Stranger danger has not yet set in

At least not when Holden has a full tummy and is kinda sleepy. Or possibly as long as he has some hair to tug on. Because our first meeting with Santa went extremely well!

We went to the Santa at Shops of Legacy out of pure convenience since we had a birthday brunch for Craig at Jasper's on Sunday morning with his mom, and this particular Santa was about a three minute walk away. And yes, we're those people who shelled out $50 for a sheet of photos and a digital copy of the image, but it was SO EASY. Minimal wait, happy helpers, and a generally pleasant experience. Yay!!

Holden was just so cute with him - he sat there and gazed at his face, then nuzzled in like he wanted to take a nap in all that fluff. You'll notice Santa kinda has Holden's right arm tucked down - yup, there was some serious thumb sucking going on (sleepy baby!), and we needed to try and get a smile. So out of frame is mom playing peekaboo (currently the hottest game in town) to encourage grins, and it actually worked.

Oh, and rest assured that beard is legit - Holden gave it a mighty tug for us.

Happy holidays, little bug - can wait to create all of these memories and start new traditions with you. This whole holiday season business has me feeling pretty mushy this year.

Do you know how excited I am about this?!?

Baby's first Christmas!! It's going to be the utmost of adorableness, even though Holden will probably just be really confused. And while I'm late to the game on getting personalized Etsy awesomeness I was planning on for Christmas gifts ("no longer accepting holiday orders"...oops, I should have started these projects before Thanksgiving), I was totally on the ball with ordering Holden a really cute first Christmas ornament. Now it just needs the perfect spot on the tree.

So, I disappeared...

...into a world of busy season and baby and LIFE and heeeere I am, alive and well!! And in the spirit of playing catch up, I'm going to try to blog every day in December. Just putting that out there while I'm feeling a small burst of optimism and motivation. So it may not actually happen, but I'm going to try. Some days it may just be a picture of Holden, which is probably all you really want anyway.

And in the interest of not trying too hard right off the bat and hurting myself, we're going to start on a light note with some silly faces. I like to call this Holden's "little old man lips" look; he's been sporting it quite a bit these days, probably as a side effect of figuring out these two teeth he has. He's entirely too much fun and giggly and happy, so I try to soak up as much of it as I possibly can. Rock on, little old man lips - I love you.

How?

How have the last twelve weeks just flown by? In the beginning, it didn't feel like time was flying - it felt like I was stuck in an endless eternity of sleep-deprived madness. But then we kinda got the hang of things and starting having FUN together...and now my sweet boy is hanging out in daycare and I go back to work tomorrow. During busy season. Which is its own kind of endless eternity.

I wish I'd written more. I have a million phone pictures, and I've jotted half blog posts here and there, and there's a rambling Word doc that kinda captures things...but I know there are little moments that have already passed that I may not hold on to.

I miss spending time with him already.

Hey baby!

One month ago, this tiny little person came into our lives and changed things forever.  Infinitely for the better.  Those first few weeks were anything but easy, but worth every minute when I remind myself what an important job this is - raising, caring, loving this little man.  Welcome to the world, Holden Michael Pendarvis.  Born May 29, 2014 - 7 pounds, 1 ounce, and 21 inches of perfect.

And I'm really not sure how we went from that little guy up there to this one down here who is already ONE MONTH OLD!  It's a bit of a blurry haze, really.

I'll try to capture some parenthood adventures here on the blog...but my boss is a little demanding these days and I tend to run a little short on time.  Priorities!

Due dates...just a suggestion

Due date, schmue date.  Come and gone and no baby in sight.  Well, I guess he's technically in sight since I'm sporting this bowling ball midsection thing, but...you know.  Does it look like he's worked his way downward at all?  Everyone keeps asking if he's dropped...well, I don't know, maybe...so then maybe not because should it be really REALLY obvious?  I haven't exactly done this pregnancy thing before.

So what do you do with a pregnant lady who's hit her due date and hasn't had a baby yet?  You take her out to dinner, preferably somewhere with awesome pregnant lady food like biscuits and fried chicken.

I love you, Babe's.  Although it's a little sad that I have limited tummy room these days.

We do have an induction end date in sight, which is both reassuring to KNOW Holden will be here within the next week and also a little weird to KNOW something like that.  Still hoping he decides to make his appearance on his own; I keep telling him it's ok to come out, but he seems pretty content to keep baking in there.  Stubborn kid.

Might as well get as ready for everything as I can!  The tax department is shifting to a new space in our building over the summer...so on Thursday I went ahead and packed up all of my stuff, which definitely felt a little strange.

And I was feeling mushy anyway since the sweet work gals got me flowers and a card AND cupcakes and took me to lunch at Uncle Julio's - talk about some of my favorite things.

So sweet!  I managed to not cry, which is a big accomplishment for the pregnant lady.

It's strange to think about having a completely different routine in the next week.  I mean, we know change is coming and we've done a million things to "get ready" for this ridiculously large life event, but I just don't think it's going to hit me until it really, really HITS me, like with an actual baby actually here.  It feels very real right now...but still just a waiting game.  Yeeps!!

Let's see if anything happens at 40 weeks and 1 day...last child-free weekend EVER.  Weird.

Operation Nursery...complete!

It's definitely been a work in progress, but now we finally have what is probably the only "complete" room in our home.  Holden, I hope you like it!

He really does have an army of puppies in there!  Quilt by my wonderful mommy, crib skirt by me, puppy prints from Etsy, crib from Pottery Barn Kids, crazy wall camera to watch him sleep installed by Craig.

All ready for changing!  Dresser and mirror are from Ikea, and random assorted things are from random assorted places.

The giant alphabet wall!  Alphabet decals are from Etsy, chair from Buy Buy Baby, storage ottoman from Target.  Learn your letters, Holden.

The tiny clothes await!  Itty-bitty plaid shorts, I die at the cuteness.

Lots and lots and lots of tiny clothes...and diapers and toys and books.  Thank goodness for plenty of storage space.

Cute things on shelves, yeah yeah!

Alllllll ready for lots and lots of reading, courtesy of wonderful friends building his library at the baby shower.  Yes, we probably need an actual bookcase or something, but for now a basket on the floor works for me.

All ready for you, Holden!  Curtains by me

See, we at least appear to be ready for a baby...

I love the "little man" banners from the baby shower, so they're on the wall now!

Here's your cozy place, Holden.

The puppies are waiting!

Mustaches and bowties

A month ago (a whole month ago!) my dear, wonderful, amazing friends threw an adorable "mustaches and bowties" baby shower to celebrate Baby Holden, yay!!  In the midst of the tax crazy, it was so nice to just take 48 hours away from my desk (ok, really more like 44.5 hours...a whirlwind from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon when I was back at my desk around 4:00, blech) and spend some quality time with family and friends getting ready for the little guy's arrival.

I'm such a lucky gal to have such wonderful friends - love you girls!!  A few pictures from the festivities...

Me and the mommies...well, the grandmommies-to-be!

little man onesies

My cravings!  Clementines and...sugary little kid cereals. :) Transformed by Kami into delicious Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal bar treats.  SO GOOD.

The wonderful hostesses and party-throwers extraordinaire

Everything's more delicious through a mustache straw!

Piles and piles o' wonderful presents and the great start to Holden's library

My wonderful mom made Holden the most adorable rocking horse quilt - I love it!!

The name game

After much debate and flipping through baby name books (the Craig method) and keeping of spreadsheets (obviously the Erin method), we finally decided on a name for our kid...

Holden Michael Pendarvis

There's his sweet little face from FOUR MONTHS AGO (dang, how did that happen?!?) when we first found out we're having a little boy.  He's certainly changed quite a bit in the last four months - I mean, he's gone from the size of a banana to a head of romaine lettuce.  Approximately.  Since it's kinda hard to see what's going on in there.

And actually, we decided all of this awhile ago...but I thought an official blog announcement was in order!

Can't wait to meet you, Holden!  Actually, I can wait a little while longer - keep on baking in there, ok? Watch, after all of this careful deliberation we'll totally change our minds when we meet him.*

* Ummm...probably won't change our minds, actually. That goes against my planning nature.

Here we grow!

Given my affinity for the camera, you'd think I'd be that person documenting every single day of this pregnancy posed in a similar shot so I could compile an epic "watch me grow a human!" photo montage.  Well...not happening.  But maybe I can at least capture one poorly lit shot a week with my phone from here on out.  It's something!

In case you were wondering location...elevator at work, headed home after a looooong day. I think this lighting is even worse than the bathroom shots...

He's really growing in there!  And dancing or kickboxing (or, just, you know, stretching around) on a rather frequent basis.  Here's the latest and greatest in baby land:

• Starting to get a liiiiittle uncomfortable hauling this little guy around.  He's just taking up more space these days...ummm, and he's only going to take up more.  What, still eight-ish weeks to go?
• Still waking up randomly in the early morning hours - but at least I can go back to sleep and get a fake full night's sleep.  Last week I think I actually slept through the night twice!
• I miss...turkey sandwiches.  Cold ones.  Darn you, listerosis.  And I miss wine, too.  But I'm really, really enjoying my almost-every-night bowl of cereal.  Reminds me of my college days...
• I was almost ready to say I'd been doing pretty good on not randomly crying lately...but Craig picked up the new comfy chair for the nursery and got it all set up and I promptly sat in the chair and rocked and cried.  Hello, hormones.
• I've decided pretty much anything goes with my work wardrobe for the next couple months - comfort is the name of the game here.  Don't be surprised if flop flops show up for the month of May.
• Worrying a little bit less about pregnancy things since modern medicine and the time he's been cooking in there mean he'd probably be ok if he showed up early...but then worrying more about the actual giving birth to a human part AND the whole "raise a kid" thing that follows that.  Minor details.

Yeeps, a little less than two months to go!!  Give or take, since it's bothering the accountant in me that I don't know when he'll actually be here, which I assume is God's polite way of preparing me to let go of my need to plan all things.

Oh HELLO third trimester, where did you come from?!?

Hello at 28 weeks, baby!  Which was about two weeks ago...details, schmetails...

The beginning of this baby adventure was all anticipation and wondering and waiting...and now the days and weeks are just flying by and I feel like our little guy will be here before I know it.  How does that happen??  At any rate, here's what's up with us these days:

• Physically feeling pretty good, other than the fact that I keep waking up in the middle of the night - I think he likes to throw raging dance parties around 3 AM, which I'm sure is fun and all, but not for mom.
• Baby had the HICCUPS last night, which was both adorable and completely freaky.  It's been so incredible to feel his movements go from the tiniest little flutters to full on "yeah, I'm in here!" motions all the time.  And have you ever seen your midsection just MOVE because something INSIDE YOUR BODY IS MOVING?  O. M. G.
• I'm not exactly craving ice cream, but Craig keeps buying it for me, so I keep eating it.  I'm not too sad about the way this is working out.  Thanks, honey!
• Actual cravings?  I went through a clementine phase, which was great since I was feeding myself and baby healthy things, but now I've moved on to carbs carbs comforting carbs.  I'm not going too crazy with the food, though, and weight gain is right on track. Phew.
• Doctor appointments have gone from being every month to every two weeks...which just drives home the point that we're in the home stretch, making this both incredibly exciting and mildly terrifying.
• Right after we found out "it" is a "he," I may have gone on a bit of a clothes-buying bender. Which means Craig has banned me from buying any more baby clothes.* Yes, I know people love to buy tiny cute things for the baby, so I really don't need to...but I love buying tiny cute things, too!
• Did you know I'm a worrier?  Who, me??  Yeah, so basically I'm worried about everything ever.  Although I took my glucose screening test a week and a half ago and haven't heard anything back on the "no news is good news" kind of test results, so I'm actually NOT worried about potentially having gestational diabetes.  Woot woot!
• At this point I've worked my way through an entire little tub of Burt's Bees Mama Bee Belly Butter, mostly because I had this month or so in trimester #2 where my skin (we're talking arms, legs, WHOLE BODY) was crazy itchy.  I think that one was a combo of winter skin in general + pregnancy heightening sensitivity to basically all things that could cause problems.
• I've switched to flats for the remainder of this "carry a growing baby around" business - a little bit of pain/swelling going on in the leg/ankle area.  Highly recommend these Gap maternity pants for work - I actually bought two and hemmed one for heels and one for flats. I haven't worn pants that actually buttoned since early January...this could be hard to go back to...
• I'M HAVING A BABY, AND CRAIG AND I ARE GOING TO BE ACTUAL PARENTS OF A HUMAN BEING.  That's all.

*Theoretically. What he doesn't know won't hurt him on the baby clothes front...how do you resist this??

Expecting the arrival...

...of some teeny feet to fill these shoes!  Baby Pendarvis is on his or her way (and yes, we're finding out boy or girl- dying to know!!), ready for a May 2014 arrival.  Eeeeekkkk!!  And if you're actually reading this, you probably already knew the news. =) But here are some tiny baby shoes to really drive the point home.

We couldn't be more excited.  And a little freaked out.  But mostly...excited, blessed, and ready to embark on this great parenthood adventure.  Can't wait to meet you, Baby Pendarvis - I think you're really going to rock our world.

Mommers

Happy birthday eve, Mom! Apparently I'm all about celebrating the eves this month...it works.  Anyway, you rock, Mom, and you totally deserve a blog shout-out.  Happy almost birthday, and keep on being awesome.  Especially at earring putting-on.

This is how I know

This is how I know that Craig loves me.

He wore a Red Raider shirt completely of his own accord last week when we went to Vaughns to watch the incredibly frustrating Tech-Oklahoma State game.  I didn't ask him to, he just did it.  That's love.  For us, anyway.  Fortunately, Diana captured the moment for posterity.  And yes, we're bringing obscene amounts of food into that home; that's just the way we roll.  Or the way I roll.  As Craig likes to remind me, I tend to overdo it a bit when it comes to the food front.  Although he's the guy who prepares two pounds of meat per person, therefore enabling the handing out of meat bags at the end of the night.  We're both food overdoers.

For a reality check, I think this whole Red Raider fan situation went really well for me because Washington had a bye last week...

Happy anniversary eve!

Holy jeez, where have the last two years gone??  And yes, it's only anniversary EVE, not actual anniversary, but I needed something to write about tonight and was feeling a little mushy.  To celebrate two whooooole years of marriage, we took off to Seattle for a few days to celebrate (which I'll tell you all about in this month o' blogging), a little before our actual anniversary to make time for important things like University of Washington football games.  Last year at this time we were having red rocks adventures and relaxing in Sedona, celebrating one whooooole year of marriage...

...and then two years ago I'm certain I was having trouble trying to wind down and go to sleep because I was just a little excited about the whole "I'm getting married tomorrow!!" thing.  But it was all worth it for this.

Happy almost anniversary, husband!  And just when Craig is FINALLY HOME from the Great Houston Adventure, he's out of town again this week for work training in Orlando.  But I have some really wonderful friends who are going to celebrate birthaversary with me tomorrow (birthday dinner on the anniversary, of course), so I think I'll be ok.  Two down and many, many more to go.

How did I never tell you about Spain?

I never told you about Spain.  And it's not that I just didn't tell you about Spain, it's that I didn't write down and capture all my wonderful Spain memories so I could go back and read them a thousand times over, because I'm pretty certain that I read this blog far more often than anyone else.  Public diary/journal/notebook of sorts, you know?

So I might throw in some bits and pieces of Spain here and there as I flip through pictures and remember the moments.  Which is why I took 3,067 pictures (yup, that's me) over the course of twelve days or so - because I've found that sometimes it's helpful to click and snap away to capture little moments to trigger bigger memories.  Even if I'm now going to throw those written-down memories into the 2013 section of the blog when it happened in 2010 (holy...whaaaaat now?!? that's why I'm so much skinnier in these pictures...I like to call the additions my love pounds).  But it's also reminded me to pick up that camera more and just capture the days.

Excited to try and fall asleep faces...

...to really excited to be walking the streets of Barcelona faces.  Kinda awesome what a plane ride can do.

I carry your heart with me, I carry it in my heart

Have been kinda absent from the blog, basically because I went and got married to that Craig guy.  And it was pretty much the most amazing and wonderful day ever.  Not to be cliché...but it was.  And I wish I could relive that day over and over, buy my face would probably break from smiling, so it's probably a good thing that we can't make one day repeat itself over and over.

Enjoy the preview video, and pictures to come!  Also, if you were there, please send me your pictures - I'm dying to see them!!  It took every ounce of my being to not bring a camera to my own wedding...

* e.e. cummings, if you're curious, for the post title

Getting married is extra fun when you have awesome friends who throw you fun parties

Also, longest blog post title EVER, but I really couldn't scale that one down.  It had to cover all the bases.

There's something to be said for running off to a beach and just getting married and not doing all the "stuff" that comes along with a wedding, but...I'm really enjoying this time with friends, celebrating and anticipating the biggest party we'll ever throw...I mean, when else do you hire a DJ?? wedding day festivities.  It's fun!!  Fun now that we have a lot of things planned and I'm not worrying about where to have this shindig - now I'm getting to do cool things like learn what craspedia are and how freaking cute they're going to be come November 5th.  Provided that florist proposal works with the budget.  Hmmmm...

Anyway, back to the partying!  Last weekend the Broussards and Petersons threw us a lovely bash - with a "sweet beginnings" them and desserts as far as the eye could see!  Do they know me or what?  I'm so, so glad that so many of our friends could come out for the afternoon and celebrate.  Enjoy some photo love. 

We believe in party guests of every age...especially when they're as adorable as babies Taylor and Rhett.  Could it be baby love??



Amazing cupcakes!!  There was this Almond Joy creation...oh my, we might need those again for the wedding.  Also, Jenny, that is a lovely tablecloth! =)



Rich, rich chocolate truffles (oh yum!) get a big thumbs-up from Diana

There were plenty of friends with smiling faces...



...and new friends with faces that weren't so smiling from time to time, but you know he still loved hanging out at the party with his sweet mom and dad.

Yes, there's also something to be said for that beach, but there's also something to be said for this - good times with great friends.  And there will be many, many more to come.

Check out my shots from the day's festivites here, and I'm going to track down some winners from Jenny's camera, too.  We're a fun bunch.

Welcome to the world, Grace Elizabeth!

The last few days, I've had a lot on my mind.  And even though I'm sure she didn't know it, a sweet little girl showed up just when I really needed her.  Thank goodness this child worked things out so that I'd have just enough time to swing by the hospital on my way to the airport for a flight back to DC on Sunday afternoon.  She pleased her aunt so much with this fortuitous arrival that of course I showered her with gifts immediately upon my arrival.  This bodes well for you, Gracie girl, it really does.

Grace Elizabeth Vaughn (formerly known as Peanut!  we know she's a she now!) made her way into the world on October 3 at 8:51 AM, all 8 lbs, 14 oz, and 21.25 inches of her.  I don't understand why they don't have a line on all of her identifying information to include the word "perfect."  Get with the program, every medical center everywhere in the world.

Congratulations on the new arrival, Diana and Trinity!


Sweet Grace taking a rest on her mommy



Just look at that face - the cuteness is too much

 

All the Vaughns!



I happen to think they already make a pretty awesome family



Grace, you are simply too cute for words

SO GLAD I got to meet you on your birthday, Grace!

No excessive pictures for this one (?!?), but here's the Picasa link to check out my short glimpse into the early hours of Gracie's life.

Welcome to the world, Grace Elizabeth!  We're awfully glad you're here.