Steve turns 28!

^^taken outside of Johnny Carino's^^

On Friday, August 30th, Steve turned 28 years old! I tried to make the day itself special for him but Steve has been so busy at his internship at the VA, I think he just wanted to come home and sleep! I did make him lemon cupcakes from scratch (something I found off of pinterest ;) and a little Happy Birthday banner that's still hanging up in our living room 3 weeks later :) We're both so bad about celebrating anniversaries and birthdays; I really tried to put some effort into making the day special!

We ended up going out to eat at Johnny Carino's, our all time favorite restaurant. We're going to miss it when we move away! Steve normally doesn't pay much attention to his birthday or how old he's turning, but as we ate dinner as a family, Steve talked about how excited he was to finally be turning 28 years old! Steve has had his life planned out since he was like 14 years old and for the most part it's pretty much gone according to plan. He's known since he was 14 that he wanted to be a chiropractor and at that young age he figured out how many years of schooling he would need: 4 years undergrad plus a 2 year mission, and then 3 and a half years of grad school which would make him 28 by the time he finally finished school! It's kind of amazing that he's still on track after all these years. He's just so happy (and I am too!) that the end of school is finally in sight: exactly 3 more months! We're just so ready to finally have the chance to make money and not live on student loans anymore.

Anyway, I'm glad we were able to celebrate Steve and his 28 years of life on his special day :) We might not have sung Happy Birthday to him or gotten around to eating his cupcakes after we got home from dinner because Steve passed out too soon ;) But at least we could spend the time together as a family talking about our future together. I love you, Steve. SO much! I'm so lucky to have such a loving, hard-working husband and I look forward to celebrating many more of your birthdays :)

Roadtrip!!!

Just some clips of Cole from our roadtrip down to San Antonio last month. Luckily this roadtrip was only 4 hours long because I don't know how well he would have done if it had been much longer :) And we're actually heading out on another roadtrip tomorrow for Labor Day weekend! We're going to see our friends Bekah and Jordan up in Fort Smith, Arkansas since their son is turning one. This will probably be our last time in Arkansas (for a long time anyway) so we're going to make the most of it. We're excited to see our friends :)

And today is Steve's birthday! I'm pretty sure he just wants to relax for his birthday since he's been so busy lately. But I think I'll be able to make today somewhat festive for him....think lemon cupcakes. Yum :)

Happy Birthday, Steve! We love you :)

26 weeks.

This week marks 26 weeks of being pregnant. Gahhh. I feel like I have been pregnant forever but I still have three months to grow even bigger and honestly that worries me! I finally made Steve take some pictures of me to document the belly and I pretty much hated how I looked in every single picture but I guess that's just how it is when you're pregnant.

I try not to complain too much when I'm pregnant because there are a couple things that are good about it:
1. My hair gets crazy thick (for my standards anyway) and
2. I get a cute baby at the end :) Yeah, that's a big one! I am really excited about that :)

Other things that I'm not so crazy about:
*My face gets so chubby! I mean to the point where my eyes look so much smaller. It's like my cheeks are swallowing them up. Every time I have a shower and have to put my face under the running water, it hurts my eyes; kinda like the feeling when you have a sinus infection. Seriously the weirdest thing.
*Actually, everything pretty much gets swollen. My hands, feet, arms, legs. Sometimes I wake up in the mornings and my hands just hurt, like so bad that I want to take tylenol for it. But don't worry, I don't.
*Stretch marks :/ No fun.
*There's nothing to wear....that covers me up enough, is comfortable and looks cute too. I think every pregnant girl goes through this. Yoga pants are pretty much my best friend these days :) I did cave in and buy one really nice maternity dress that should last me until the end. I just wanted one nice thing that looked cute and that I only had to wear one layer with. There's nothing worse than having to layer up to make sure everything's covered up when it's a billion degrees outside.

Anyway, this was probably a really annoying post to read but it actually felt good to write it haha :) So I'm going to end with this quote to help me put things into perspective :) I do feel very lucky that I get to be a mom.

Instead of wishing away
nine months of pregnancy
and complaining about the 
shadow over my feet, I'd
have cherished every minute
of it and realized that the 
wonderment growing inside
me was to be my only chance
in life to assist God in a miracle.

-Erma Bombeck, "If I had my life to live over."

Ice cream before dinner.

^^Sticky fingers :)^^
I let him have ice cream before dinner last week. He's a funny boy and whenever I'm letting him do something I wouldn't normally, Cole always looks up at me and gives me this look like he adores me and says "I luh you mommy." So he pretty much loves me only when I let him do whatever he wants ;)

Now that Steve has started his internship at the VA hospital which is 40 minutes away, it doesn't make sense for me to take him to school anymore. Which means I pretty much never can have the car anymore!! SO, Cole and I spend a lot of time at home. And that's not always a bad thing. I actually like staying home and having quiet days. (Cole might not like it as much as I do....) The weekends seem to stress me out anyway; so many youth activities and things to go to and church meetings and giving rides. By the time Monday rolls around I just want to stay home and do nothing anyway!

I try to keep Cole entertained by letting him do crafts. I bought him paint and paint brushes and scissors!! (toddler scissors) I don't know why I haven't bought them sooner because those scissors are awesome. He will just sit in one spot for an extended period of time cutting up paper and string into tiny little pieces. The perfect way to keep him entertained and in one spot without making too big of a mess :)

He's actually warming up to having a baby brother pretty soon here. Sometimes he'll randomly ask me if the baby is kicking and he'll ask me if I'm ok. He'll come up and talk to my belly and give it kisses and I think it's the cutest thing ever :) I actually think he's going to be an awesome big brother. It might be a hard transition at first but I know he's going to love having a little buddy to play with all the time. Cole loves all kids, or "friends" as he calls them, and he loves to PLAY! And as his mother I like to think that most kids like him too because he's fun to be around and easy to play with :) I feel like I'm ready for this baby to get here already but we still have a few more months. I'm 25 weeks and somehow I feel like I've been pregnant forever. Time goes by too fast and too slow all at the same time and I have no idea how that even works!

Painting a thank you!

I hate making messes like this because I'm the one who has to clean them up! But sometimes you let your toddler do it anyway because you know he's just going to have a blast making a mess like that. This was Cole's first time ever painting and I think he did a pretty good job :) We wanted to make something special for Mimi and Grandpa to say thank you for making it possible for us to go visit San Antonio a couple weeks ago. We are so lucky to have such loving and generous parents!

Thanks again and enjoy the video! :)

Lake Lewisville with the girls.

Watermelon.
Giggles.
Boats.
Friends.

These girls are so fun. I've absolutely loved being their Young Women's leader. Recently I've been really feeling how this chapter of my life is coming to a close in just a few short months and it makes me sad. I'm going to miss these girls so much! I'm going to miss how enthusiastic they are about life. I'm going to miss their testimonies that they share so freely with each other. And I'm especially going to miss seeing how much they love each other as fellow daughters of God. These girls are lucky to have each other as friends and I'm lucky to be their leader.

S a n A n t o n i o

It was hot.
It was colorful.
It was short.
It was fun.

It was just what we needed. Thanks to Steve parents for making this trip possible! We're lucky we could go!

San Antonio from my phone!

^^Driving into San Antonio and already stuck in traffic! // Dinner with dear friends at "La Hacienda." Our plate of fajitas was HUGE! And I promise Cole is not picking his nose in our family picture ;)^^


^^22 week bump!!!! Oh yeah and my cute family at the Alamo :)^^


^^My college roommate, Connie and I, in the same place at the same time! // The ALAMO!! // And driving back into Dallas. It only took us 2 whole extra hours to get home because of random Sunday afternoon traffic :/ Cole would  keep himself entertained by pinching his cheeks and saying "I stuck! I stuck!" Silly boy :)^^

I have a million more pictures to post from my real camera! But I didn't want these ones from my phone to get forgotten.