Motherhood Archives - Page 5 of 6

A Letter To The Son We’ll Soon Meet

February 8, 2016 By Lauren

Our Dear, Sweet Boy,

As I write this letter, I am 35 weeks pregnant. That means it’s just a matter of weeks until you leave the safety of my belly to come into this crazy world. Do you know how excited your dad and I are to meet you? We talk about you every day and dream about what you’re like. We wonder if you’ll have blonde hair and blue eyes like so many people in our family, or if you’ll surprise us and crack us up with a head full of strawberry blonde hair like I had as a baby. We wonder if you’ll love sports or music, if you’ll love reading and language like your mama, if you’ll grow up a Duke fan like your daddy or if you’ll just love all things Kansas City.

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Our Cozy, Winter Maternity Pictures

January 26, 2016 By Lauren

Let’s be honest: pregnancy is not always a time when many women feel their most beautiful. Like I shared in this post about learning to love my pregnant body, it has been a sometimes challenging journey to embrace the stretch marks and new pounds and find joy in the midst of them.

But you guys – these pictures? They make me feel so, so beautiful. I am deeply grateful that my amazingly talented best friend Haley was willing to fly out and visit, and even more grateful that she was willing to take our maternity pictures for us. These pictures remind me that there is such beauty in growing life and I am so excited to share them with you today!

Haley shared some of her favorites in this blog post last week, but today, I’m sharing a few of my favorites from our cozy, winter maternity shoot. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

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Two Things To Do Before A Major Life Transition

January 25, 2016 By Lauren

I received a message from a reader and friend a few months back that has stuck with me as our first baby’s due date’s gotten closer and closer. She said something along these lines: “My husband and I are so grateful to be pregnant and can’t wait to have our first little one this year. But as we soak in some slow mornings together, date nights, and just plain alone time, I can’t help but be a little sad about the major life transition headed our way. I’m sad to leave that time behind. I’m going to miss all the time we had together just us but I feel so selfish and guilty even saying that out loud. Is this normal?”

My answer was a resounding, 100% YES.

For a long time, I’ve been a little bit embarrassed and confused by my own reactions to big life changes and transitions. I worry about how I should feel in a certain situation like graduating, moving, getting married, getting pregnant, etc, and when my emotions don’t match what I expect to feel, I feel ashamed that something’s wrong with me.

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Caleb’s Rustic Neutral Nursery Reveal

January 21, 2016 By Lauren

I received free hardware for our nursery from D. Lawless Hardware in exchange for my honest review of their products. This post also contains some affiliate links (aka I earn a little commission if you click through and end up buying/loving the product too). However, I only ever recommend products I love and use myself. I promise!

I may or may not be squealing as I type this because I am SO excited to finally get to share Caleb’s rustic neutral nursery with you! It has been such a fun process to turn this room into a beautiful, cozy space that we can bring our son into and I am so excited and honored to invite y’all into our home to see it today.

First, here’s a glimpse of the before. The walls were a faded yellow, the trim was orange, scratched wood, and the whole room just felt very warm and yellowy (is that a word?), especially since the sun shines directly into it in the afternoons and evenings.

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Eight Month Pregnancy Update

January 19, 2016 By Lauren

This past weekend marked 32 full weeks (aka eight months) of pregnancy done. Holy moly. That means I am officially moving into my ninth month and the final eight weeks where little man’s arrival is starting to feel oh so close! Here are some updates from the last month:

How I’m Feeling

To be honest, I am really starting to feel some of the effects of having this little bean packed into my rapidly growing belly. I’ve been having lots of aches in my belly, hips, and back as things stretch and move and it’s getting harder and harder for me to be on my feet and moving around during the day at work. One wonderful silver lining of how exhausting teaching is? I have been sleeping like a ROCK at night. I know this is not the case for many pregnant women so I’m trying to soak that up while I still can. I’m praying for strength and the occasional comfort (at least once I get home from work and can put my feet up) as I keep getting bigger and bigger and the day we meet Caleb gets closer and closer!

Another update: after failing my gestational diabetes test a few weeks back, I had to take the day off work Friday to do the extended three hour glucose test. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that was NO fun at all. I am a baby when it comes to fasting and I was about as grouchy as they come. But it’s over and I got the phone call yesterday that I passed the test and am diabetes free! I celebrated my good health with a big bowl of mint chip ice cream and extra chocolate chips. Feeling pretty good about that.

Fun Celebrations

A few sweet friends (shoutout to Leigh and Kat!) threw me a sweet surprise baby shower this past weekend! It was so fun to have people I love from so many different places in one room and I’m grateful for all the work they put into planning it. I got so many adorable gifts and loved getting to catch up with some sweet friends. Thanks to all the ladies who love me so well and threw such an adorable shower!

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Five Things That Scare Me About Being A Mom

January 4, 2016 By Lauren

If there’s one thing I’ve learned these last eight months of growing a tiny human, it’s that motherhood brings with it a whole host of worries and fears. Pregnancy is beautiful and miraculous and I don’t want to discredit that for a second, but I also believe deeply that part of being human is experiencing fear and struggles even in the midst of joyful, beautiful things.

That belief is why I was honest about how the first few months of pregnancy were underwhelming, why I shared about my fears of miscarriage in the first trimester, and why I continually share about the hard parts of marriage, relationships, and life as a “grownup.”

But today, I want to focus on one aspect of pregnancy that’s been on my mind a lot lately: fear. I’m hesitant to even label these things as fears for some reason. More than I am deathly afraid that everything will fall apart and be horrible, this list is a few things I am anticipating will be just plain hard. I’ve seen over and over again that God uses those hard, stretching experiences to grow us and draw us deeper into Him, but that doesn’t necessarily make those hard things any easier when we’re right in the thick of them.

So even though I know God will use these things for good, I want to share a few of the things I’ve been praying about and wrestling with as we prepare to meet our little man in just ten short weeks. If these things scare you or you’re facing them right now, you’re not alone!

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Seven Month Pregnancy Update

December 22, 2015 By Lauren

Well, hello! Since this past weekend marked 28 weeks of this pregnancy, I figured it was time for a seven month pregnancy update. I am officially moving into the third trimester, which blows my mind a little bit. It’s less than twelve more weeks until our little guy makes his appearance into the world!

How Baby’s Doing

Caleb has been a rockin’ and a rollin’ in my belly these last few weeks. His heart rate and growth have consistently been good and I’m looking forward to some appointments with more updates about him soon. He’s pretty active any time I sit down and has started to respond when his ornery dad or I poke him through my tummy. He’s even made me pause teaching a few times because of particularly hard kicks or somersaults! I think I’ve been feeling him get the hiccups every once in a while, which is another funny feeling. The movements are so fun and different and I’m soaking in every one!

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2015: A Year In Review

December 21, 2015 By Lauren

This year has been so good to us, and it’s crazy to think back on all the big steps we’ve taken in the last 12 months alone. Since I can’t send out a Christmas card to all of you (and let’s be real, our Christmas card doesn’t go into this much detail), I thought I’d take a bit to write down and remember some of the biggest events of our year. Maybe more for us to remember than for all of you, but hey…that’s okay every once in a while, right?

Why Your Marriage Is More Than Your Sex Life

Source: Haley George Photography

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How Motherhood Is Changing My View Of Christmas

December 14, 2015 By Lauren

In years past, I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself to make Christmas feel meaningful. I’ve done Advent devotionals, read through different versions of the Christmas story, and tried to make myself feel all sorts of things about this beautiful story that changed our world forever. Despite all my best efforts, most of the time I just got caught up in the busyness and said a quick prayer of thanks before jumping into time with family and friends.

But this year? Christmas has been rocking my world.

This baby growing in me is a miracle, but that is not what has been on my heart this Christmas. More than anything, the thought that keeps coming to my mind this Christmas season is the reality of what always precedes new life: the pain of the stretching.

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Neutral Boy Nursery Inspiration

December 3, 2015 By Lauren

If you love the inspiration in this post, make sure to check out the pictures and finished post about our little man’s neutral, rustic nursery. I love how it turned out and if you love these pictures, I have a feeling you will too!

Since we moved into our house last January (you can see a house tour from last spring here – hoping to share an updated one soon) I have had so much fun decorating our space and making it feel like home. I love the creative outlet it is and the way it lets me experiment with color, texture, and vision for different spaces without much risk (because really, as long as hubby and I like it we are happy).

Add a baby and some pregnancy nesting hormones to the mix, and you can bet I have been ALL about our nursery planning! We’re done with cleaning out the nursery, painting the trim a crisp white, and painting the walls (they are a beautiful gray-white color by Behr called Silver Drop), so now it’s time to get dreaming and planning about furniture and decor ideas for our neutral boy nursery!