Holland's Fourth Month in Instagrams

This post goes along with Holland's Four Month Post. 

In Holland's fourth month she:

Got to see her Great Grandma Ashby 

Got a bunch of shots and they barely phased her! {Thank goodness!!}

Got her ears pierced! 

Had her toenails painted for the first time! 

Enjoyed her first Thanksgiving 

Headed back to Idaho and was so happy to see her daddy 

Made some funny faces! 

Hung out with her cousin Madison 

Bundled up for the cold weather

Made gingerbread houses

Experienced snow for the first time. 

Met her new friend Ava! 

Dressed super cute! {Of course!}

And of course, turned four months old! 

I love my sweet four month old! And tomorrow she will be FIVE months old! I can not believe how fast she is growing! She brings so much joy to Race and I and all those around her!

Grateful

I am so grateful for the wonderful comments on Holland's birth story {Part One, Part Two}. So many comments made me tear up as I read words of love and support and congratulations. There are so many things I am grateful for right now and I just thought I should take some time to write them down.

• As mentioned above I am grateful for my wonderful blog readers, and friends and family who have taken the time to read Holland's birth story and send words of love and encouragement. Those words mean so much to me. 
• I am grateful for my sweet husband who loves Miss Holland so much and takes care of her often so I can get some sleep. I love to watch him with his daughter as he sings to her, swaddles her, rocks her, changes her diapers, gives her kisses, etc. He is the best dad ever. I think being a dad was his main calling in life. He does it so incredibly well! I am also grateful Race is willing to do things like drive to Fry's in the middle of the night to satisfy my ice cream cravings even though I'm not pregnant anymore!
• I am so grateful to my parents. I don't know how we would have survived these first couple of weeks without them. My mom has called me at 5am multiple times when she has heard Holland crying just to see if we need her to take our little one for a couple hours so we can get some sleep. I just can't say no to that offer! My dad is so cute with Holland and has definitely spent a good amount of time rocking her to sleep in the mornings when she is convinced she doesn't need to sleep. My parents are the best!
• I am grateful to have won a free photo shoot from ten22 studio with our baby girl. We couldn't really afford newborn photos so when this opportunity arrived we were so excited! And we are so grateful to Rennai for taking photos for us! {Hopefully we will have them soon to show off to everyone! Until then you can check out the wall photos on her Facebook page for a sneak peek. And you should like her page while you're at it!}
• This may be silly but I am grateful for my iPhone and Instagram as these two things are the source of many adorable pictures of Holland Sailor! 
• I am grateful my body is healing quickly and I have not been in much pain at all since having my c-section. 
• I am grateful my body is doing what it needs to in order to feed my sweet baby girl. {Pregnancy, child birth, and all things related really do show you just how incredible our bodies are!}
• And last but not least, I am incredibly grateful for my beautiful daughter. I love being a mom. I love to hold my daughter close while I feed and comfort her, I love to look at her perfect little body that I was able to be a part of creating, and I love to watch as she experiences new things every day. Having a baby really is like having a little piece of Heaven. 

I hope that everyone has had a wonderful week and I hope that your weekend is wonderful as well! We are looking forward to seeing lots of family and blessing our daughter on Sunday! It should be quite the weekend! Thank you all for your love and support! And now for some pictures of our cute baby girl! 

Race and his Holland girl! 

Adorable outfit from Aunt Jasmine!

The cutest collage anyone ever did see! {Dress also from Aunt Jasmine!}

Holland's cute feet. And we love nursing! 

Our Little Goose with her Little Goose from her Aunt Nikki! 

Thoughts on Pregnancy

I never know how to respond when people ask me how my pregnancy has been. A lot of times I feel like I am expected to rant and rave about how awful and hard it is.

After a lot of time spent thinking about it I have found my answer. I love being pregnant. This is not because it has been easy. I threw up every day {or multiple times a day} for weeks. When I wasn't throwing up I was nauseous. But I have loved so many other aspects of being pregnant.

I love watching my baby bump grow. I love feeling my sweet girl move around and explore her {very small} surroundings. I love thinking about her learning how to stretch and use her body. I love dressing my bump and taking pictures every day {even though everyone else might be bored with them}. I love listening to her heart beat with my phone app. I love to watch my belly move and take videos of it to send to my family {even if it's really only exciting to me}.

I have dealt with the aches and pains of pregnancy and Race hears plenty of moaning and groaning from me. Whether it's about how I can't reach my feet anymore or get up from the couch or how my ribs ache from having HIS daughter {she's his daughter when she's making me uncomfortable and mine when she's being fun ;)} all jammed up in there. However, I have been blessed to mostly remember the good, fun things. Race will remind me that there have been days I absolutely hated being pregnant and have cried lots and just laid around because I felt so sick. But, I have been able to forget those things {the majority of the time} and I have been able to enjoy this amazing experience despite the hard times. I am grateful that my body is capable of bringing life into this world. I am excited to give birth to my sweet baby and to finally get to meet her. I think I will miss feeling her move inside me all the time but I will love to finally be able to hold her in my arms.

So, next time someone asks me how my pregnancy has been I will respond by telling them that I absolutely love it!

And now for some fun bump pictures from my pregnancy! 

{Spanning 16-32 weeks}

Home for the Weekend!

Race and I are heading down to the valley to spend the weekend with my family. I am going to relax and enjoy my birthday doing who knows what! I don't really care what we do I'm just glad to be getting away from school and work and getting to spend some time with a bunch of my favorite people {and a bunch of adorable babies}! Race sent me this picture of what I'm guessing are some birthday presents for me...I don't even know when he has had the time to go shopping! He has been working his butt off and studying like crazy all week. I hope this weekend will be relaxing for him as well.

Anyway, I am grateful for my sweet, thoughtful husband and for a weekend to relax.

I hope you all have fun this weekend and I'll see you back here next week! 

Randomness.

Melissa of My Soul is the Sky tagged me in this fun quiz/questionnaire thing! Learn a little bit more about me, then go check out Melissa's post! And I'll tag a few people to keep this going! 

#1. What's a nickname only your family calls you?

Ems? I don't really have many nicknames...some that only Race calls me are EmFish, EmSquishy, and lots of other weird things like that. Haha. 

#2. What's a weird habit of yours?

Whenever I wake up and Race is not next to me I call him. No matter where he is and despite the fact that I'm never fully awake. The conversations always last about thirty seconds and I say weird things. Maybe I'll have Race post about some of these conversations sometime. Haha.

#3. Do you have any weird phobias?

Driving in our crazy busy small town. And driving in weird weather conditions.

#4. What's a song you secretly LOVE to blast & belt out when you're alone?

Enrique Iglesias Heroe {Spanish version!}

#5. What's one of your biggest pet peeves?

When people browse movies on Netflix or Redbox for FOREVER but never settle on anything to watch! I'm all about picking something fast, seeing if it's any good, and then changing my mind if it's not. I don't understand browsing. Haha. 

#6. What's one of your nervous habits?

 I play with my ears when I'm nervous. {And random other times as well. I always say this phrase to Race "My ears are the perfect temperature right now!" And he says it makes no sense but to me it really does.}

#7. What side of the bed do you sleep on?

If I'm standing at the end of the bed it would be the right side. Does that make sense? {For some reason whenever we're out of town Race and I switch which side of the bed we normally sleep on.}

#8. What was your first stuffed animal & it's name?

I don't remember stuffed animals but my mom made me a doll for my first Christmas and I have had that for forever. I actually never named her though..Hmm...

#9. What's the drink you ALWAYS order at starbucks?

Strawberries & Creme frapuccino! Mmmm! 

#10. What's the beauty rule you preach.. but never ACTUALLY practice?

I don't think I preach any beauty rules...You should all preach some to me though!! 

#11. Which way do you face in the shower?

I face away from the shower head most of the time. 

#12. Do you have any 'weird' body 'skills'?

I can lick my elbow. Booyah! 

#13. What's your favorite 'comfort food'/food thats 'bad' but you love to eat it anyways?

Rice Krispie treats! Or Cool Ranch Doritos!

#14. What's a phrase or exclamation you always say?

"Bum squeezes!" {Race and I have this rule where if one of us says that the other must oblige. Haha. Awkward...maybe? But we like it!}

#15. Time to sleep- what are you ACTUALLY wearing?

Plaid red PJ pants and a t-shirt.

Now I want to tag these fun ladies!

Mia of Color it Mia

Ali of Our Happily Ever After

Brooke of Silver Lining

and

Siri of Of Pumpkins Thieves and Buffalo Wings

Before you go check out this fun panel I made to help support the end of AIDS!

Head on over here to make your own panel and support the beginning of the END of AIDS! 

And head on over to Elisabeth's blog to read a little bit more about this!

P.S. Today I'm grateful for a cute husband who had hot water ready for me to make hot chocolate with the second I walked in from the freezing cold snow after class! {I know it's not November anymore but he's awesome so I'm still grateful for him!}

I am Back! {Weekend in Photos}

There is so much I need to catch up on but it will stress me out if I try to get it all out in one post. So I just wanted to say that I'm back for real now! Thanksgiving weekend was absolutely wonderful! We loved spending time with both of our families and getting lots of rest! Here are some pictures!!

Oh, Race and I got a Canon Rebel T3 on Black Friday so we've been loving taking pictures with it! Race is way better at getting good pictures than I am but I'm still having lots of fun with it!

Baby Edmond in his cute plaid shirt. 

Cute nieces playing in the "castle" at Gram and Granddad's.

Shooting guns!

My hair from this tutorial. {It looked cooler in real life}

Thanksgiving day outfit.

{Breakdown: Shirt-Delia's $14, Skirt-Forever21 $6.50, Tights-borrowed.}

Twins. {Photo Credit to my brother Enoch I believe.} 

These boys were feeling sick so they cuddled up together and fell asleep. How cute is that?! 

This is my face at one in the morning. No makeup. Exhausted. And deathly white.

My sister might kill me for this but I think she's super cute! 

My sister-in-law Anetta and I.

The whole family! Only half of us were ready for this picture!

Jack & Madison. So cute! 

Madison makes the cutest faces! 

Grandma Georgia.

Cute cousin Hattie!

Ivy and her famous glare! {She does this on command! How funny is that!}

Tuck's awesome profile. 

Cute baby Madison and her faces again. :]

{Diaper changes are lots of fun!}

Ivy and her Granny Jo!

Some of our Christmas decorations! 

{Hopefully the tree is coming soon!}

How was your holiday weekend?! Did you brave Black Friday and get anything exciting?