made hot cocoa recipe let me know in the comments below and ill post it separately because it was devine.. i think several people said it was the best they'd ever had.  We love topping bars, they are just so much fun! Cups and lids provided by Lillis Little World whom also custom made these adorable little cupcake toppers for us (in this case pie toppers) that said "Pink or Blue, We love You".  All chalk vinyl labels were provided by Mad About Vinyl Monograms along with a chalk pen. These are amazing because if you mess up you just wipe right off and start over! 

 

Toppers c/o Lillis Little World

These CUTE AS EVER custom Coffee sleeves were perfectly created just how i envisioned them by Details On Demand who also made Cash's party favor bags for his first birthday (check them out in this post here)

^^^Festive party straws provided by Twigs and Twirls couldn't be more of a perfect match ^^^

^^^Tassle drink stirrers made the perfect decor for the table as well as topped off our cocoa with a sparkle of fun. These were made for us c/o Chasing Bliss Design and they have a ton of other options as well & have provided a coupon code active now until Jan 31st for 10% off any order over $21, use code: TESSA.  Follow their instagram @DIANNASAMUELS

^^^My girlfriends and I had a baking party the night before and decorated these cute cookies^^^

^^^The Buttercup House has ever type of cookie cutter under the sun and was kind enough to send us these. Those itty bitty baby angels were a hit with all of the kiddos at our party. They also provided us with the above black pearls and white snow flake sprinkles^^^

^^^These best buddy cousins had confetti all over them while eating dinner at their little play table^^^

^^^ We had all of our guests vote boy or girl, give us a name suggestions and any advice.. these were such a hit to read later on. I think we had 8 votes for girl, and 10 for boy. These were custom made in Christmas colors for us by Confetti Momma ^^^

^^^Old Wives Tales sign c/o Custom Art by Gillian made our guessing game even more fun^^^

 vvvFor dinner We served pasta and salad made by my two mamas, and both were delish!!vvv

^^^kiddos celebrating in our joy^^^

^^^our two little girls in the fam are excited to add a third and fourth (my sis is having a girl too, shes 5 weeks ahead of me)^^^

^^^Sweet little gift from Grammy for our baby girl, and of course this Love Crush Bowtique crown im clearly obsessed with.. she made our crowns for Cash's first birthday, they will forever be my favorite (see here)^^^

^^^12 weeks apart from my best friend^^^

^^^D Art By Design provides you with both colors so whomever is surpising you and filling the balloon has both to pick from and you will never know which is coming!^^^

I hope you guys enjoyed the post as much as we enjoyed the party! this was such a special event, i truly will never forget! We were so pleasantly surprised and so excited to share in this joy with all of our family and our closest friends that were able to make it.   A huuuuge thank you to all of the shops that helped make this day so special, i appreciate each and every one of you, and to our family and friends for bringing food, helping bake and clean up, celebrating with all of you meant so much to us! Thank you to my readers and followers for all of your sweet words and congratulations, we really do feel so full and blessed.

***Bump update coming soon!! ***

XO