February Recap

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Some of you might have been wondering where we were all of February – apologies for not providing many updates until now. Our month was extremely busy and it seems like as we get closer to Baby T’s arrival, we are getting busier and busier. Every night after work we have several items to cross off our to do list and every single weekend is jam packed with errands. We also try to make time for ourselves as a couple so that we aren’t too overworked and exhausted.

So what happened in February, you might ask?

  • Valentine’s Day – We always try to plan a date night on Valentine’s Day to celebrate so, this year, we went to an Italian restaurant in downtown Pleasanton for dinner. The food was delicious but the service could have been way better. Good thing we weren’t in a hurry because dinner took two hours (and no, it wasn’t a 5 course meal, they were just that slow). But let’s be honest, Valentine’s Day is really just the day before my sweet husband’s birthday. See below for what we did. 🙂
  • CJ’s Birthday – For Christmas, I got CJ a beer brewing kit from Williams Sonoma (he’s always wanted to do this) and he’s been patiently waiting for it to arrive. It was on backorder until the end of January so he decided to save the activity for his birthday weekend. A couple of his friends came over and they spent the day in the kitchen prepping and brewing. It takes two weeks for it to ferment before it can get bottled and then he has to wait another two weeks before drinking. We’re crossing our fingers that it turned out well, you never know until it’s ready for drinking! Not to worry, I won’t be tasting any of the beer. That night, we went out to dinner with some of our friends to Sauced (a delicious BBQ place) in Livermore and came back to our house for a game night. It was such a busy day but a ton of fun!
After CJ's Birthday Dinner

After CJ’s Birthday Dinner

  • Abby – We spent our last weekend with my dog Abby on CJ’s birthday weekend. I will always be thankful that we were home to spend time with her during her last days and will forever cherish that time. People who have never had a dog or grown up with a dog will never truly understand the amount of pain and grief I’ve been going through over the last week but we lost a member of our family, not a pet. Abby was my best friend since I received her as a Christmas gift in December 1999 and has been there for me through the hardest and happiest times of my life. I think about her and miss her every day and no amount of preparation could have gotten me ready for such a loss. Abby had 9 lives and was able to persevere through so much in her way-too-short life so a part of me never thought I would see the day when I would have to say goodbye. In November 2012, she got extremely sick and we thought she was nearing the end of her life. The doctor told us that she had several days to maybe a week to live so we decided to bring her home so her last days could be spent in her home. I spent the next few days laying next to her crying and telling her how much I loved her. She was able to fight through that time but was never the same and, on February 18, she passed away in her sleep. Losing her is the most excruciating pain and heartache I’ve ever experienced and, like I said, no one truly understands if they haven’t gone through it. Thank you to our friends who reached out to us; we are so thankful to have you in our lives.
My best friend for the past 14 years.

My best friend for the past 14 years. I love that smile.

  • Babymoon – A gracious coworker gave us a voucher to Peppermill Resort in Reno to use for a two night stay that we just redeemed last weekend. It was a much needed weekend away after the stress from the week before and was a lot of fun. We won a jackpot (in my mind) on the penny slots and won a whopping $25!! I felt quite accomplished. We also explored a cute old west town called Virginia City and stopped in Truckee on our way back and bought some fun items. It was so nice to have a weekend away as a couple to just relax and not have to worry about our endless “to do” list. We definitely had a vacation hangover the following Monday as we just wanted to go back to the weekend and relax a bit more.
Driving up to Virginia City

Driving up to Virginia City

  • Nursery – It feels like every day we are getting a shipment or working on something for the baby room. It’s hard work but sooo worth it and we’re loving the process of getting it set up for Baby T!!
  • Adirondack Chairs – CJ finished painting them and they are now sitting on our porch. He did an amazing job! Maybe he’ll do a post on the final result soon 😉

And that’s a general update for what we’ve been up to – there’s been so much more in the mix but what’s most important is that we are so thankful for the time we get to spend together over the next few months before our little girl arrives and can’t wait for her arrival.

30 Week Update!

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Wow, I can’t believe we’re already 30 weeks along!! I would be posting updates more often but not much has changed since the last time I posted. I just have a bigger baby bump and more people are noticing it now. The most common phrase I hear these days is either “Woah! You’re pregnant!” (from someone at work) or “Congratulations! When are you due?” (when we’re out and about). I think people now feel safe to make a comment because it’s clear that I’m growing a baby and I didn’t just eat a big burrito.

I’m feeling the same – she’s kicking regularly and I’m loving it! We are soo excited to meet her and cannot believe that there are only 10 weeks left of the pregnancy. We fall more and more in love with her every day and will never get tired of feeling her kick.

So far, the only person that has felt Baby T kicking is CJ. My favorite moments are when the two of us can feel her kicking together. It’s such a special feeling and I love sharing that between the two of us. It still would feel awkward to have someone hold their hand to my belly waiting for a kick with no guarantee that they’ll feel anything. Plus, it’s my belly… it’s still weird to me to think of other people touching it. My opinion might change but that’s how I feel right now.

My cravings haven’t changed – I still want to eat clementines all day every day! They are just so delicious.

I’m sleeping like a rock right now (knock on wood) and haven’t been having any back pain. Now that I’m in my third trimester, I’m guessing that will change but I’ve been savoring this luxury while I still have it.

The nursery is moving along nicely – it’s officially our favorite room in the house. We’re so excited for the big reveal once Baby T is born! We like keeping it under wraps so I’m not going to give you much more detail other than the fact that we love it.

It’s About Time

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For the longest time, we’ve had an adorable clock and two metal decorative thingies (that’s a technical term) to hang on the wall by our kitchen table. Even though we knew we loved them and bought them for that space, we haven’t been able to pull the trigger on hanging them because we knew something was missing.

Chantal Oval Vertical Iron Clock from Cost Plus World Market

We searched high and low for the right art pieces to compliment what we already had with no luck until recently. I did my usual daily peruse on Joss & Main and saw this set of 4 gorgeous framed prints that spoke to me:

Lynette Framed Print from Joss & Main

When I saw them, I immediately fell in love with them so I sent them to CJ and asked what he thought of hanging them up in our office. Luckily, he came up with the much better idea of hanging those in the kitchen with our other items that were patiently waiting for their big debut on the kitchen wall. I immediately ordered them because I was so incredibly excited for them and then patiently awaited their arrival. They came in a couple days ago and last night we finally hung them. We are so in love with the final result and it looks even better than we imagined!

 

Kitchen Art

Kitchen Art 2

Pictures definitely don’t do them justice. The effect can only be fully appreciated in person. 🙂

As far as how we hung them, we followed our previous method of laying them out on the floor to map out how we wanted them to be arranged and then traced the layout onto a white piece of paper, hung it onto the wall, and nailed in the designated places. It worked out well again!

Have you put something to use recently that you bought ages ago? Doesn’t it just feel amazing?!?

Dresser Dilemma

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One of the decisions that we had to make with converting our guest room to the nursery was where to put all the clothes we were storing. We were using two dressers for our clothes – one in the master bedroom and one in the guest room but with Little Miss Baby T arriving in a few short months, we had to face the truth – she deserves her very own room that isn’t full of her parents’ clothes.

A few options that we considered:

  1. Keep the dresser in the guest room until who knows when – Obviously not ideal
  2. Move it to the office – Also, not my favorite. I believe every room should have a purpose and you shouldn’t mix and match. In this case, the office should only be an office with computer stuff, reading materials, office supplies, and anything else that relates to an office. It’s a true pet peeve of mine when people use rooms for something other than their purpose. We did try moving the dresser in there but I had such a visceral reaction to the sight of it in there that I couldn’t let the dresser sit there for more than 5 minutes.
  3. Move it to our bedroom – Clearly the most obvious choice because it’s our clothes so they belong in our bedroom, but it was not as obvious as it seems… See below for why.

Back to my belief that every room should have a purpose, our master bedroom is where we should be storing our clothing but we just didn’t think we had enough room. Our master bedroom is smaller than most and I hate clutter so I was afraid that adding another dresser would make it feel too cramped.

To test out the theory, we moved the guest room dresser into our room for a few days to feel it out and surprisingly enough, it wasn’t that bad. There was still enough room to walk around and we didn’t have to shimmy past it to get to the master bath. Sooo we ended up choosing Option #3 because it made the most sense and our “trial run” with the guest room dresser went well.

We bit the bullet a couple weeks ago and ordered the matching dresser for our bed set and moved it into its new home. Once we slid it into place along the wall, we looked at it and felt so relieved. CJ turned to me and said, “Wow, we have a real room now!”. I couldn’t have explained it better myself. It really completes the space and feels like it’s always been there. We’re so happy we made the decision to buy it and already love being able to access all of our clothes in our room. It was quite annoying to have to walk over to the guest room several times a day to grab a t-shirt or sweatpants but those days are a thing of the past now!

I promise I will get better about taking photos on our real camera. I've been lazy about uploading those photos lately.

Ahh so much better. And yes, those are ultrasound photos of our baby girl on top of the dresser. The frame on the left has a caption that says “love at first sight”. 🙂

Up next: Figuring out what to put on top of the dresser and what to hang on the wall! Now that the dresser is there, that wall is ready for some decorations. Decisions, decisions. 🙂

What did you have to change in your house to prep for a baby? This seems pretty minor but it took us several months to decide what to do.

26 Week Update

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Hello everyone! Today we are officially 6 months into the pregnancy – woohoo!

25weeks4days

This was taken last week. Apologies for the iPhone photo, I promise I will post a better one next time although I do love this one.

The most common question I get is, “How are you feeling?” and I’ve been feeling great! I’m not especially exhausted, no headaches, no nausea anymore (knock on wood!) so all is good. I do tend to get out of breath easier when I’m climbing stairs or doing a lot of activity but I can’t complain. This has been such an amazing experience so far and it’s all worth it. I’ve been trying to join CJ at the gym once or twice a week to stay active and, the other days, I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to walk places to get some exercise in (shout out to my fitbit for keeping track of my step count!). I’ve been sleeping really well too but I have a feeling that will change once I’m further along, at least, that’s what I’ve heard from other moms.

In the first trimester, when people would tell me that they loved being pregnant, I would think to myself, “How could you love being nauseas 24/7??!” but now I understand. Everyone has a different experience, but for me, the nausea went away after the first trimester and I really have loved every minute of it since. My favorite part, above everything else, is feeling Baby T kick. It seriously is the coolest thing in the whole world especially when CJ can feel. Every week she gets a little bit stronger and we feel her on the outside more often. Now, once in a while, we can feel some body parts move past an area on my belly! I can’t even explain how cool it is and how happy it makes us. We already love her so much and can’t wait to meet her in a few short months. I definitely know I will miss feeling her kicks.

For my birthday, we went to a 3D/4D ultrasound place and finally got to see her cute little face. It was so fun and the best gift ever! We might be biased but we think she is just absolutely adorable! We also got a cute little teddy bear with a recording of her heartbeat which will be really fun to show her as well as a few other goodies. I highly recommend doing that to anyone who’s expecting a  little one.

As far as how the nursery is coming along – we are slowly making progress. We got rid of all of the guest room furniture – we sold the bed and the nightstand to our friend and brought the dresser to my parent’s cabin in Arnold. We’re glad the furniture will be put to good use because they still have many years left in their lives. CJ painted a second coat of the wall color since we only did one coat when we first moved in and our uneven wall surface definitely needed a second coat to get all the spots we missed. Now, we’re working on getting the furniture and goodies to fill up the room. We’ve decided that we’re not going to reveal the room to anyone (other than ourselves obviously) until Baby T arrives. We thought it would be nice to keep that a surprise along with her name. So, no photo updates will be posted on the blog or shared with anyone until after her arrival. We are really excited for what we have planned for the nursery and are excited to share the final result once she’s here.

People are definitely noticing that I’m pregnant now when we’re out and about which is fun. I do get a little shy when people start asking questions because I’m not used to the attention but I still enjoy it. And luckily, no one has come up to rub my belly uninvited – success! I still think that’s the weirdest thing that people could do that without an invitation but, to each his/her own.

And lastly, I’ve been asked if I’ve had any strange pregnancy cravings – not yet! The only pregnancy craving I’ve had is for clementines. Oh dear those little cuties are so incredibly delicious, I could eat an entire box of them if I had no self-control. Actually, I have to give most of that credit to CJ because he’s been looking out for me and making sure I haven’t been binge eating clementines. Luckily, they are a healthy craving!

Pottery Barn Love

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I dream of having a whole house of Pottery Barn items someday. The store is just so glorious. But, until that dream becomes a reality, my goal is to decorate our house in that style with little sprinkles of Pottery Barn items… at a much lower price.

One area where we’ve done that – the family room. We knew pretty quickly that we wanted some beautiful drapes in the family room that would make the wall with the TV an accent wall and that would also soften up the area. I thought that by adding drapes, it would make the wall less about the monster sized TV and more about the overall feel of the room. We wanted to room to be cozy, inviting, and classic. I mentioned a few months ago that we ordered beautiful drapes from Pottery Barn (with a coupon -thanks Mom!) and were super excited to hang them up.

One of the hardest parts of the whole process was lining up both curtain rods to be at the same height. Since our house is older, our ceilings aren’t exactly level so we weren’t able to just measure from the top of the wall down. We had to carefully go back and forth measuring bottom to top, top to bottom, and any which way to make sure they were even. Then, we used a level to make sure the rods wouldn’t be lopsided. Once we were comfortable with that, we had to screw them in and hang them. We are not big fans of hanging curtain rods and get frustrated every time (not at each other, just at those stupid rods). It’s worth the effort though because they always end up looking wonderful at the end.

Family Room 1

We had a feeling they would be too long after hanging them up and that feeling was confirmed immediately. We kept them hung up for a couple of weeks to decide what length we would prefer. I highly recommend that because you never know until you actually have them hanging in front of you for some time. Once we thought we knew what we wanted, I asked our superstar seamstress (aka my mom) to come over and pin them up. We pinned them shorter, longer, and in between to figure out what we liked best. We decided to have them just kiss the floor so they almost looked like they were puddling on the floor but not long enough that they were full puddles (if that makes sense). The reason for that is, as I mentioned before, our house is old and the walls aren’t all perfectly equal in height. We wanted both drapes to be the same length and feared that one side might end up hovering over the floor while the other side was puddling on the floor. To be safe, we decided to make them a little longer so you would never be able to tell the difference. It worked! They look perfect and you can’t even tell they were hemmed at all. My mom did such an amazing job! I’d explain how she did it but, to me, it’s all magic. I’m not quite sure how she does it so well. 🙂

Family Room 2

Family Room 3

At-Or On Deck

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The new year is here and so are the new projects. So what has CJ been up to you ask? Well, at the end of 2013 my services were requested by Mom-in-law to put together some furniture. The furniture was in about 5 boxes so I moved what I could into the soon-to-be sewing room. We emptied the box that was too heavy to be carried and brought everything inside. After sifting through all the Styrofoam and tape and cardboard, we had about 100 pieces and a few instruction manuals.

After we got started, we hit a road block when we realized that the side of the corner desk was warped and we had to order a new piece. About a week later, we got the piece and finished the corner desk. That weekend, I went back and put together the storage cabinet while Emily cleaned our house, not sure who got the best on that one…but it was finished and looked great.

Which brings us back to the new year. One last piece of furniture remains – the TV console for the other room. We spent a few hours working on it this week and got about 3/4 of that one finished.

So what are we doing at our house you ask? This year, we decided to do Christmas at our house and we (the royal “we” that is) are still working on cleaning up but are now almost finished. Another project that has been sitting in the garage is our Adirondack chairs for the front of the house.

We picked up some supplies to prime last week and I spent some time priming them and my right arm on the 1st of January. They are now all primed and mostly ready for a shiny paint coat and assembly. The table that came with the chairs is another problem. I have gotten myself into a little pickle. While trying to save some time, I primed the table while fully up but now it won’t open up so I can get all the other spaces…and I need to do the top. So it’s looking troublesome. Lesson learned: Take your time.

Priming

Priming Adirondacks

So that’s what we have been up to in the new year! On deck for our projects are picking a color (white) for the chairs in the front and there are oh so many shades of white. What whites do you love? The rest of our time will be BABY ROOM ROom room!

21 Week Update!

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BabyT on Make A Gif

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! Today marks 21 weeks – we’re more than halfway there! Woohoo. Above is a fun gif of how my belly has been growing. The most recent picture was taken last Tuesday.

All is good in the pregnancy department! I’m gaining the exact amount of weight I’m supposed to each month, my test results are coming back perfect, and I haven’t been sick since the second trimester started.

I haven’t had any crazy cravings (that I know of) and have been drinking plenty of water. I do really enjoy Mint Chocolate Chip milkshakes but I’m not sure if I would categorize that as a pregnancy craving. Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream has always been my favorite, I just want to eat it more often now. 🙂

I’m not sure if I’m feeling any movement. Sometimes, I think I feel her moving around in there but since it’s so faint, I’m not positive. My doctor said in the next few weeks it should become more pronounced as she grows so I’m excited for that. I’m most excited for CJ to be able to feel it because I can’t wait for us to experience that together. That’s supposed to happen a few weeks after I start feeling movement.

I’m getting a bit more used to sleeping on my side, which is good. It’s still not my favorite sleeping position and I do find myself waking up on my back in the middle of the night but I just move back over to my side and fall right back asleep. Last week, I woke up with an uncomfortable pain in my back so I guess I slept weird that night but it went away the next day. It was really distracting so I probably told everyone about my back pain that asked how I was feeling that day.

Luckily, most people have stayed away from touching my belly. There are a few people that I’m okay with but, for the most part, the whole concept of touching someone’s pregnant belly is strange to me… unless the expectant mother tells you to do it because the baby is kicking. That makes sense and is totally understandable. I fear the day when random strangers come up. A few people have told me about that and that completely baffles me. Who walks up to a complete stranger and touches their belly?  Not me. 🙂

Other than that, nothing newsworthy to report.

Christmas Decorations

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Everyone who knows me well knows that Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday. I love having a day to enjoy with my family and my favorite food items (especially the mashed potatoes – yum!). My mom’s cooking is outrageously delicious so it’s hard not to look forward to a whole feast of that once a year. So, because of that, I have a pet peeve when people start playing Christmas music or decorating for Christmas before Thanksgiving is over. I tend to think, “Um, hello! The best holiday of the year hasn’t happened yet and you’re already moving onto the next one??”

Even so, there are certain things about Christmas that I love. I love how cozy it feels and how friendly everyone is. I love that whenever you check out at a store, they say either “Happy Holidays!” or “Merry Christmas!”. I love going Christmas shopping, even during all the craziness of hunting for a parking spot or waiting in long lines. I looove hot chocolate and the smell of Christmas trees. I love the Elvis Presley song “Blue Christmas” because my dad used to play it on repeat right after Thanksgiving until Christmas. My sister and I used to tease him about it but we not-so-secretly loved it. I love seeing all the wrapped gifts under the Christmas tree.

I think that’s why I’m so incredibly excited for next year’s Christmas because we’ll have our baby girl with us and we’ll get to decide what Christmas traditions we want to do with her. I can’t wait until she’s old enough to wake us up at 6am to see what Santa brought her. I remember being like that when I was little and loved how magical it felt. One of my favorite traditions from when I was little was having Santa come visit us on Christmas Eve and bring everyone a new pair of pajamas. I remember loving that and, on one particular Christmas Eve, going outside and seeing something flying in the air that I thought was Santa flying away in his sleigh. Looking back, it was probably an airplane flying by but thinking that it was Santa made the experience so much better.

So, back to the title of this blog post, Christmas decorations are another thing. What I dislike the most about them – how long it takes to unpack them and set them up and…even more than that… putting them away after all the fun of Christmas is over. It’s such a chore to do it but I enjoy them for the short time that they are up. I am very very particular about what Christmas decorations I like which is why I’d rather pick out decorations with CJ and buy them ourselves. I want everything to match and to have a certain look to it. I like the types of decorations that are definitely for Christmas but that coordinate with the existing decor in the house. I love rustic decorations that blend in with what we’ve already put in the house.

Below is an example of my favorite style of Christmas decorations (from The Lily Pad Cottage). We loooove this.

The Lily Pad Cottage – Christmas Mantel

There are some decorations we found at Nordstrom a couple of months ago that I love too. Here are a couple of adorable Nordstrom decorations:

Linen Runner 

Burlap Tree

I was inspired by what we saw at Nordstrom so we found some adorable decorations at Target that mirror that same style. You’ll see them in the photos of what we’ve done on the fireplace mantel.

For this year, we only bought a few decorations as we know we’ll build up a supply over time and I really love what we’ve done. It’s so simple and understated yet definitely incorporates the Christmas feel.  I love what we have so much that I’m a little sad to pack them away once the holidays are over.

Our Christmas mantel decorations

Our Christmas mantel decorations. We have a third stocking for Baby T! We’ll add in her initial next year. I’d love to add some garland on the mantel, we just haven’t found any that meet our standards.

Close up of the left side - both items are from Target

Close up of the left side – both items are from Target

Close up of our adorable stocking hangers - from Crate & Barrel

Close up of our adorable stocking hangers – from Crate & Barrel. I love that they match the wooden picture frames that we already have in the family room.

I love these two little guys - both from Target

I love these two little guys – both from Target

Our majestic ceramic reindeer - from Target

Our majestic ceramic reindeer – from Target

I love our little Christmas tree that we found at the Christmas tree lot where my parents get their tree

I love our little Christmas tree that we found at the Christmas tree lot where my parents get their tree

We still need to do some work on our Christmas tree decorations – I really want all the ornaments to coordinate and for it to look like one of those beautiful trees in a department store (with sprinkles of personalized ornaments that we’ll gather over the years). We’re nowhere near that yet but we’ll get there eventually. 🙂 Our Christmas tree this year is simple yet beautiful, we love it.

Our first Christmas tree in our home!

Our first Christmas tree in our home!

Gender Reveal – We’re having a….

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GIRL!!!!!

And oh my goodness, we are so excited!! I couldn’t stop smiling the rest of the day when we found out. Actually, I don’t think I really have stopped smiling. Knowing a little bit more about our little one who will be joining us in May makes it so much more real and exciting.

The ultrasound told us only good news – she has all her fingers and toes, perfect measurements, healthy heart, etc. Although, me being a huge fan of photos, I really wanted to see her little face but she just wasn’t in the mood to reveal herself just yet. She had her arms up on both sides of her face so we couldn’t see anything other than her tiny little hands, cute little fingers, and her ears. We were in and out of the appointment in what seemed like 10 minutes, it was so quick and efficient! They gave us a CD of some of the photos that they took but, unfortunately, we didn’t get a copy of her profile. No worries, we’re just happy we have a healthy baby girl!

The overwhelming majority of people guessed that we were having a girl but we were unsure the whole time. We didn’t really have a feeling either way and the only thing I was sure about was whether or not we were having a girl or boy, we would have been ecstatic.

We told most of our family and friends the same day we found out. At first, we thought maybe we should do some big reveal but, after we found out, we were just too excited to wait. It would have been cute though to wrap little gifts for everyone and have everyone open them together on Christmas to find out the gender. We weren’t patient enough for something like that. 🙂

Now that we know we’re having a girl, we can start registering and planning the nursery. We’re going to start working on the nursery in January after the holiday season. CJ has already started working on sanding the baby furniture that will be going in the room and then we will paint it a nice shade of white. We’re most likely going to stick with the gray, yellow, and white color scheme that we originally planned but we’ll see. We might end up doing gray, white, and a soft pink. Who knows! You’ll have to wait and see.

There are sooo many cute clothes out there and now that I know we’re having a girl, I’ve been obsessing over a few:

Oshkosh 2-piece set

Oshkosh 3-piece set

Carters 3-piece Elephant dot set

Gap Dot Flutter Dress

Etsy Headband 

Etsy Headband

There are so many cute items! But I haven’t bought anything yet, I’m trying to control myself until after the holidays. 🙂

We’ve had a lot of people asking what her name will be or making comments like, “Now that you know it’s a girl, you can start picking names!” Well, we’ve already done a lot of research on baby names but have decided not to reveal her name until she’s born. We think it will be fun to keep it a surprise! I promise you, it will be beautiful. 🙂