It's been too long!

I know I said that I would update and post pictures about our vacation, but time just got away from me.  We were busy the whole time we were in Myrtle Beach so the saying "I'm going to need a vacation after my vacation" is totally true in my case...lol.  I hit a wall with my pregnancy fatigue when we got home and haven't fully recovered (and probably won't til this little boy is born).  It certainly didn't help that Kelsie got sick with strep throat not even 12 hours after we'd been home and Ashlin caught it a couple of days later.  Daniel and I managed to avoid it, but I got a cold a week and a half ago and I'm still trying to get rid of the last of it.

Anyway, on to vacation stuff!  We. had. a. BLAST!!!!  It was seriously so much fun!  Way better than I imagined it would be.  The girls had a couple of cranky moments, but not too bad and Daniel joined in every little thing (including waking up at 7:30am or earlier and going to bed early) which made it that much better.  Now for some pictures.  Some of these are just snap shots and some are supposed to look a bit nicer.  Don't judge too hard :o).


These are quick snaps of the girls on the way there.

This is the first time on the beach.  We got checked in and our bags in the room and came right to the beach.  The girls loved it!


It took a while to get them down to the water cause there was a lot of sand to explore.  We weren't even off the little boardwalk before they were in the sand!

 Ashlin and daddy going to explore the water.  Ashlin loved the water, but Kelsie preferred the sand.  She said when she was in the water that giant clams were snotting on her face...lol.

 One of the only letters Kelsie can write is an upper case "E", so minutes after we were in the wet sand, she made an E.  Naturally, I needed a picture of it!

 Ashlin showing me some of the "shells" her and daddy found :o).

 This is what Kelsie did every time the water started to come in...hehehe.

 Our first full day there.  I won't caption all of them.  They range from waking up, to playing at the "sun pool" (what Kelsie calls the water park for hotel guests only), to more beach fun.

 The next day:  We went to the beach first thing in the morning, looking at the war memorial,  and the aquarium later in the day.

Kelsie took this with my point and shoot

Our last day.  Daniel found a tiny tree frog while moving the car while we were getting ready to check out.  He brought it up to show us before we set it free again.  We also went to Planet Hollywood (Kelsie was dying to go in the big planet...lol), build a bear (but no pictures of it, silly mommy forgot), family picture on the pier (our only family picture of the trip), and a couple from The Pavilion at Nostalgia Park (a kind of permanent carnival).

So I know that this was a picture overload, but believe it or not, there are over 160 more pictures that I didn't post here.  If you'd like to see them, just click the link and it'll take you to my Myrtle Beach album on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessie7813/sets/72157624793178634/with/5014630015/






On a whole other note, I'll give a quick update on the pregnancy.  I'm doing really well so far at 32 weeks and 5 days.  Our little womb-piggy keeps on growing and boy am I feeling it.  He's running out of room, so I've become way more uncomfortable lately and like I said earlier, I have no energy anymore, but only 8ish weeks left!  My baby shower is on October 2nd and I'm getting super excited for it.  My amazing best friend, Kimie, offered to host it and she's paid for everything and I love her so much for it (well other reasons, too, but right now this is on the top of the list of reasons why I love Kimie...lol).  The only problem is she's keeping most of it a surprise!  Well not a huge problem cause I love surprises, but still :o).  I have my next appointment in a week (I go every 2 weeks now).  I've gained 12 pounds so far, so not too bad if I do say so myself!  That's it for now...here's a picture of the belly at 32 weeks and 1 day:

It's finally time!!!

So I'll just do a quick update today.  I'm 27 weeks and 3 days pregnant today.  That means that I'm in my 3rd trimester!  I can't believe how fast this pregnancy is going!  So how am I feeling?  Pretty good for the most part.  I still have sciatic nerve pain to deal with.  Most of the time it's pretty mild, but I have my days where I can hardly walk.  My hip pain is not nearly as bad as it was with the girls (thank goodness!), but it is getting harder to roll over in bed because of it.  My heartburn is killer.  I can't believe how much of it I have!  It's almost a constant thing.  I will not miss it...lol.  Little man moves around all the time and it's getting much much easier to see him moving on the outside.  I like to sit and watch my tummy bouncing around :o).


So the big news...we leave for the beach tomorrow morning!!!  I am so stinking excited!!!  We've been waiting so long for this.  It was starting to feel like "we're going to the beach" was just something to say...it had almost lost all meaning.  But I can't say that now, since I've been packing and preparing today and we leave tomorrow.  Just pray we don't get lost...lol.  Of course I'll have tons of pictures to share sometime next week, so be on the lookout for those!

Great newborn posing guide giveaway!

Like the title says, here's a contest for a chance to win this awesome newborn posing guide.  Follow the link and enter for your chance to win...woot woot!

http://inspiremebaby.com/2010/07/27/giveaway-newborn-posing-guide-by-jacqueline-ends-81/

A new place for pictures

A friend of mine wanted to show me the location she picked for her daughter's 1 year photo shoot, so yesterday we braved the 100 degree weather (well, 97 or so, but I may as well round up, right...lol) and went to this "park"  It's not really a park, but I'll use that for lack of a better word.  There is a beautiful pavilion with a kitchen, bathrooms, a fireplace, and ceiling fans.  The pavilion is surrounded by a large grassy area with lots of trees.  There's a creek, too.  It's just a really pretty location.  Anyway, I figured we were going there anyway, I needed my 24 week picture, and I've been wanting to get a print worthy shot of Ashlin, that I'd get dolled up and see if my friend would take a couple pictures of me and I'd try and get some good ones of my girls.  I'm really pleased with the outcome.  I took some of miss K (my friend's daughter), but I'll post them in another entry.  So without further ado, enjoy some pictures!

Little Miss Kelsie...this is her trying to give me a natural smile...lol.  Lately if I tell her to smile she hams it up a lot, so I told her to just smile pretty and she gave me this-

And a gorgeous smile-

Miss Ashlin (processed with AMPs kick the can)

Mommy and her girls (thanks Kelsey for taking these next few pictures)-

The focus is weird in this next one, but I just love it so much.  I told the girls to kiss my belly and they would take turns so when I told them to kiss it at the same time, they both kissed my legs instead...lol.

Last, but not least, 24 weeks pregnant-

 

I love having little girls!

I really love having little girls.  I had to take a picture for my next entry in the contest I'm in so I decided I wanted to do something super girly.  I made Kelsie and Ashlin a tutu and got out the fairy wings, necklaces, flowers, and feather boa.  They had a blast, of course, and I couldn't get their tutus off after...lol.  I'll post a few pictures from the shoot, but the first one is the one I entered in the contest.

My entry:

 

Contest Entries

There's an online photography contest I entered a couple weeks ago and I've been meaning to post the pictures I've taken for it as I move on in the contest.  Well I keep forgetting, so I'll just make one post with them in it.  The first picture I took for it was "a little green bug" (see past blog entry...I placed 5th out 26).  Round two was to take a picture of one of the elements (fire, water, wind, or earth).

Fire (I got 2nd place this round out of 17 entries)-

Round three's theme was song inspiration.  We had to take a picture that either the song described or something it inspires (I placed 3rd out of 11 entries).  My song was In My Daughter's Eyes by Martina Mcbride-

Round four's theme is abstact.  There will be 10 entries, but it hasn't gone to voting yet(ETA: voting is over and I got first place this round).  Here's my entry-