IKEA love..

So one of the bloggers that I follow religiously, The Busy Budgeting Mama, has posted a giveaway on her blog. The giveaway is $500 to IKEA Pittsburgh! Crossing my fingers because we are moving soon and I am obsessed with so many things IKEA.

To enter, click here!

Good luck!

xoxo, Leigh

What I've been loving...

Here's what has been making me smile these days...

Love these bracelets and love even more that they are for a good cause!

Dying over this video where a kid pretends to be a celebrity for a night and everyone falls for it.

Obsessed with this app. I have been having way too much fun emailing and sending them in texts!

Losing the baby weight has not been my favorite part of having a baby, to say the least. Someone at Doug's work said his wife did Jillian Michael's 30 day shred after she had a baby and loved it. After having tried the old elliptical and giving kick boxing a shot (who was I kidding), I tried the video and loved it (well as much as I can "love" a workout video). I'm still in level 2 of 3, but its only 20 minutes a day and none of the moves have been too out there. I highly recommend. I am a couple of weeks in and have already lost 3 inches in my waist alone (this came after me sitting on my butt for 2 months, thinking the baby weight would just disappear and nothing happened...shocker).


Smacking my lips over this granola bar recipe I concocted.

 Homemade Granola Bars:

3 Tbsp of unsalted butter
2 Cups of old-fashioned oatmeal
3 Cups of Archer Farms Sunny Cranberry Trail Mix
2/3 Cup of honey
1/4 Cup of light brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
1/4 tsp of coarse salt

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8 x 10 baking pan. Mix oatmeal and Sunny Cranberry Trail Mix in a bowl and pour onto the baking pan. Put in the oven for 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Then reduce oven to 300 degrees.

In a small sauce pan, bring the butter, honey, brown sugar, and vanilla to a bowl over medium heat. In a large bowl, toss the oatmeal and cranberry mix with the contents of the sauce pan. Add salt.

Put entire mixture back into the re-buttered baking pan. Using a spatula, flatten out the mix until evenly spread. Pop it back into the oven for 25 minutes. Let cool for 3 hours and voila!

Enjoy,
Leigh

P.S.: I just celebrated my one year wedding anniversary this week with my most amazing husband. We have had quite an adventurous first year... from marriage, to a baby, and now we are getting ready to move! I wouldn't change a thing. xoxo

daily reads

I feed Rowan about every three hours! That leaves me with an opportunity to scroll through my phone and get in my daily reads. So I thought I would share some of them with you, especially mothers and mothers to be. Now I obviously don't get to all of these everyday, but they are in my rotation. Enjoy!

Always puts me in a good mood and is without a doubt the first site I visit each day Cup of Jo 

For outfit ideas and most recently baby ideas The Daybook

She is spot on with so many things Grace Full Mama

I love her finds Cupcakes and Cashmere 

To get in my daily dose of pretty The Beauty Department

Love the before and afters Design*Sponge

Obsessed with her and all things she has to say Tripping Over Joy

I love her craft ideas! The Busy Budgeting Mama

Like the gossip column for moms Lil Sugar

For some home help and fun ideas Real Simple


xoxo, Leigh

worth a thousand words

How amazing are these photographs! A couple of days after Rowan was born, Jonna drove from Denton to Austin (with her super adorable daughter) to capture his newborn look. She offered to come so soon after he was born because she said they change so quickly when they are that young. She was so right. Check out her stuff here or like her on facebook. Thanks Jonna!

xoxo, Leigh

where has the time gone!

Quite a bit has happened since my last post....

We had baby Rowan Michael on June 15th!! He was almost 9 pounds!! It is crazy to me that he is already 5 weeks old and has completely stolen my and husband's hearts. My parents and his parents came to Austin for the birth and the whole first week was a whirlwind. We are sleep deprived, love struck, and there is definitely a new center of attention in our home. We love our new family!

Have you ever been in the shower when the door bell rang?

Have you ever been in the shower when the door bell rang? While I was all suds up in the shower today, my door bell chimed. My first reaction was to let it go and pretend no one was home. Then I remembered I didn't dead bolt the door and panicked, wondering if someone from apartment maintenance would try and come in. Then I hear banging on the door. I hop out, still shampooed and soaped up and run to the closet to "throw" on some clothes. Well..... when you are 8 months pregnant there is no such thing as "throwing on clothes."  So I ditch that idea. Again another bang on the door. I throw a towel around me and humbly answer the door. There, patiently waiting was a little man holding some flowers. I laugh and sign for the flowers while hiding behind the door.

My sweet parents and brother sent me flowers the day before my birthday so that I could enjoy them the whole day tomorrow. Thanks for the flowers and the memory.

PS: Here is a shot of me in my current state of pregnancy (36 weeks)!

  

 

xoxo, Leigh

Monday = Date Night

So me and the husband had a little date night last night. It started off with a little round of golf, where Doug got to try out a couple of new golf clubs he recently bought. I had fun (and some occasional whiplash) riding around in the golf cart. I also was privileged with the duty of searching for his golf ball a few times. (I was never very good and almost picked up other players' balls a couple of times...yikes!) 

Then we headed off to watch the Round Rock Express (the minor league baseball team here) and get in on $1 hotdog and $1 drink night! When we got there, we were asked to participate in one of the games in between the innings. Husband immediately said no. I was a little disappointed. That was until I saw the games being played and realized how impossible and ridiculous it would have looked if a pregnant girl was bouncing around the field on a ball... thank you husband for looking out for me.

It was a beautiful day in Austin, but it turned out to be a rainy day in Round Rock. So we stuffed our faces with hotdogs, had fun laughing at the kids running around in the grass (we decided to bring a blanket and get seats on the lawn), and headed out a little earlier than expected because it was so cold and rainy.

We had so much fun together, we are thinking of heading back on Friday when the weather will be nicer.

xoxo

(almost) 6 months!

So we got to thinking and realized there are few moments in our pregnancy left where we would have someone free to take pictures of us. We already had a trip planned to visit my parents up in Denton, Texas, so we had an impromptu photo sesh. By the end, me and the husband just started acting goofy as we tried to think of ways to pose. We really just wanted one good photo to hang in baby Rowan's room. Here are some of the photographs we ended up with!

 

      

xoxo, leigh

Some exciting old news!

Douglas and I are expecting a little baby boy in June! This picture was taken about a month ago, so the bump has grown a little since then. We are both so excited!!! I just started registering for baby goodies and it is SO hard not to start buying everything myself.

He kicks and twists and turns and hiccups all the time to remind me he is still in there. I think he is going to take after his mama in wanting to be the center of attention and having too much energy for any one person to handle.... what comes around, goes around.

So here are the stories of how we find out we were preggers and that we were being blessed with a baby boy...

About a month or so after our wedding, Douglas and I were hanging out at the apartment and I, literally out of no where, burst into tears. Husband immediately grew concerned and asked me what was wrong. AND (i kid you not) in my head I was feeling like an idiot because literally nothing was wrong. So I made something up and blurted out "I think I might me pregnant." Well if you ever want to freak out husband, those are the words you should say! He begged me to immediately take a pregnancy test. I kept telling him no, that I didn't need to, because in  my head I didn't really think I was pregnant. Sure enough a pregnancy test and a few long minutes later... I saw the words pregnant flashing across a screen. Now the normal first thing to do would be to open the bathroom door and hug husband. Not me. I had just been sobbing my eyes out, so naturally I ran to the mirror and put on some make up, then ran to the closet and threw on a sun dress, so that when I told him I would looking like a glowing pregnant wife.... I am so vain. Either way, our entire world changed that day and we think about things so much differently now as we are preparing to be parents. I wouldn't change a thing though.

Now, husband was rooting for a boy and I didn't care either way. So naturally, the day we were going to find out the sex, I was pretty calm and husband was acting like he had ants in his pants! I love him. When we got into the room though, my heart started racing in anticipation. Then a few minutes later the sonographer said, "You see that there? That means you're having a boy!" Doug looked like he was about to freak out and jump out the window, but of course he had to act cool and collected until we were alone. I was on the verge of tears but wanted to see the rest of baby boy, so I resisted the urge. I was definitely a magical day for the three of us. A day I will never forget.

xoxo