Celebrity couple crush.

do you have a celebrity couple crush? i do. it's dwayne wade and gabrielle union. not sure why....maybe because d wade kinda reminds me of john and people say i sort of look like a cross between gabrielle union and brandy. plus they are so cute together and all of d wade's instagram photos make them look like an ordinary, joe schmo couple....minus the obnoxiously perfect bodies and stunning good looks.  oh, and the fabulous places they get to fly to and the endless paparazzi cameras following their every move.  you know, ordinary.

this one's my favorite.

btw, dwayne wade has been on the talk show circuit promoting his new book that came out sept. 4, a father first: how my life became bigger than basketball. i'm contemplating on buying the book but wanted to wait until there are some reviews on amazon.

who's your celebrity couple crush?

Dedicated post to my first babies.

lately, i've been wondering how my relationship with my dogs will change once our newest addition arrives. will bubba and joey be less cared for, forgotten, receive less attention?

oh boy, that's a tough one to swallow.  i can't imagine loving them any less. you see, i really do think of those 2 as my first babies. everyone adores them and they are both so good with my niece that i'm sure they will acclimate just fine once the newest member of this family arrives.

for those who have dogs, did it change much once you had a new baby?  please tell me no...

and now for some photos.

stare down.

joey: whatcha got in your hand Olivia?

joey: i'll be resting right here while you point at the picture frames.

olivia: i'm trying to pet you joey! stop moving!

bubba: that's my toy olivia. but you can play with it if you want.
joey: what are you guys doing down there? keep it down, i'm trying to rest.

Maternity pants are AWESOME.

my belly started to really declare itself at around 3 1/2 months. i know...early...it's what i thought too. I have my baseline fat gut to thank for that. anyways, my skinny jeans started to get a bit snug and while i was thankful for the bellyband that my sister-in-law let me borrow, i wanted to check out what maternity jeans had to offer me. for those that aren't in the know, motherhood maternity is the cheaper, sister store to a pea in the pod. so naturally, i headed to the nearest motherhood maternity to try on some new jeans. i lucked out because they were having a sale, buy 2 pairs of jeans and get the second 1/2 off. score! each of the jeans i bought came out to $29.99. cheaper than the H&M maternity jeans.  so, i bought 4, but am planning to return one of them, the teal one.  the dark blue and black were a must buy. but i just had to take part in the colored denim craze. so i got the dark red and teal jeans too, but only to get the discounted price.  can i tell you, full panel maternity pants are AWESOME. so comfortable!

for some reason, the website doesn't have the black or teal jeans.  fyi, all of the jeans i bought were the full panel jeans hoping it will take my through all 9 months.

i'm just itching to know, when did you start wearing maternity pants?

The day I finally got a +, and not a - ...

forgive me if i'm being a bit shy talking about this pregnancy. it's not that i'm not excited about it, because I AM. more than i could even admit. i say "admit" because, well...honestly, i'm scared. scared that something might happen. and our dream that we've been dreaming for two long years might not come to premonition.  i just don't want to jinx ourselves. can y'all relate? well, if you can or if you can't, it's what i'm feeling right now. so there.

but, i've decided to follow some advice from my sister-in-law, annabelle.  i am going to try my best to document this journey in the hopes that one day my little one and I could go through this dear 'ol blog together and smile.

so, here it goes...so far.

june 14. that day was a good day. i've had so many -s,
that even though the + was so faint,
i jumped for joy.
i didn't even bother taking another one.

june 27. first ultrasound at 6 weeks.
do you see that little circle?
it's the beginnings of a new life...now isn't that
just amazing.

july 11 or 7/11. now that was a lucky day.
the round thing is the yolk sac. and beneath it,
is a fetus. the best thing about it,
was that i heard the little heart beat.
the heart looked like a little eye blinking right at me =)

august 15. here's our most recent ultrasound.
what a difference, right?!

so there you have it. 4 months and still goin' strong. isn't it mind boggling how fast the baby grows?! my next ultrasound will be tomorrow and after that will be the famous 20 week ultrasound where we find out if everything is as it should be. you know, if there are 4 chambers in the heart, the intestines are inside the belly, etc... oh, and of course, the sex of the baby! just in case you're wondering, first and foremost, we want a healthy, happy baby. but i'm gunning for a boy and john is gunning for a girl ;-)

Hey, guess what...

remember when i posted about this? and i was dreaming about this? and i was waiting for this?  well guess what, IT finally happened for us!  John and I are 15 weeks pregnant!!!  let me introduce to you our little miracle...

this was taken at 14 weeks. the baby definitely, without a
doubt, appears to have John's nose. 

the ultrasound tech was kind enough to show us a 3D image.
it actually kinda freaked me out. but was awesome, never the less.

the funny thing is, is that i was envisioning this blog to be an outlet for me during our struggles of trying to get pregnant and on being labeled infertile. i guess, God had a different plan for us. and we are oh so grateful and feel so blessed to experience this foreign and exciting journey of pregnancy. and the possibility/privilege of loving and raising a little person, whom we could call our very own, just blows our mind. despite the overwhelming excitement and fear of what lies ahead, all we can say is BRING-IT-ON!

so stay tuned for more posts about you know what ;-)

Let's talk about SKIN

as i mentioned in a previous post, last year sucked for me. on top of all the mishaps and emotional turmoil, the icing on the cake was i started to break out! we're talking deeeeep types of zits. i would even label a few cystic acne. there is something to be said for a girl who hates pretty much everything about her face and body to say that she loves her skin. so you can imagine the magnitude of stress that these pimples had on me. aaaaaannnnnnd, i'm a picker. there would not be a day where i would run my fingers over my face in the shower. if i felt a lump or bump, booyaaah. that pimple would be more like a wound in a few minutes. i know, i know, totally the wrong thing to do. but i just could not help myself.

so scar, after scar formed. dark scars, at that!  well, i'm finally clearing up. and my scars are slowly, but surely fading away.  let me fill you in on a beauty product secret...

obagi nu derm

in my opinion, obagi is by far the best skin care regimen out there.  it will make you red and peely at first, but after that, your skin will be amazeballs.  yes, i said wrote amazeballs.  that's blogger talk for ya...haha.  anyways, on a more important note, what's your skin care routine??

Adventures in D-SLRing

boy, did it start off bad.  i mean really bad. unfortunately, it started off at my beautiful friend's wedding.  the morning of the wedding, i diligently watched all the dvds that came with the camera, went on a few photography blogs, and watched several youtube tutorials to give me some baseline knowledge.  i actually felt pretty good about it. i thought i was ready.  the pictures i took at the church were horrid, despite the fact the wedding ceremony was one of the most magical one's i've ever witnessed. we're talking dark, blurry, flat...i succumbed to putting my camera on auto which was just soooooo disappointing.  i was so upset and frustrated with myself that i didn't even take my brand spankin' new nikon (3100 to be exact) to the reception.

after that whole fiasco, i did more online research on my own and tried really, really hard to grasp the concepts of light, aperture, iso, shutterspeed, etc...and how all of it relates to each other. can i tell you, it's HARD (and yes, it deserves capital letters).

now the one thing i was looking forward to was our weekend trip to san diego. you see, john's family in san diego is a family who loves taking pictures.  there's one cousin who is a professional photographer...shout out to aldryn...who shared his vast photography knowledge with me.  it was a great weekend filled with lots of family love and great discussions about how to take good photos manual-style =)

i am no where near where i want to be. but at least they aren't blurry anymore!  i say that's a milestone for me.  i'm dying to hear how you got better at shooting on manual mode. please share...

i just love shooting kids. it's my favorite.

he's so handsome. and smart too!

content in her grandpa's arms.

my cutie-patootie niece

this one loves walking on his tippy toes.

at 4 years old, the oldest cousin of the new generation.
he is such a good boy. love him to pieces.

the newest edition to the family. at 5 months, he's already crawling.
isn't he just a love bug?!

i obviously didn't take this photo.
but i wanted to show everyone how good
grandma looks.  she's 96 and still going strong.
she is surrounded by so much love.
happy birthday grandma!