Welcome to your birth month Baby K

November is finally here. Some days have gone by more slowly while others have flown by. One thing is for sure, you are very, very loved little baby.

Last month, you had three awesome showers! Here are some photos from the first one, which was hosted by our Amelia Bullock family. They got your all kind of wonderful things including swaddles, crib sheets, blankets, nursing gear, a beautiful diaper bag, stuffed animals, a pack and play, your car seat, a baby monitor and so much more! Everything was decked out in turquoise and orange and one room was designed for a boy while the other one was designed for a girl! It was amazing, and we are so lucky to have them in our lives!

 

Our Shower Hostesses!

Wonderful Friends Abby and Nicole

Hostesses and Friends Barbara and Betty

Your darling Familia!

Everyone loves you Baby K!

Party Pics

Such a fun party, with over 50 people!

Showered with Love and Gifts

Glammy is holding on to all the ribbons from the shower so we can make something special for you!

Such beautiful Shower Hostesses

The second one was a surprise party hosted by our City Life family! All the decorations were handmade especially for you, and the food was delicious! There were so many wonderful things about this shower, including the creative shower games Rachel came up with. We were showered with bedtime stories, bathtime toys and so much more! ~We only have a few pictures of this fun night, but here they are!

Chelsea made this gorgeous and delicious pumpkin cake just for you!

One of the games involved everyone guessing when you were going to be born and what gender you are!

This is a gals photo! 

All of your gifts from our surprise shower!

Your daddy and I felt so very special to have such great friends!

Another photo with all the gals :)

Gorgeous placesetting

Chelsea even made us a K that's now sitting in baby's room

Everything was too perfect 

Lovely guests and our beautiful venue

All of the lovely guests 

A beautiful hand-made car seat cover

Beautiful, handpicked flowers and hand-made vases

The third shower was one hosted by our family. It was so much fun. Troy and Traci’s house was decked out with beautiful decorations and food put together by Lindsay and Becky J We had a great attendance, family and friends from near and far came to celebrate you! We were showered with Diaper bags, a stroller, clothes and all the necessities to help take care of you. This was such a fun night! We love you so much baby and hope you can see how much you’re loved too!

Our fun family and friends!

Sarah and Grant & Lexi and Sheldon

Our game hostess with the mostest, Lindsey

We all had many, many laughs!

Josh and I wore a witches hat and mask for part of the present opening!

The original Kelloggs

Mamaw and Grandaddy

So much fun opening our many gifts 

Check out the gift table and gorgeous diaper cake

Thanks for a good time everyone!

Top 5 Game Changers during Pregnancy

So far I’ve had a pretty easy going pregnancy. I was able to escape the first trimester completely untouched by morning sickness, which apparently means I’m having a boy according to many old wives’ tales. However, my cousin Natalie, who recently had a boy, did have morning sickness for four months, and another co-worker told me she never had any morning sickness with either of her two girls. So honestly, I’ve learned to disregard these common beliefs and just go with the flow. I think that’s part of the beauty of not knowing our baby’s gender though sometimes it’s very tempting to give in to those notions.

Anyways, now that I’m 3 to 4 weeks away from being in the third trimester, I thought I’d share my Top 5 Pregnancy Game Changers … so far (believe me I know I’m still in for quite a few more surprises).

In no particular order, here they are:

     1.       Movies or long programs – I can no longer sit entirely through a movie without having to get up and go to the restroom at least once. I used to be the queen of “holding it,” but alas pregnancy has defeated me, and when I’ve got to go…well, I’ve got to go. It’s kind of annoying, but I’ve learned to know where the bathrooms are before I get settled in so at least I can make it in and out as quickly as possible.

2.       Working Out – Wow, I did not expect this one, but working out is so much tougher than it used to be. I didn’t used to work out every day, but still I considered myself in pretty good shape pre-pregnancy. Now, however when I exercise 1.) I’m winded much quicker 2.) It takes more effort to do less work…ugh. Luckily, it doesn’t stop me. I try to do prenatal yoga once or twice a week, go on longer walks and do a few other pregnancy-type work outs.

3.       Eating – This one is a long one. First, when I get up in the morning, I find myself immediately hungry. I can no longer skip breakfast (yes, I know it’s the most important meal of the day) or I feel really weak and just not good. Second, I haven’t had strong food cravings but I have had strong feelings of what I don’t want at that time, weird. Third, I eat more frequently and am therefore more conscious of what types of food I’m putting in my body…though I can’t help but to occasionally give into sweets ( I had quite the pre-pregnancy sweet tooth anyways). Finally, I can’t help but want the things I can no longer have like deli meat…sometimes I just want to go to Jersey Mikes and get a club sub for lunch…but I can’t, or sometimes I just want to have dinner consist of wine and soft cheese (blue, brie, etc) or a blue cheese wedge…c’mon is it too much to ask?!

4.       Using public restrooms – As if anyone is a fan of using public restrooms, pregnancy makes it that much worse. 1.) They are too small. 2.) Put a freaking purse hook or clip on the door or somewhere so I don’t have to try and pee trying to balance myself, a baby and a purse on my body. 3.) Yuck, please keep your restrooms clean…I don’t want to have to walk through every single stall and inspect for a clean enough restroom to hover over.

5.       Sleeping – Luckily, I haven’t had much trouble sleeping … yet. I’m not so big that it’s become uncomfortable, but one thing I will say about missing out on the morning sickness is I made up for it in sheer exhaustion! I was so tired all of the time, I’ve just now gotten to the point where I can survive the day without an afternoon nap (the second wind, they call it)…but I’ve heard it won’t be long until that returns…with a vengeance. We shall see.

Those are my “Top 5,” I’ll keep you posted as I experience more. Meanwhile, check out my Instagram Widget to see some progress on the nursery…that’ll be my next post. Talk to you soon!

We're having a BABY!

Our lives will be turned upside down come November 27th because … we’re expecting our first child. We couldn't be more excited about our new venture into parenting. We've been busy little bees trying to make sure we have our house in order as well as ourselves. You can expect a lot more blogging from me.

I’m a little over 22 weeks along and we already have a pretty active baby. I’ve been feeling it move since week 14 – it’s such an amazing experience! We’re going to keep the gender a surprise until the baby is born, but as you know I’m not one for neutral! We've already pretty much got our nursery together it’s a mixture of grey, turquoise, orange and whites. I will make sure to post pictures of the transformation soon!

We just had a doctor’s appointment last week where we were able to see the baby, and we actually caught a picture of it smiling -- pretty amazing RIGHT?!

The doctor says the baby is already measuring big, judging by the size of its bones and weight … I’m kind of hoping for an early baby, maybe a week ahead or so. The 27^th is the day before Thanksgiving and if it’s born on Thanksgiving my husband says it’ll have to be before 3 p.m. so he can still watch the Cowboys play ... but we’ll see. I honestly just want this baby to come before December because we already have a TON of birthdays in December in my family :), but none in November. Anyways, you guys can expect to be hearing from me more often...feel free to check out the new blog, dedicated from our growing family to yours! Also, leave me your best/favorite mommy advice ...I'll need all the help I can get!

Car Week … blah

My car received a failing grade!

There comes a time in every car’s life when their inspection runs out and it’s time to get a new one. Well guess what, I took my car in for an inspection and it FAILED! I couldn’t believe it…my less than 10-year-old car was revoked.

Old tires were the culprit, but it ended up taking us the first half of the week to get everything straight. Since car shops aren’t open very late, I would drive to the shop during my lunch hour and my husband would pick me up.  Then, we’d have to go pick my car up after work. It was a grueling and expensive week (needless to say)…

Monday: Inspection and oil change, inspection failed

Tuesday: New Tires ($$)

Wednesday: Re inspect, pass

Check out my shiny new tires, she now rides like a charm

Then, it was my husband’s turn. He is leasing a car and it’s almost time to renew or make another decision. Well, on Thursday after work, we went to the dealership and it took us all night just to get to the answer, we  couldn’t afford the car he wanted…so we decided to stick with his current car, which also needed inspecting.

Thursday: Car Dealership

Friday: Inspection Failed!

That’s right, his less than 5-year-old car’s inspection also failed…Now, he needs a new battery and two new tires, and before he can re-inspect it has to be driven 60 miles with the new battery. GGRREEAATT…

That was our week last week, boo! Hope you have a better story to share…please cheer me up below!

It's time to play Family Feud!

If you know me then you know I LOVE games. We love hosting game nights, and when we have the family over it usually results in a game or two.

One day last month my husband and I were watching Family Feud…and we see this billboard flash on our screen that says tryouts will be held in Austin. I immediately turned to him and exclaimed, what do you think?!

I grabbed my phone typed in the address and low and behold you actually have to sign up in advance to reserve your space for the tryouts. So, I signed us up and WE MADE IT!



Zac, Traci, Me and Josh at the tryouts.

I was super excited, but I never expected what we saw when we walked in to the tryouts area – a million people!

My heart sank for a brief moment when I saw that 500-600 people were also able to reserve our timeslot. The tryouts were twice per day for two days…if as many people were signed up for the other timeslots then we were competing against 2,000 to 2,400 families! YIKES!

Anyways, I got over it. Then, we took a clipboard signed in and filled out a little bit of information about our lovely family. After all the paperwork was done we were told the tryout would be held in our very room, in front of all the other families trying out! Yikes, again!

After some of the first families got through the mock playing we critiqued and methodically planned how we were going to do better.

Traci and Me trying to get the most out of our Tips and Pointers sheet.

On the “Tips and Pointers” sheet we received it clearly stated: WE DON’T CARE IF YOU WIN THE GAME – we are looking at how fun you will be on TV. And THAT was our plan, but we also wanted to win so we started answering the questions in our own group to see what it’d be like.  

Time flew by and pretty soon our butterflies were gone. We had what you’d call the “dream team” there: Traci (our aunt), Alex (our cousin), Zac (our brother), Josh and me. After a little coaxing, Traci agreed to be our fearless leader, and she was terrific.

By the time it was our turn, the room was about halfway cleared out. We went up to the table in sort of a dancing fashion and bounced around even hummed the Family Feud song a bit.

Alex, Zac and Josh in the back of the tryouts room.

Then, IT WAS GAMETIME! During the gameplay it was hard to focus on what good answers would be….but we tried. We had some Great Answers and a great first question:

Name something do in the nude at their house.

The funniest was when Traci said “make love” and Alex responded…"that’s my mom!” In reality that was going to be his answer so he exclaimed that to try and think of another and the whole room burst into laughter…a move that earned him a star!

All in all, the most important things we did was be supportive by saying “good answer” gave high fives and celebrated everything! We had a GREAT huddle also.

I know all of this because when our turn was up, we were given back our application and a business card back and told, “Give this to the front desk and they’ll tell you what to do.”

Zac, Alex, Me and Josh waiting to see the EP!

So, of course we did. The person at the front mumbled to me, “Pretend you forgot to fill out something on this application, we just have to wait for a few families to clear out.”

Done! I was SO EXCITED I knew it meant we were moving on…everyone else looked at me like what did you forget to fill out??…then I told them she said PRETEND! And the joy was multiplied. We were moved upstairs where we got to meet the EXECUTIVE PRODUCER and TOP CAMERAMAN.

This is when we really turned up the charm. It was our shining moment. Traci sang to the camera….”family feud we are coming to play youuu.” Alex was hysterical. Zac was great. I told them how much we loved our family and how we love game nights…I also mentioned Josh and I were newlyweds, and during his turn he told them he had his private pilot’s license. I think we offered enough energy and diversity to be picked!

BUT… we won’t know for another 2 weeks! They filmed the tryouts and the interview…they take it back to California and decide from there if we are going on the real show!

Team Kellogg!

If we are selected, they fly us roundtrip from Austin to Atlanta and they pay for our hotel…oh yeah, and the best part: WE GET TO PLAY FAMILY FEUD! We could win $100,000 and a new car! For now, we’ll keep praying we got picked and I’ll keep you posted until then~

And yes I know…I’m not even going to acknowledge how long it’s been since I’ve written…let’s just move on J.

Bouquets of Fun

Some of our creations bunched together. 

When my grandmother was in from Mexico and my aunt from Arkansas, one night we all got together for a girls night. In this girls night we were supposed to be doing lashes and girly things. Well, we did get around to those girly things, but something else remarkable happened.

Earlier that day, I had gone to lunch with my mom, aunt and grandmother, who we call "Mother." My mom brought up an idea I had mentioned a while back about getting a bouquet made out of broaches and/or fabric. Well of course, being the creative family we all are, we decided we could take it on as a project and build it ourselves. So, we decided to take advantage of our girls night and star making my wedding bouquet. 

My mom and I followed their advice on what types of fabric to buy, and we found alot of different textures and color...yes, I said color. We even have a splash of the wedding-taboo color black in the bouquet. 

My grandmother is practically a genius when it comes to making flowers and crafty things like that. My aunt Debbie also remembered my grandfather Lio's mom used to make "handmade lace" or "crochets." She was able to find some of it stored away, and we made bouquet flowers out of it too. It was a whole mess of fun, and while I don't have a finished product yet, I have all the flowers thanks to all the ladies of my family. 

We all sat down and created our own masterpiece. It was certainly a memory I will never forget. 

When it comes time to marry Josh, not only will I be assured I have my family's blessing and support, but also a piece of them will be up there at the altar with me. And when I get the bouquet preserved, I know I will forever have that to cherish. 

Here are some photos of the unfinished product, i'll post finished photos later:

Two of aunts, mom and mother all hard at work.

Cousin Gregory and Aunt Yvonne.

The beginnings of one of Mother's beautiful flowers.

How fun does this look!

Hard work, determination and lots of laughter

More flower making :)

Many jokes and fun stories filled our night.

My mom showing off her handmade beauty.

My Aunt Yvonne's beautiful lacy flower.

Perfect little flowers and the mess behind it.

Mi Familia