~August 22nd~

(Marie found this 22 in a parking lot this past weekend so here we are, posed by it!)

It has been a whole year! Just like every girl says that their wedding was the best wedding ever, (which really, mine was...) I'm also saying that this past year has been the best year of my life!

Happy Anniversary, babealicious ;) I love you!

My beautiful bridesmaids 

Surprised Steve with a song I wrote him called "So in love"

We're such performers :)

Since we had a whole week to do whatever we wanted (which was so nice!) it seemed like we celebrated our anniversary for 3 days straight. Haha. Somehow I never got a picture on the actual day, but on Saturday, the day before our anniversary we went out to Johnny Carino's, the place Steve took me the day we got engaged :) It's amazing, but there's a Johnny Carino's like 5 minutes from our house. Yay!

Steve updated the journal that he presented me when we got engaged. It retells how we met and the fun things we did together. He wrote about our first year of marriage and showed it to me while we were out to dinner for our anniversary. It was super sweet and that book is priceless to me!

Here he is at his new desk updating the book. Haha, so cute right? I had to take a picture :)

And on the actual day, we pulled out the top part of our wedding cake from the freezer:

I took a little nibble and Steve took a couple bites but we both couldn't get into it because this chunk of cake has been driven from Spokane to Provo and then from Provo to Dallas. In the past year it's been in 4 different freezers. So, sadly it just got thrown away. But at least we tried!!

What a wonderful year it has been :)

End of SuMmEr!

Steve has finally finished summer sales and a couple weeks ago we were able to move into our new apartment which is closer to the chiropractic school. We love our new apartment! It's in a cute little neighborhood and it just feels homey :) After Steve finished work, we had a whole week to get settled into our new apartment. We put pictures on the wall and decorated. We actually felt like we were on our honeymoon again: we had all day everyday to do whatever we wanted! So fun!

Steve finally got a little desk where he can do his homework. Yay! He's been needing once since we got married!

Here's our cute little dining room. I think that the red plates in the background are so cute! My mom gave them to us :)

Close up of the plates. Love them. Thanks mom :)

My mom has actually been very busy lately. She's given us so many things! First and foremost, she sent us our wedding gift which we got just in time for our anniversary. Definitely the most amazing gift I think I've ever received. Take a look at THIS:

Look at this amazing quilt! My mom made it! I wish I had a better picture of it, closer up that shows the details. This one will have to do until we get back to Texas and can take another picture of it. But we love it! Now we just need a room that is fancy enough to put this quilt in :) Thanks again mom, you're the best!

My mom also sent a glass bowl and plate that were given to me as a baby, and now I get to pass them on to little Parkster! And she also sent a cute white maternity shirt which I don't have a picture of yet either. In a couple weeks I think I'll fit it better :) 

While on our little "honeymoon" we decided to go to the Nature and Science museum downtown Dallas a couple Saturdays ago with Craig. He took this picture of us:

We've just been having a blast :)

Looks like we have a little turtle ;)

Earlier this month Steve and I got to go to the doctor to find out if we're having a boy or a girl!!

It was so exciting to see our baby's little fingers, feet, legs, arms, spine, face....SO CUTE!

The technician then asked us if we wanted to know the gender. Um, YES! "Because I already know," she said.

Well that kind of gave it away. She then pointed out what she called a little "turtle" and Steve immediately knew what it was ;) WE'RE HAVING A BOY!!!!! And we're both very excited :)

I still think about how crazy it is that I have a little baby boy inside me. Four months to go and we'll be holding this little guy in our arms :)

Steve was actually surprised to find out that we're having a boy because he was convinced that it was a girl. But somehow I wasn't really surprised. I kind of had a gut feeling that it was a sweet baby boy. Whenever I imagined what the baby looked like inside of me, it was always the image of a baby boy! We already had a girl name picked out (Natalie Marie) and so now it's been fun going through boy names. Looks like the little guy is going to be named Parker Stephen. We've now been referring to this little fetus as "The Parkster." Cute, right? :)

Here are some pics of me as a pregnant lady which some people have been asking about:

Here I am strutting my belly at about 22 weeks

And me again at about 24 weeks, taken just a couple days ago

The Parkster is just getting bigger and bigger and kicking away. Not only is he making my belly bigger but my face seems to be getting chubbier by the day too. Oh boy!!

Venus

Already I feel like the Venus of Willendorf. I got love handles overnight.

And I'm only a little more than half way there!

So, after I checked out every single pregnancy book from all 5 of the city's libraries, I came up with a pretty sweet prenatal work out plan. This includes swimming, yoga stretches, hand weights. So far I've kept to this plan about 75% of the time :)

Any more advice for me ladies? :)