I truly feel so blessed. Not only do I have the insanely gorgeous images that my friend Kelly took of me, but I was lucky enough to have Linda Wallace of Linda Wallace Photography do our family maternity photo session in Raleigh, NC this past weekend. To say I love Linda’s work is the understatement of the century. I first discovered her amazing talent while looking for the perfect wedding photographer, and I hands down feel like she was the best decision we made in regards to our wedding planning. When I called her to discuss ideas for our maternity shoot I felt like I was talking to an old friend - and her talent outshone itself once again!!! (PS she travels to DC all the time for weddings - so check her out if you’re local!)

I told her this yesterday, but I was a bawling mess of tears when I saw these photos as I love them so so much…especially important to me are the ones of Dave, me and Heath.
A family.
My family.
Seeing that - I cant describe it…but looking at a photo of our growing family together like that is like seeing us for the first time. Like I said, I feel so blessed.

Here are the sneak peeks she graciously showed me early - love!

So I used to bribe her as a kid to play dolls (and school, and tag, and pretty much everything) with me and of course it shouldnt have surprised me that I had to drag her out of the house to take a couple quick photos. But the cherry blossoms were gorgeous today, and so (as always) was my sister, so we took these quickly before she ran away.

My mom almost gave her an out too as while we were taking these my mom reversed out of the driveway and nearly side swiped my new car. Thanks mom!

Better late than never! I had such an incredible time at my baby shower a few weekends ago and I wanted to show you all how awesome my friends and family are…check out the yummy food and decorations they set up for the party!

Coffee and candle favors…insanely delicious cupcakes…and a rockin’ diaper cake. I ate a disproportionate amount of cupcakes compared to the rest of the guests…but they were really, really good.

Plus hey - I wasnt able to partake in the mimosas (below - before being poured) so the cupcakes balance it all out. Riiiiight. Cucumber tea sandwiches were delicious as well, and the decor was adorable.

I felt so blessed to have so many friends and family come from all over the country to celebrate our baby boy. And for each and every one of the buttercream-iced lemon, almond and raspberry chocolate cupcakes…

It’s finally done! I wanted an adorable mod nursery with relaxing colors and a sunshiny feel…with an Australian theme…and I needed it to fit lookwise and sizewise into our master bedroom. Tall order!

I sent embarrassingly awful hand sketched drawings to artists to custom make different parts of the nursery and bless their little hearts for seeing my ideas through the scribble. I used this awesome etsy vendor for the custom wall decals and I recommend her and etsy.com in general for so many cute baby/nursery things. Janeymacpress

Odds and ends are from Ikea, Pottery Barn Kids, and my grandmother’s library where I scavenged hundreds of really old children’s books. My favorite book is one from the 50’s (and now out of print) called The Unhappy Hippopotamus. The story is great and the illustrations are stunning - black and white hand drawn images with shades of pale pink…so pretty!

So come on in and step inside our room! I cleaned up the mess mostly using photoshop’s clone tool. Way easier then actually mopping!

The bedding (which actually you can see one of my sheet options in the last set of photos - here it’s just the plain old mattress - it’s a good look) has pale blues, navy and pale yellow colors and small embroidered stars and moons. We spent so many nights in Australia checking out the southern constellations and admiring how you can actually see the milky way when you’re in the outback. So, so pretty. We’re planning on replacing the photos above the changing table with either some from our trip, or some of the little guy when he arrives.

Pay attention to the cute shelves and ignore my dirty shoes! The sailboat mobile is another nod to our Aussie trip as we spent 2 weeks aboard different boats - one sailing through the Whitsunday Islands and the other diving off the Great Barrier Reef. Some of my favorite memories are from those trips!

Fun stuff!

Eek!!! 5 weeks left until my due date - how did time go by so quickly?! I must admit - pregnancy has been so much fun for me. I’ve felt fantastic every day, have loved feeling Heath hiccup and kick, and have been so happy thinking about this little man who is already loved so much. I keep telling dave that with as much as I’ve loved being pregnant that I now want 10 kids. Annnnd as you can probably imagine, there are no words in the English language to describe his expression when I mention this…

Here I am in all my rounded glory. Check back later this week for completed nursery photos - fun!