Maternity photo shoot

I wasn't up for taking traditional maternity pics this time around...I guess I had kind of a "been there/done that" mentality about it. But my amazing friend, Liz, came to the rescue!! She is such a great photographer and it's been fun watching her grow to find her own personal style through the years.
She found this graffiti wall in downtown Chandler and was dying to try it out! I am so unbelievably happy with how the pics turned out.
Here are a few of the shots I love:

The last couple of months in pics!!

Ok, I have been SLAAAACKING on this blog thang....we have been to Texas, San Francisco and we just celebrated my 3rd Mother's Day!! I honestly cannot believe I am about to be a Mommy to another little precious dude in just 2 1/2 months. My life will change in so many ways. Good ways though! Here are just a few of my fave pics!
Enjoy!

Kaleb and his cousin HANK!

Love me some Hank!

Kaleb and I with his Great Grandpa!!

Daddy come with me to the water!

K and I at sunset

M Day at Ocotillo Country Club

She's crafty

I am so excited to say that I sold my first tie T-shirt!! I have been making them for awhile for Kaleb and some of my friend's little boys but this is my first actual sale!
Yippee!

I feel so.....CRAFTY!

It feels good to enjoy doing something AND to get paid for it!
Hmmm, a new business perhaps? Maybe. Maybe not.
I think I will have to become a lot more familiar with my sewing machine and expand the clothing line a bit before a business even becomes a consideration.

After all, not everyone can wear tie T-shirts.

Well, not everyone can wear tie T-shirts and look this cute anyway ;-)

Weekend Funny

Kaleb: "Momma, I need medicine."

Me: "Oh, no. What's wrong? Why do you need medicine?"

Kaleb: (with one hand on his forehead, the other on his chest and the most pouty lips known to man)

"I need medicine cuz I huwt my feewings."


Where do they get this stuff?? :-)

L-O-S-T

I have lifted up every cushion, every toy, every bed skirt, looked in every drawer, every cabinet and every corner.....
Alf sorted through the trash, checked all the diapers in the diaper pail (yikes) and well, it's just gone.
I realized today that I don't even have a photo of it. It's now just a memory of a commitment I made almost 7 1/2 years ago.

Goodbye wedding ring. Maybe someday we will meet again...
But for now, I will file a claim for you and buy something else sparkly and new.
Don't worry though, you'll always be my first.

What's in a Name?

When I found out I was pregnant, I didn't even consider picking out a boy name. Stupid, right? I was so set on having a little Sophia, there was no reason I needed to have a boy name waiting in the wings. There was ONLY a 50% chance of having another boy anyway. ;-)

Well, one penis and a pair of testicles later...here we are!!

Alf and I knew immediately we wanted another K name. Why?
Because we are cheesy like that.
After all, Alf and I are AG squared so we wanted the boys to be KG squared!

We looked on website after website, thumbed through baby name books and finally stumbled on a name that we both immediately loved. Not only because it's not a name you hear everyday but also because of it's meaning.

So here it is.....we are excited to meet baby

KIERAN!!

He will be our little ray of light...

Saying good-bye to Sophia

This week has been...quite a week. An emotional see-saw of sorts.
We found out on Tuesday that we are having another boy. While this news brings great excitement to our family, it also brought me an unexpected amount of tears.

Like 4 days of tears.

Not because I don't want a boy, of course, but because I now know that I won't ever have a girl. We are done having children after this baby boy is born.
Even though I kind of always knew in my heart of hearts that I would have two boys, I still held out hope for a little Sophia. A little baby girl to call my own.
My friend Ashley said it so perfectly...you can separate the love you have for the life growing inside you and the grief you feel for the girl you won't ever know.

As soon as I got up from the table after the sonogram, I went in the bathroom and cried. And trying to pee in a cup while you are crying your eyes out is not easy, ladies! I knew I would be sad, but I didn't really know how sad I would be. It just felt so final...so matter-of-fact. Probably because it is.

I pulled myself together to go back into the waiting room to meet up with my boys. Alf kissed me and asked if I was ok. I lied and told him I was fine.
Later that night I broke down again. I knew at that point that this would be a much bigger struggle for me than I had anticipated. And here we are 4 days later and the tears still come easy.

I know I need to let myself feel the way I feel and not feel guilty about it, but I do. There are so many people that would love to have one healthy child, much less two, no matter what the sex. But my reality is different than anyone else's and I know that these feelings will eventually pass. It will just take time.

For now I will allow myself to grieve...
I will let go of the hope of sharing a mother-daughter relationship, I will give away the two dresses that I kept in the new baby's closet (just in case), I will stop looking at mixed-Asian girls and wondering if that is what Sophia would look like, I will tell her good-bye and tuck her away in my dreams. For good.

For the record, I think she would've gotten Alf's dark skin and silky, black hair and she would've been a knockout! ;-)