Growth Photos

Top left: 11 weeks, top right: 9 weeks, bottom left: 7 weeks, bottom right: 5 weeks

You may remember all the progress pictures I shared while I was pregnant. I took a new picture every week to document my belly growth. I loved watching my pregnancy progress through photos and now that I'm not pregnant I cherish them even more! 

After Hunter was born I decided to continue taking photos every week to document Hunter's growth & I'm SO glad I continued. It's amazing how much babies grow in just a week! I've also been taking progress photos monthly and the changes month to month are huge!

Along with the pictures, I've been documenting changes and milestones Hunter has reached every week too! It's like a digital baby book (that I actually update!). I'm not sure how long I'll continue taking weekly growth pictures but I do plan on taking them monthly for a while! 

I've also been thinking about getting a Groovebook subscription to have everything printed in a photobook together. Eventually! 

How do you document growth in your own life? 

-Reagan

My First Mother's Day

I'd like to begin this post by saying happy Mother's Day to all the mamas out there, a specifically to my mom, my mother in law, my grandmas, and my sister (who is celebrating her first Mother's Day as well). I don't think I ever fully appreciated Mother's Day (or Father's Day) until this year. Being a parent is hard but it's also an incredible experience. So to all the mamas out there I just want to say you're doing a great job and you deserve this day of recognition and celebration.

 I'm writing this post ahead of time but my plans for today are to have a low key day with Anthony and Hunter. There's a pizza place in town I've been wanting to try or maybe I'll stop by my new favorite bakery. I've been given free reign to celebrate however I want :) The most important thing to me is that I spend it with my two favorite guys!

I've thought a lot lately about the kind of mother I want to be. I hope to have a lot of the qualities my mother, my mother in law, my grandmothers, and my sister have as mothers. They're creative, nurturing, warm, supportive, inspiring, and they always give it their all. I hope I can be all of those things for Hunter. I know I'm not perfect, but I'll always give it my all for him.

What are your plans this Mother's Day?

-Reagan

Ramblings on Motherhood

Well it's been over a month since I've written a blog post and a lot has happened in a month. I had my son via emergency c-section and we moved to our house. Becoming a mother has been truly amazing and honestly I'm not a gifted enough writer to truly express what it's like to become a parent. It's by far one of the most challenging roles I've assumed in my life but it's also by far the most rewarding as well. It's life changing in so many ways. More than a month has passed since Hunter was born and I'm slowly getting used to our new routine. It involves a lot less sleep, less spare time, less leaving the house, less cooking, less cleaning, less eating, and more sitting and watching tv while a baby breast feeds or naps on me. Every mama's pregnancy and post-partum experiences are different and for me its be somewhat of a natural transition. I have done my best to take things slowly and be patient with this new phase of our life, and so far I'm comfortable in my new role.

The other day my sister asked me what is my favorite part of being a mother, and I had to admit that I can't pin point one thing that I love. It's all of it. I just love being a mother. I look at him and my heart feels so full. Even in the middle of the night when he's being fussy and just won't sleep I feel lucky to have him in my life. I'm just so proud of him and so grateful to be his mama. It's really hard to describe all the feelings I get just holding him in my arms.

It is undeniable that being a mother is life changing. For me it's meant a lot less free time. My husband went back to work after two weeks of paternity leave so I take care of Hunter during the day.  It leaves little time for anything else. I typically stay in sweat pants, a shirt that's easy to breast feed in, and a nursing bra. I've worn make-up maybe three times since he was born and I've probably done my hair even fewer times than that. My whole day revolves around taking care of my son. I've read several articles that suggest that after giving birth women should make a point to get dressed/do their make-up/ do their hair ect. To me this just depends on the person, I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything not getting dressed (most of my clothes still don't fit anyway). I've made it a point to avoid reading those types of articles about what mothers should do/feel/expect post partum. As with pregnancy, everyone's experience is different so I've just been doing what comes naturally to me, and putting pressure on myself to get dressed and do my make-up is not a priority. I have been making a point to stay on top of housework as much as possible. I've always been one of those people that needs a clean home to feel relaxed so keeping up with my chores has been more therapeutic then getting dressed would be. To each their own!

Another thing I've focused on during this post partum period is decorating our home. Since we moved from an apartment to a home recently we've been taking our time and being much more intentional with how we're putting together our home, both inside and out. It's been fun for me to assemble our home slowly and in a way that feels very us. I'm enjoying this process and am actually enjoying it being a slow process despite wanting to have a finished product. The slower process is necessary for me to be able to take care of Hunter, but it also allows me (for the first time) to be much more thoughtful in my decorating process.

Aside from those two things my daily life is breast feeding, changing diapers, changing onesies, and eating/ using the bathroom/ showering/ sleeping whenever a tiny person isn't yelling at me. We're holding off on taking Hunter out and about until he's had his first round of vaccinations so I've left the house only a few times for a very short period of time. I don't mind any of this in the slightest. It's been nice not going out much since I'm a homebody, and I've gone on a few walks in our neighborhood and taken a trip to a nearby park with Hunter in tow to get fresh air when I've felt a little stir crazy (which isn't as frequently as I had expected to be).
The most difficult thing has probably been not being able to cook like I used to. We've made more frozen pizzas than I care to admit, and ordered delivery a bit more than normal too. It's not ideal but it's been helpful on nights where I haven't been able to cook a quick meal and my husband (who works in the evening) didn't feel like getting off work and then immediately cooking dinner instead of getting to spend time with Hunter. I had hoped to stock our freezer with easy and healthy meals in the last weeks of pregnancy but with us moving and me being induced earlier than I had anticipated it ended up not working out that way. It's ended up being fine but next pregnancy I'll definitely make stocking up on frozen meals more of a priority.

I've probably done enough rambling for one post, but I could go on and on about what life has been like these past couple of weeks but I'll save the rest of the details of that for another day.
I'm still not sure about how frequent I'll be posting from here on out, but I'll make the effort to check in every once in a while at the very least.

Hope you've all been well & thanks for sticking around!
-Reagan

Pregnancy Update

If you follow me on instagram you probably already saw that I'm going to be induced on Feb. 10th and will probably give birth on the 11th. That means I have very little time left before this kiddo arrives. So since I wont be pregnant much longer I figured I'd better get what will most likely be my last pregnancy update posted. So here's a little round up of what's been going on with my pregnancy the last couple of weeks.

 After failing my initial blood glucose test I had to do a three hour test. Fun times. 

8 months pregnant.

Around 8 months.

33 weeks pregnant.

around 34 weeks pregnant.

34 weeks.

35 weeks pregnant.

Ultrasound from 36 weeks. A little glimpse at Hunter's face <3

An attractive shot of me during the 36 week non stress test. Fun stuff.

Around 36 weeks,

9 months pregnant!

A little grouping of all of my ultrasounds so far. Crazy how much this kiddo has grown. 

 I mentioned above that I'm being induced on February tenth. I'm being induced due to my gestational diabetes. I've been taking medication to try to control my blood sugar better, but my body isn't responding as well as my doctor would have hoped so because of this I'm going to be induced to protect Hunter's health, I was a little shocked when discussing this with my doctor because the original due date was February 25th so I thought I'd have two more weeks, but I'm so excited to meet Hunter. I'm doing everything I can to prepare, but I'm very anxious! I'm hoping to post a few more times before giving birth, and hopefully I'll have a few posts scheduled for you all while I take a little break from the blog. I do still plan on updating on instagram so if you're interested in seeing what's going on with my little family check in there :)

-Reagan

Pregnancy Update

Hope you all had some amazing holidays. I did but of course it just flew by. I kept thinking about how this will be our last Christmas without a little one. So Crazy! It still hasn't completely sunk in yet that we're about to have a baby. You'd think with a belly the size of a bowling ball would be convincing, but it still seems surreal. Anyway, since this kiddo is all I ever think about I thought I'd do another little baby update (& since I also promised I'd do another post in December and have so far failed :P) Anyway enough rambling, here are some baby updates!

6 month bump shot. 

at around 25 weeks.

Some onesie's from my great aunt Melody.

25 week bump update.

26 week bump update.

at around 27 weeks.

28 week bump update.

29 week bump update.

some onesies, pants, & the cutest little hat from my friend Brittney.

30 week bump update.

31 week bump update.

A onesie, a bib, & the coolest pacifier from my cousin Zoey.

getting close to 8 months, seeing less and less of my legs when I look down.

I'm nearly 8 months now and hadn't done an update since the beginning of  November. Like last time all of these are images I shared already over on instagram but its different when you look at them all group together like this. It even surprised me going through these that I forgot to take a 27 week bump photo because I've really enjoyed getting them weekly. I'm ready for friday to roll around so I can take my 8 month update. I've been a lot better with getting these weekly updates and plan to continue documenting my weekly progress on instagram.

I can hardly believe I'm 8 months in already. My due date is quickly approaching but I still have so much to take care of before this little guy makes his arrival. I'm planning on doing at least one more round up here before Hunter does show up since I still have 8 weeks left till my due date. Hope you're ready to see some pictures of a huge belly ;)
-Reagan

Pregnancy Round-up

I've obviously talked a little bit here and there about my pregnancy but other than maternity outfit pictures and our gender reveal I haven't gotten detailed or shared and progress pictures here. I decided to share a few from my instagram feed to document my progress here as well :)

 This is my first sonogram at around seven weeks.

 A side by side comparison of seventeen weeks versus twenty-two weeks.

Baby Hunter's first clothes are from my parent's summer trip to Greece!

Second sonogram at around twelve weeks. Baby hunter was being uncooperative for measurements and doing headstands.

Baby hunter's baby blanket. This is the first granny stripe blanket I've ever made. I'll share more progress and completed photos soon.

Week twenty-three versus week twenty-two.

 From where I stand baby bump addition, around twenty three weeks.

My most recent sonogram at twenty weeks.

It's crazy to think I'm already halfway through my pregnancy and honestly I haven't documented weekly changes nearly as much as I had intended to, but have promised myself to do better from here on out. And although I haven't been as good as I hoped with progress shots I think it's because I've only recently been able to notice changes on a week to week basis and it has me super excited!

I just can't wait to see what this next month has in store!

-Reagan