Baby #2

Well I realize I have completely neglected to update much on little boy Sanders. Its amazing to me how fast this pregnancy is going. I remember with Gracyn each week took forever, but here I am at 28 weeks and cant help but wonder where the time went! I have 12 weeks left to go and so much still to do! Tomorrow I go to the doctor for my glucose testing (praying I pass this time so I dont have to do the 3 hour test like I did with G). I also have to get a shot because Greg and I have incompatible blood types, and have my thyroid tested. We are keeping a close watch on it this pregnancy because of issues after Gracyn and hoping that if we control it I will be able to breastfeed, which I wasnt able to do with her. I have bought the babies new bedding and decided I want to use a puppy theme in the room but thats about as far as I have gotten. I am hoping to commission the artist who did Gracyn's paintings to do something custom for him, but it will depend on how finances are after the holidays. Otherwise, I think I will use a lot of my black and white images of Marley. There is a photographer I love, Erin Vey, who specializes in dog portraits, maybe I could look into some of her work as well. We plan to paint the room in January and start attempting to transition Gracyn to a twin mattress on the floor so that we dont have to buy another crib. I know thats a pretty bold move since she will only be 14months, but we are hoping we can make it work.

We still dont have a name for this little guy, but we have it narrowed down pretty well. I think I have my heart set on one and Greg has his set on another, so we will see how the compromise works out. You can vote here...



Anyway that is a quick update, I cant wait to meet this little man and snuggle with him, but its going to be a lot of change for Gracyn so for right now I am enjoying every minute alone I have with her. So far he is so much more mellow than she was inside, so I have a feeling he is going to have his daddy's laid back personality. I pray he gets his smarts, looks and athleticism too!

Birthday Photos

Here are a few photos my sister and dad took from Gracyn's birthday party.

favors are chocolate flowers on a pretzel rod and chocolate covered oreos


greg's yummy strawberry cupcakes with white and pink chocolate shavings


giant cupcake cake that greg's mom made


gracyn's favorite friend, Brittnee, her nanny


loving her new wagon that Uncle Ryan put together for her






her party hat


took her a while to warm up to the cupcake, she just didnt feel well


playing with her new dolly

In the meantime....

Some holiday cheer for you since I havent gotten a chance to post birthday pictures yet, Im going to post a quick fun video from Gracyn's favorite singer. She listens to his CDs at bedtime. I'll try to post birthday party pictures tonight.

Weekend Festivities...

BEWARE, this is a long post!

Wow what a long and exhausting weekend! It was wonderful to spend so much time with our families this weekend but we definitely had our ups and downs.

Wednesday, Gracyn and I had a special lunch with Aunt Kate at the Rainforest Cafe. We spent almost 2 hours there and by the time the food arrived Gracyn passed out. It was amazing she could sleep through all the noise there!

Thursday started off great, we had a lazy morning then got dressed to head over to Greg's parents house. We had a delicious meal with all the family there, including both Great Grandma's which was a special treat since they have both been ill. I love that Gracyn gets to know and spend time with them! Gracyn refused to eat and throughout the meal got more and more fussy. By the end of the meal she was starting to feel warm. When we got her home, her temperature was 104.3! We gave her some tylenol and fluids and put her to bed. My family arrived a few hours later to stay with us for the weekend and celebrate Gracyn's birthday with us. That night Greg and I made Gracyn's favors for her party. We made chocolate covered oreos and pretzels with chocolate molded in rows of flowers. It was a fun and easy project for us to do together for our little girl's big day.

Friday, Greg and I went grocery shopping while Gracyn spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa. Her fever was down by the morning and kinda fluctuated most of the day from 101-102ish. By the evening she developed a rash over her back and stomach and was still refusing to eat most foods, but would still drink and eat cold things. Friday night we got everything ready for the party, I made a lot of food and Greg made Gracyn the cutest strawberry cupcakes.

Saturday came and Gracyn woke up with 102.3 fever and a rash over her whole body. So now I was really worried about needing to cancel the party. I got her in to see the pediatrician, hoping all of this was just a reaction to her one year shots she got the week before. He took one look at her and said it was a typical viral rash and that she had some patches on her throat which explained the not wanting to eat. He said she was probably still contagious, so we had to call all our friends that were coming with kids and tell them not to come. I was so disappointed to not have any of Gracyn's little friends at the party! We still had a good time celebrating with our family and a few of our friends that could still come. Gracyn was really clingy and wouldn't let me put her down most of the party, but she warmed up when it was time to open presents and she saw all her new toys! We really are blessed to have so many wonderful family and friends to love her and spoil her!

Here are a few pictures that I have loaded so far... I'll probably put her birthday ones in a post on their own since this one is so long! Thanks for reading all of it if you did!

Some of these are poor snapshots, we need a new small point and shoot camera (hint hint Greg)

all dressed up and ready to go!




a rare photo of the 3 of us...


grandma sanders and her 2 crazy brothers...


gracyn's great-grandmas


eyes are starting to look sick here...


lazy mornings...

Happy Birthday Baby!

I cant believe how fast this year has gone and all of the amazing changes that have happened in our lives. Gracyn is the most perfect thing I have ever done in my life, and everyday she brings us new joy. There was no way we could have prepared our hearts for the experience of being parents, thank you Gracyn for showing us so much love! Happy Birthday Baby!!



















I have a million favorite photos from our photoshoot with Auntie Amanda at the Flying Cupcake, these are just a few. Thank you sis!!

Almost Walking!

She's been taking a few steps here and there and walking with her toys, but today she has gotten a bit braver and is walking more and more steps at a time. She seems to do best when she is holding onto something in her hand, so here she has her Curious George...

Baby For Sale

One very cute baby for sale today. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Loves to give kisses and smiles (just not today).

New mother must be able to handle multiple tantrums throughout the day, poopy diapers that spread up to the neck of child, severe lack of sleep, the inability to shower or go to the bathroom by yourself, and a constantly messy house due to the child taking out 3 things for every 1 thing you put back and not being able to be left alone while you clean without yet another tantrum. These are just some of the perks you can experience today if you purchase this little girl!

Currently child is being bribed by Dora the Explorer so this mother can have one sane moment to herself without the baby screaming and pulling on my pants to be picked up. If you are interested in helping by purchasing baby please contact me ASAP or send a Maid, either would be wonderful.

A delayed announcement...

Sorry I haven't been able to post this week, but most of you have already heard ITS A BOY!!! We are so incredibly excited to have a son. I know he and Gracyn are going to be great friends. Here are a few ultrasound pictures from Wednesday- all profile shots. He is pretty smashed in there, already looking pretty long, so we didnt get to see the front of his face for any pictures... Everything is healthy and exactly how it should be! The last shot I didnt want to post, but Greg scanned the 3 together. But you can see his heart and his little boy parts from a profile view- lucky you, lol.

Baby Steps

Gracyn is getting closer to walking. I bought this push toy awhile ago but she has never had much interest in it. She would play with it, but as soon as it started moving she would sit down. This week she has finally started taking steps behind it. She started with one or two and now walks up and down the sidewalk to our neighbor Lidia's house. Its so cute to see! Here is a video of the first night she started trying to walk behind it.

my little pumpkin

I took these a few weeks ago at the pumpkin patch with Jake and Julia. She was pretty excited to be around the pumpkins and of course wanted nothing to do with mommy or the camera. I think that was the sentiment for the day since Jake and Julia didnt want pictures either!

11 months

This weekend I went home to Indy to visit family and go to my college roomate's 30th birthday party. I was fighting a cold last week but by Thursday night it was insane! I couldnt breathe or sleep, I lost my voice and Im pretty sure coughed up at least one lung. I was miserable, but it was nice to be with my family who spoiled Gracyn rotten. My sister and I decided to take Gracyn out to get her one year pictures before her birthday party. I didnt shoot because I was sick, but Amanda got some great shots of her at the Flying Cupcake (which has to be the cutest cupcake bakery I have ever seen...). I dont want to share all of the pics yet, because she is in her birthday outfit for some and I want to save those for closer to her birthday. But, here are a few my sister sent me that I love. I still cant believe how much she changes every single day and all the new things she does. She is a pro at kisses and waving and bouncing "aka dancing" when asked, she also does the sign for "more" pretty well and is working on a few others. She is getting pretty stable standing up without any support in the middle of the room, but still isnt making many attempts at walking unless its around furniture. She is very into putting things into other things, like stacking her cups or putting the rings on a stacker, etc... sometimes that translates to putting toys away but not enough for mommy to be completely happy, lol. Anyway life is good! Check out a few of the pics...

laughing at mommy dancing...

My Littlest Bird

I wanted to post a video of Gracyn dancing to our new favorite dancing song, but of course she started pitching a fit when I left to get the camera to capture her. So anyway for today I will just post the music video for the song, maybe tomorrow I can get her dancing to it. This is the Be Good Tanyas, this is the only song I know of theirs and found it as a fluke, but I love it so I will have to search them out on Itunes and find some other good stuff. This just makes me happy...

I have the best husband in the world....

Tomorrow is Greg and my 3 year anniversary. Since I will be out of town, he surprised me tonight by having his parents come over to watch Gracyn while he took me out to dinner to Francesca's, which is where we had our rehearsal dinner. Dinner was delicious and it was so nice to have a night out with Greg alone. I feel so blessed to have a husband who takes care of me the way he does. I hope and pray Gracyn is so lucky in love one day!

First time at the Beach

We headed down to Lake Michigan last week to shoot with another photographer I know. Gracyn started out loving the sand, but quickly became miserable as the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. She was so cold and wanted nothing to do with pictures! I really did have layers on her, but she was still shivering and mean mommy just wanted to keep shooting! Anyway I didnt get much of her, she is a classic photographers kid who wants nothing to do with pictures, but my friend Shannon got some great ones of her. I will post hers another time. Here are a few I liked...

here her lips were really purple, tried to fix that in photoshop


sad eyes...






happy when we first got there, playing in the sand


still finding sand in her bags and stroller...

Giving Kisses

Gracyn has started making kissing noises a lot and we just figured out tonight that she will make the noise when asked for a kiss, so we had to capture it on video. So here she is giving a few people kisses :)

Testing a new blog template

Trying to find something with options for bigger images.... ignore the poor quality of the pic, just wanted something bigger than the old template.

Capturing the moment

So many times during the day, I think of something I want to capture on camera... then never do it because the light isnt right, or her outfit isnt the cutest, etc. I have this weird thing that I need to only take great pictures and I miss out on a lot because of that. I have been trying to be better (taking pictures in class, etc), but I still need to make more of an effort.

Yesterday we were out with Greg while he was mowing the lawn. Gracyn loves to watch him and wave as he comes up and down the row. It is finally fall weather and she had her little fall clothes on and she looked so cute! Never mind the fact that she had 5 different shades of purple on, lol. Anyway the light was fading and not ideal, but I decided I had to capture the moment. So while these pictures are blurry and grainy, I still love everything about them. I cannot believe how absolutely grown up my baby is... I have no clue where this year went. But every single day I fall more and more in love with her and with her daddy for blessing me with her and taking care of us so incredibly well.