An Alabama Fall

When I lived in Texas and then Utah, Spring and Summer had always been my favorite seasons, but here in Alabama my favorite season is definitely Fall! In Alabama the weather is perfect, it has been getting slightly cooler, and the trees have turned so many beautiful Fall colors!!

It is the best of both worlds, beautiful and colorful trees, without the freezing cold weather!

So we finally took some family pictures with miss Caroline!! <3

Wedding in Los Angeles

In July we went to Los Angeles for Scott's brother's wedding. It was so fun to take Caroline on her first trip and see family. The weather and the beach were pretty fantastic too!

First stop was berry picking

And then the wedding day, congrats Brian & Monica!!

And of course, lots of visits to the beach!!!

And we ended our trip on a perfect note at the happiest place on earth!

Caroline's Baby Blessing

FINALLY posting about this almost 4 months later... oops!

Caroline's blessing dress I made her:

Scott gave Caroline her blessing in church on July 5, 2015. I tried to record, but when it was over and I went to try and stop the video, I realized that I was starting a video instead, so that didn't work... It was such a sweet and heartwarming experience though and I am so grateful for Scott and the amazing dad that he is for Caroline.

Caroline Mae

Baby girl is here!! I'm finally posting Caroline's birth story, over four weeks after the fact! I fall more in love with her every single day and I can not imagine life without this precious girl!

Miss Caroline was definitely taking her sweet time to get here. Before she made her arrival, I was pretty impatient and tired of the "she'll come when she's ready" or "still no baby?!" comments that I was receiving. But finally, almost a week late, she decided to put me out of my pregnant misery. I never had contractions or braxton hicks my whole pregnancy, but they finally came when I was 40 weeks 5 days and late late that night my contractions were consistent enough to go to the hospital. 

Everything started out great. My contractions were getting pretty painful, but everything was going well. I tried to put off the pain medication so I could walk around but it wasn't long before I caved in. As soon as I got it I was in heaven and wondered why I even bothered with the walking...

When the pain medication started wearing off my nurse told me I could already get my epidural, even though I was only a 2 or a 3. I got my epidural and was instantly in heaven again! My doctor had to break my water twice, because it didn't fully break the first time, so that was a few hours wasted in between, but after the second time my body finally started making progress.

I think I was an 8 when I started feeling my contractions again. Someone replaced the bag for my epidural which helped for a little bit, but not very long and I could feel everything again! Then, because contractions aren't awful enough on their own, I got a fever. The fever meant I could have an infection which could be passed to the baby, so my nurse informed me they were going to have to take Caroline to the NICU as soon as she was born, which resulted in me bawling my face off for about ten minutes. 

Then the cherry on top: pushing! Pushing that baby out was the most traumatic experience of my life! Because of the whole fever thing I had to wear an oxygen mask so they made me delay the pushing process as long as possible (I'm still feeling my contractions during all of this waiting around nonsense..). When they finally let me start pushing, my new nurse informs me that pushing could take up to two hours for first time moms! But despite this little fun fact I'm (unnecessarily) optimistic because my day nurse had told me that Caroline was so low I'd be able to push her out fast... Nope. Took me about an hour and a half to get that girl out! And it didn't help that my doctor said that Caroline was getting distressed by me trying to push her out, so I could only push every other contraction (she just really didn't want to come!). The whole time I was pushing her out two thoughts kept going through my head: 1. I would give anything for a c-section right now and 2. I furiously hate anyone who chooses to give birth naturally (in hindsight I am very glad that I didn't have a c-section and I harbor no ill will towards anyone who opts for a natural birth). So 36 sleepless hours and 20 hours of labor later, Caroline was finally born! This is where I should have finally been rewarded with my magical and happy baby moment after all that hard work, but I only got to hold her for maybe 30 seconds before they whisked her off to the NICU.

Got to visit this beautiful girl in the NICU before we were moved to our new room!

Practicing her kissy faces in her sleep!

Finally has some room to sprawl out now that she's out of Mommy's tummy!

The second day after she was born, I got a spinal headache from my epidural and couldn't really get out of bed, so they finally let her come stay in our room for a little bit so I could breastfeed her. This was right after my blood patch so I was starting to feel better and I got to snuggle with her for the first time and finally have my magical baby moment :)

P.S. This picture is deceiving, but I promise I don't really have a mullet

It took forever, but we finally got to leave that awful hospital and go home!!

Nursery Freebies

I still have a long way to go before the nursery will be done, but I finally started working on some decorations! There are so many free printables on pinterest, I love it!

So here is my contribution, a free printable nursery decoration. I've seen this alphabet idea, and I think it is super cute, but of the free ones that are out there, I couldn't find one that I completely loved, so I made my own!

Click here to download.

I also get emails from Huggies, and they sent me a free collage poster from Shutterfly! However, the code was going to expire before my due date, so I couldn't make a collage of baby pictures like I wanted to. So instead I created this collage of my family for the nursery!

Yay for free things!

Waiting on Baby..

I am so excited for baby Johnson to get here, but in the meantime I have been working on some super easy baby projects! Pacifier clips and burp cloths!

The pacifier clips are definitely the easiest of the two to make. All you need is ribbon, a hot glue gun, some velcro, and suspender clips (or some type of clips). After cutting how much ribbon I wanted I hot glued each side of the ribbon down on itself to make a little finished edge.

On one side of the ribbon I hot glued the pieces of velcro on to the ribbon (to hold the pacifier).

On the other side of the ribbon I folded the ribbon over the loop of the clip and hot glued it down.

And that is it. Super easy.

The burp cloths you obviously have to sew, so they're a bit more of a time commitment. You need minky fabric for the bottom and any other type of fabric that you want for the top.

Then all you do is cut corresponding pieces of the two fabrics and place them right sides together, so that you're sewing it inside out. 

Sew around the edges leaving a little edge piece undone so that you can flip the fabrics inside out (thus making it right side out). 

Now do a top stitch and you're done!

Maternity

I was super torn about whether or not I wanted to take maternity pictures. I think they're so cute (when done right), but I also thought it wasn't really worth the money, because I don't exactly plan on doing anything with them. So when Scott and I went to the beach last weekend I decided we would just try to take some ourselves! 

The pictures are nowhere near perfect or even entirely in focus, but they turned out better than I thought they would! I know the beach is usually pretty windy, but for us the wind was extra ridiculous when we went! It immediately turned my hair into a ginormous mane. Haha I had to stand facing the same direction in every single picture or else my hair was all over my face. I also felt weird taking pictures in front of other people on the beach, (plus Scott hates taking pictures!) so I was in a hurry and not even checking how the pictures were turning out. But between Scott and my tripod we were able to get some decent pictures all things considered! Also, shout out to Scott who has never taken pictures before (besides on his phone)! I also forgot to give him a little tutorial on my camera, I just kind of gave it to him and let him have at it!

So excited for this baby to get here!

Panama City Beach

This past weekend Scott and I took a "babymoon," one last little vacation before the baby comes! We went to Panama City Beach, Florida and we both loved it! We also took Charlie along with us because our hotel was not only pet friendly, but also charged us NOTHING for bringing him! Maybe this is only news to me, but for pet lovers out there who didn't know, La Quinta's don't charge nightly pet fees! Also we didn't know for this time, but the guy at the front desk informed us that if you call ahead of time letting them know you're bringing your dog they'll try to put you on the first floor (because who wants to deal with elevators with or without a dog?!). They even had a little grassy area with doggy bags and every time we walked by the front desk the workers would give Charlie a dog treat! Anyways, enough about La Quinta...

Pretty much we spent our whole trip either hanging out at the beach or eating food. What more can you want out of life?

FOOD

Finn's Island Style Grub

-get the carne asada tacos!

David's New Orleans Style Sno Balls

-obviously we got snow cones, and we also got an order of mini beignets incase we weren't eating enough sugar already.

TO DO

Panama City has a doggie beach and although Charlie was scared of the water, he had a blast running around on the sand and meeting new friends! 

Right across the street from the dog beach is Pier Park, this cute area to walk around with shops, restaurants, carnival rides, and there's even a mall and movie theater.

Before we headed back home some of our friends told us that we had to visit Seaside, Florida while we were down there. It's just a 30 minute drive from PC Beach and it is really the most picturesque little town! For some reason I took zero pictures of this cute place, but if you've ever seen The Truman Show, this is where they filmed it! The town is filled with adorable beach homes and there is a downtown or city center area with shops, restaurants, and food trucks right across from the beach. It seemed like literally everyone in the city was out walking around or riding their bikes, it was so fun! We walked Charlie around the town, checked out the beach, and ate at a delicious pizza place before heading home to Birmingham!

Best Mascara Ever

Presenting the best mascara ever...

They're Real! Mascara by Benefit

I love this stuff, it has been such a lifesaver. I have zero eyelashes, and I've never been able to find a mascara that really helps. To be fair, I've only ever used drugstore mascaras like covergirl. I'm also way too lazy to use eyelash curlers, fake eyelashes, or any of that.

The only reason I ever even tried they're real! mascara is because I got a free mini size tube as a birthday gift from sephora, and then I was hooked! I tried to get as much as I could out of that mini tube and I ended up using it for a whole year! Which is how I justified finally buying the real thing. It's $23, which is ridiculous to me, but if it lasts as long as my mini tube did, it is so much more worth it. Most cheap drug store mascaras dry up so fast, and of course they don't work as well as this!

As you can see, zero eyelashes on the right, and then super eyelashes on the left (at least for me, they're super, I know thats not saying much.. I was not blessed in the eyelash department)! This is just from me applying mascara like normal, no extra coats or application tricks or anything. I am also not an expert makeup applicator at all so I can only imagine how much better it would look on those who know all the ins and outs of applying mascara. Especially for those lucky people who are blessed with normal to super long eyelashes, this mascara would do wonders! For me, it makes my very few stubby eyelashes normal length, which is miraculous in and of itself. 

When you first buy it, it can be a little clumpy at first, but just give it a couple of days or so and then it's the perfect texture after that. I love it! Thank you sephora for introducing me to this miracle!

Favorite Books

There are so many books that I love, which makes it hard to pick favorites, but these are all books that I can read over and over again, they're so good!

Alice in Wonderland

Love, love, love this book! It is funny, silly, and thought provoking all at the same time.

Movie adaptations of this book just never do it justice.

Ella Enchanted

This was my favorite book growing up, and it is the best retold Cinderella story! Also, if you've had the unfortunate experience of seeing this movie, first, I am sorry, and second, please do not judge the book based on what you saw. They are COMPLETELY different I promise!

The Infernal Devices Trilogy

These are amazing!! I first read the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare because those books are so popular, but then I discovered this series and they are way better! There is a love triangle in these books, which normally I hate, but this one actually made sense and added to the book instead of totally ruining it for me. 

Emma

I still haven't read all of Jane Austen's novels, but this one is my favorite so far! I love the characters and the storyline! It is also impossible for me to get sick of the movie (Gwenyth Paltrow version). And the movie Clueless, which is also amazing, is based on this book!

Harry Potter Series

I know everyone has this on their favorite's list, but anyone who doesn't is crazy. I love these books so much and every time I read them I pick up on new things! I will forever read these books.

The Selection Series

You know when you start reading a book that is so good that you literally can't stop reading it? When you stay up all night reading because you keep saying "just one more chapter.." until the whole book is finished. That's how I am with these books. I already pre-ordered the fourth book to this series seven months before it's release date, that's how excited I am. 

To Kill a Mockingbird

Was it just me or was this one of the few required readings in school that was actually enjoyable to read and not totally painful?! This book is perfect from start to finish, there is nothing else to say about it!

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

I don't know why, but I really love this book. All growing up I read books upon books, but I still remember the first time I ever read this book and out of everything else, this one has just stuck with me over the years.