The pregnancy...

So now our family and friends know we're pregnant, aaaaand we made it facebook official. We then knew we had to take a few maternity pictures and since Feeedler is a photographer, we went to one our favorite locations, set-up the tripod and put the camera on automatic timer lol! This was taken either end of May or beginning of June last year. At this point I was a little afraid that I was going to ginormous because I was already THIS big halfway into my pregnancy! I started out my pregnancy craving ice cream shakes from Sonic, but after a little bit of rapid weight gain I switched to jello and Taylor was constantly running to the store to buy the pre-made jello snack packs. Black cherry was my favorite! 

 

Last July, Taylor and I met up with his family in Breckenridge, Colorado to scope out some places for their family reunion this summer. We had a great time and did lots of fun stuff and ate some AWESOME food. When I went to the Doctor for my monthly checkup I gained the most weight in that month than any previous months and the Doc asked me, "Did you just get back from vacation? Because I can tell!" He caught me lol! Here are a few pics from our mini vacay.

 

 

 

 

Then last August we traveled to Rockwall to help my Aunt and uncle move because they were FINALLY getting out of El Paso because my Uncle got a US Attorney job with the Dallas US Attorney's office. This was a huge blessing because of all the worry our family felt having them in El Paso and especially because of my Uncle's line of work which required him to travel to Mexico almost monthly. We knew their time in EP would be short lived, just long enough for my Uncle to get enough experience under his belt before applying for other US Attorney jobs, and luckily the job in Dallas opened up! While we were there we scheduled an appointment at StorkVision and were REALLY able to get a good look at Elayne. It was really neat because they had couches set up and projected the image onto a huge screen. Taylor, my Mom, Memaw, Aunt Doris and cousins Katarina and Mickaela joined. It was funny because Elayne kept hiding behind my placenta and later that evening my 11 year old cousin Mickaela asked me, "So what was Elayne hiding behind? Was it your meniscus?" Haha we still have a good laugh :)

 

Then in August and September I had a couple of showers, one in Lamesa and one in Lubbock. I seriously have the best family and friends because almost everyone near and dear to my heart came and showered us with love and tons of gifts. Taylor and I JUST NOW had to buy diapers for Elayne because up until now had been using diapers that we received at our showers. Here is a picture of me, my Mother-in-Law Dana and my Mom at my Lubbock shower. Oh yeah, look at me.....large and in charge! This was month to the day before I had Elayne. If I had two pitchers of kool-aid in my hands I'd look like the kool-aid man in my red dress lol!

 



 

 



We're Pregnant....Now What?

So now that we determined we were pregnant, we now needed to figure out a way to tell our families. Back in 2011, I pinned a blog that I read about a photographer who pretended to take pictures of people and then told them he and his wife were expecting. The faces he captured were priceless and I knew immediately that when and if Taylor and I got pregnant that was how I wanted to tell everyone. Plus, it would be plausible that Taylor would always have a camera around since he's a photographer. Here's the original blog with the idea here!

We first had to tell my sister because I saw her most often and I knew that she would notice my ginormous boobs and immediately know that something was up. I had previously been hiding them with scarves, but once we were about 8 weeks we decided to tell her. We went to her work to pick her up for church and told her that Taylor was trying to figure out lighting for an outdoor wedding we had that weekend and asked if she would pose for us. She brought her co-worker Michael out with her and this is what we caught!

 

Next we told my family. (Memaw and Papaw,  my Mom and Step-Dad Steve)

 

Then we told my Aunt Doris and Cousins Katarina and Mickaela

 

Next was my Uncle Tony and Aunt Louisa

 

Next up, my cousin Daniela

 

 

My best friend Christi and her boyfriend T.J. who even with news as big as ours was STILL camera ready lol!

 

My other best friends Jenny and Spencer

 

 

Our friends Britt, Jeremy, Logan and Court

 

My student assistant Rylee

 

and last but certainly not least, pretty much the best reaction ever, our friends Zane and Erica

 

I love that we will always have these pictures to look back on and share with Elayne about how we shared the news with the people who mean the most to us!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let's play Catch-Up! Volume 1

I promised I'd be better about this here lil' blog and even though it's been TWO months lol since my last post, it seems like the posts are gonna probably going to be few and far between. I'm still trying to get used to this whole working a full time job/being a new Mom/helping Taylor with his photography business, so my lack of posting will definitely not be from lack of trying! We'll start of with last year. Last year was literally a blur. I feel like I was pregnant the whole year haha! We started the year off ringing in the New Year with our friends Erica/Zane and Court/Logan in Ruidoso. This was our last non-pregnant hurrah as shortly afterwards we found out we were pregnant. We stayed at a cabin, went tubing and overall just enjoyed each other's company. Later that month I went to Austin with my best friend Christi, her boyfriend T.J. and my sister. We went to see Wicked and had a wonderful time. I feel like I somehow subconsciously knew I was pregnant because I seriously had no desire to drink while we went out. Now most of you know I'm really not EVER one to turn down a drink lol, but I just didn't feel like it. A few days before the trip I had what I thought was my "monthly visitor" which was unlike any other "monthly visitor" I'd had as it was super light (TMI lol!)and even told Taylor that we weren't pregnant. We weren't necessarily trying, nor were we preventing pregnancy so it really wasn't a big deal. Once we were driving home from Austin, I began to think about that show on TLC "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant" haha and how some women had regular periods but them thought they merely had to go to the bathroom and end up delivering a baby in the toilet!! As soon as Taylor picked me up once we got back into to Lubbock I told him "I have to something to tell you." Now for those of you that do not know my paranoid husband, he instantly thought....oh my gosh she did something horrible in Austin! hahaha! I could have easily thought of another way to lead off but I guess I really wasn't thinking and by this time it was already 11:00PM and I was ready for bed. I knew I wanted to go and buy a pregnancy test as soon as we got back to Lubbock so I had downed a bottle of water so I'd be ready. We went by the nearest Walgreens on the way to our house and it was CLOSED! By this time I REALLY had to go. We went to Wal-Mart and of course that late at night there was only ONE checker. I'm literally about to wet my pants in the Wal-Mart line and told Taylor I was just going to take the test out of the box and run to the bathroom there at Wal-Mart and he could wait in line and pay for the test. He looked at me disgustingly and told me there was no way we were finding out if we were having a baby at Wal-Mart!! He sped all the way home and I sprinted to the bathroom. Since I was so early the line was really faint, and after 2 tests later the next day (one being the foolproof Pregnant/NOT Pregnant digital one haha) we knew we were knocked up :)

Here we go agaaaaaain!

I'm terrible I tell ya, absolutely terrible! I've been a bad blogger and baaaad blog friend. Last year was a pretty hectic/crazy year and I just didn't have time (well I just didn't make time for this lil' blog. I've tried to keep up with some blogs but failed miserably and I'm bound and determined to NOT do this again :) I've got a ton of blog topics that I plan to cover here in the next few days, you guys (if you're all still out there lol) won't know what hit you! I'll be trying to keep up with the goings on of my little family as they occur, as well as write about past things that I've yet to write about in order to be able to remember them in the future, namely an awesome trip to Vegas Taylor and I took and the pregnancy/birth of our baby girl Elayne who will be 3 months old on Sunday! Stay tuned friends!