Spring Break: Warning- Photo Heavy!

Today is the last day of my spring break! It's been a whirlwind week that started off with a fabulous weekend in Atlanta with family and friends. We had our first baby shower, graciously hosted by my sister-in-law, with some input from my mom as well. It was a lot of fun and was such a nice opportunity to see everyone. And of course, words can't even express how awesome it was to see how excited everyone was for us & Baby Hesser. He's already SO lucky & spoiled!

Beautiful table- love the toys on the vase & the mason jars for the super yummy punch!

Marcia did an amazing job with food!

I definitely enjoyed myself :)

Dad-to-be with friends from high school. These ladies are awesome & hilarious, and we can't thank them enough for always supporting us!!

The gorgeous and amazing ladies in our family!

Following our trip to Atlanta, my mom headed back to MS with me to build the nursery. It's been such a fun project! Thank you pinterest! We were so so lucky to have both sets of parents contribute some of the big furniture, and we were also given the beautiful changing table from our friends. And really, there is absolutely NO way it would look anything like it does now without my mom's help. She was able to actually implement my visions (or pins from pinterest). It went from an empty room with a lone crib to this:

View looking in from the door. Ty painted the walls for me (Behr Misty Surf), they're a really pretty gray-blue. The curtains were sewed by my mother, they were in progress in this picture but they're completely done now! I LOVE THEM.

Nightstand (Ikea!) and our super comfy swivel-glider Little Castle chair. You can't really tell in the photo, but it has navy blue piping with a navy pinstripe. The white blanket was a gift from Ty's parents, handmade in Iowa!

The beautiful crib, I am SO in love with it. It is very sturdy and you can't tell from the crib skirt, but it has a pull-out drawer on the bottom that can store all of his extra sheets, mattress pads, liners, and blankets!

He already has friends waiting for him in his crib (don't worry, they'll be removed once he actually sleeps in his crib). I decided to not do a bumper since they are not recommended for safety purposes. My mom is making him a quilt that will match this set- did I mention how awesome she is?!?

We got his car seat! It feels so real with that in the room, waiting for him.

Ty finished & re-painted the dresser and installed new knobs. It looks so much better than before- I wish I had thought to take a before & after shot.

How adorable are these knobs???

I can't believe how much stuff he already has. How cute are his clothes by the way?? And these are JUST the ones we hung up. He already has drawers full of sleepers, onesies, and pants. We were given so many wonderful outfits from friends. I never realized how much fun boy baby clothes can be! I can't wait to play dress up (although I'm sure that will lose its luster very quickly)

The beautiful changing table. The top three bins have his fitted cloth diapers (yeah, we're trying it! If anyone has any tips, please let me know!!), inserts, and his prefolds. I'm still trying to figure out the bottom three. So far one has burp cloths and another has his bibs. I'm sure everything will change once he's here. I just like playing with all his stuff!!

I had to include this bear, he's already been through a lot with us- he's tried out the crib, car seat, his carriers (he fits well in the Moby wrap), and as you can see, he's modeling one of our newborn sized cloth diapers (they are sooooo adorable).

So his nursery is pretty much finished, I just need to get stuff on the walls. We're getting close to having the basic essentials (plus some!) for survival with a newborn, I can't believe how much stuff babies need! We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends and family members that have gifted us wonderful things! I really can't thank everyone enough. I knew we had amazing people in our lives, but everyone has gone above and beyond in celebrating Baby Boy.

We also toured the hospital where I'll be delivering. That made it all super real. I thought the 2nd trimester took forever, now I can't believe that I'm already 2 weeks through the third trimester. Baby Boy has gotten bigger- I can definitely feel the difference. His current favorite hang out is at the bottom of my ribs on my right side. Not exactly the most comfortable, but he makes doing my kick counts easy since he moves so much and I can't miss it.

Now its crunch time for exams- they start at the end of this month. It's so nice to have most of his nursery done since there's a possibility I won't be back until exams are over. YIKES.  I have a feeling these last 10 weeks are going to fly by quickly.

Three years later...

In an effort to keep those that we love in the loop, we're bringing back this blog! It's funny to look back at what we were doing 3.5 years ago and how much is different now!!

For those keeping track, we still live (mostly) in Mississippi with our THREE dogs. Ace and Bella are 3.5 years old now- they've changed a lot in that time!

Bella girl

Love this picture of Bella & Ty

Ace Bud

We fostered Layla during the Mississippi River flood in early Summer 2011, and well, she's our crazy mutt now. As much as Ty tries to complain about her, they've totally bonded and he wouldn't be able to give her up for anything!

Who could refuse this face? 

Layla looking a little more dignified in her favorite spot- the couch!

One thing is for sure, I'm not allowed to foster any more animals. Clearly, I'm not good with the whole "temporary" thing! Of course, there's not any time/ room for any more animals!

The Hesser Family circa Nov. 2012

 For instance, I'm finishing up law school- December 2013!! We're SO close! And as of the end of next month, Ty and I will officially be done with the whole "long distance" fun. He's stuck with me for good after that. Thank goodness! I've loved (for the most part) working on my degree, but I can't wait to get back to our life together. And then of course, the biggest and craziest change in our life would be this:

We're Pregnant!!!

Baby Boy Hesser is officially arriving sometime around June 10, 2013. We DO have a name all picked out, it's not a secret- so feel free to ask either one of us if you're curious! And now for the belly pic, as promised...

Don't I look great?!?

HAHA. Just kidding, that would be me 2 days shy of 9 weeks. We've come a long way since then...

2/10/13- or a day shy of 23 weeks.

27 weeks. Excuse the horrible picture, this was taken at the end of the day, right before bed. I swear I don't normally look that big! But I'll try to take another picture in the next week or two and we'll see for sure :)

So that's it! We're just a few days away from the third trimester!!

A few things about my pregnancy so far: Overall, Baby Boy has been treating me really, really well. I've been SO lucky. I didn't have much morning sickness at all in the first trimester. I've gained about 7 lbs overall (I'm expecting that to change quickly- we'll see if I keep you updated on that aspect! haha). And he is SUPER active. Seriously, pretty sure he's been practicing soccer with my internal organs, and he's got a good kick already! I've been feeling his movements since just before the 16th week- pretty ridiculous! Ty can feel him too most of the time. So I haven't had any freak out moments or a hard time with the "kick count" because he is constantly in motion. The only problem I've really had is falling asleep at night- because of course that is when he is most active.

The week after next is my Spring Break, and our first baby shower. We're so lucky to have so many wonderful people that love us and care for us. I wish we could get together with everybody but time/school/ distance makes that so difficult. We will be traveling to both South Carolina and Florida  later in the summer so hopefully we can see people then- WITH a baby! With my mom's help, I'll be using most of my spring break to put together his nursery. My goal is to get most of it done, because I'll have exams soon after. And by the time exams are over, we'll be 35 weeks and I'm guessing it will be a bit harder for me to get stuff done :)

Thanks so much for caring so much about us, we love you all and can't wait to show you Baby Boy when he gets here :)

Love, Ryan & Ty