Bumpity bump bump bump...

Brian and I had the privilege to work with Stacey from Staceykayphotography on our maternity photo session.

She was amazing and I'm still in shock that these photos were taken in January! The weather has been so crazy this year and although we had hoped for snow during our shoot we were still very pleased with how they turned out, and the fact it was 55 degrees out helped us not freeze. 

We have so many favorite photos from our shoot and can't wait for little miss Everly to arrive so she can take her photos too! Thank you so much Stacey.

I would recommend her to anyone in the surrounding area and she also has great ideas on outdoor venues for the photos which helped a ton. 

Mary Kay Monday- Crab People

In Mary Kay we often talk about "turning points" in our lives and how to identify them. A turning point happens when your mind makes a shift, and when this happens you remember EVERYTHING! You remember what you were wearing, who was with you, and the exact words that were said to make that shift in your brain.

I have had many turning points in my life over the past 27 years. My cousins claim I have a memory of an elephant because I remember many details but I think the difference is that I've had many turning points all of which I remember well.

At the end of March 2014 in Cincinnati, Ohio, I attended Mary Kay's Career Conference. Besides loving all the girlfriend time I got that weekend, I also had a major turning point in my life. We were at the conference center towards the back of the room, and I was in my new red jacket and excited as I had just confirmed I would be submitting DIQ in only a few short days! NSD Julia Burrnett took the stage, and I was so excited because I had never heard her speak before. As she began to talk it truly felt like we were the only two people in the room. You see I begin every Mary Kay meeting, event, or seminar, with a prayer that God challenges me, and allows my heart to be open to what is being said, and I know what she was saying that day was something I needed to hear.

I needed to hear it for myself, for people I knew, and for people I had no idea I would meet in the next year. What she spoke about was CRAB PEOPLE! Those people in your life that stomp on your dreams and you are the only one who is able to decide whether you believe what you know to be true or not.

Crabs are very interesting creatures and we can learn a hard lesson in life from them. Crabs are pretty neat in the sense that they can actually crawl into tight spaces, which is why when fishermen go out to catch crabs they have a trap that they stock with tons of food, and the crabs squeeze right in to eat up. They begin to pile high on top of one another and more just keep coming even after the food is gone. Among all those crabs one will start trying to get out of the bucket, and when this happens the other crabs pull him back in. If the crab continues to try, which it will, the other crabs continue to pull it back down, and eventually they kill the crab that tried to escape. This is called Herd Mentality.

The crabs were using their energy to pull the one crab down instead of using their energy to get out of the bucket themselves. Which is where the word CRAB MENTALITY comes from. In our lives we all have crab people. They can be a neighbor, coworker, customer, or family member. Those people who will do everything they can to try and bring you down, and crush your dreams. Not all crab people are bad at heart, some are just a product of the way they were raised or taught to think. Sometimes these people are only briefly in your life, and sometimes they are not going anywhere in a hurry, but you can always chose to ignore them, and break away from them. Eleanor Roosevelt once said "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." So dont give anyone the consent to make you question your dreams.

When you are so excited about something in your life or your Mary Kay business and a crab comes in and tries to stomp on your goals and dreams dont allow them to plant seeds of doubt ("I know someone who did that and failed", or "I think some people can do it but doesn't seem like something for you," or "You could never do_______.") Subconsciously they are worried if you are able to escape "the trap" then you would be proving to them that they can too, and they dont have the courage to escape so it is better for them to pull you back down.

If there was only one thing I took away from Julia's speech, which trust me there wasn't, it would have to be that you have to let go of the need for approval from everyone in your life. This is something I have struggled with in my business and my personal life over the years and as Julia said that a weight came off of my shoulders and I realized that there are people in this world that I want and need approval from then there are others that I dont need or actually want at all. There are customers that were not benefiting my business but I was doing everything for them in hopes that one day they would host a party for me or buy more than just a mascara. Other people in my life that assumed since I make my own schedule that meant I could and should, help them whenever they needed it no matter what, and I did all this until that day, until the day I realized I dont need their approval, and lack of planning on someone else's part does not and should not result in an emergency on my part. There is a great Al Anon quote that says you cant go to a hardware store for a loaf of bread. You cant keep telling yourself "maybe this time it will be different," because that is self abuse.

I also realized that mental energy spent in one area is mental energy taken from another, so I needed to start focusing my mental energy where it mattered, my relationship with Christ, my family, and my business. I had to remember I had nothing to prove and only ONE  to please.

Aristotle Said "There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing," Don't allow the small minded people in the world to effect you. A 16X24 dream cant compute in a 5X7 mind. Some people will never accept that you are trying to better yourself, and they will not be able to accept that you are able to succeed. And when you go to bed at night and you have had a day filled with crab people, pray for them, because the only taste of success some people get is taking a bite out of yours. 

https://youtu.be/VYmGHYC4-jk

And the Belly Continues to Grow.....

Many of you have asked to see how the belly has grown by the weeks so here it is!

 Also a sneak peak from our Maternity session the other day. Thank you a ton to StaceyKayPhotography! She did an amazing job and we love how they all turned out. 

Little miss Everly is growing away and everyone is Happy, Healthy and Ready for her debut.

Gender Reveal Party

(Realized I never Submitted this post so sorry everyone it is late)

HOLY COW! Today is the day we found out what Baby Telljohann is! As we waited in the waiting room for them to call my name my excitement was building. I mean we were about to find out the gender of our first child and Brian and I were sharing this moment with my Mom, Dad, and sisters. When we got back to the room my Blood pressure was super high because I was so excited. (they ended up rechecking it in my appointment and it was normal then).

I didnt realize that the anatomy scan TOOK FOREVER! We were back there for almost an hour before they ever said the gender. I felt it was taking forever, it was neat to see everything on the screen and watch little baby moving all over but we were both so anxious to find out what flavor we were having. THEN FINALLY we found out!

The deal was that the morning of we all needed to cast our votes on what we thought the gender was. Brian really never said, he just kept saying he thought it was a baby, and I know my family all were holding out for baby to be a boy because there were only us 3 girls. Today when my mom and sisters showed up my mom had on Blue and Pink because she said she was torn and didnt want the baby to look back on photos and be upset if she picked the wrong one. It was super cute of her. Then Chelsea had on blue and Michaela had on pink.

Brian and I did all the "silly" Gender predictors and kept track of them. I thought before we did them that they would all turn out to be girl and when we finished and looked at the results I was surprised to see that the verdict was still out because it was pretty even whether it was a boy or girl.

This evening we all went over to my Moms and invited the local family over to share the good news. We wanted to have a fun way to tell everyone so we decided to buy a blue and a pink flare and put whatever color was the gender into a box then light the flare so the color of the smoke would be the gender of the baby.

Everyone cast their votes by wearing the color they thought the baby was and it was fun to see what everyone's votes were and to see who was right and who wasn't.

One very cute thing is that my Mom's dogs decided they needed to cast their votes, which we didnt realize until looking at the photos after but my Mom's boy dog, Tucker, got in the Team Blue photo and her girl dog Bella, was at the bottom of the Team Pink photo. Kinda cute since no one put them there. 

Brian and I went out into the yard and lite the flare and everyone's reactions were PERFECT!!! Its a GIRL!!!!!!!! 

Today was awesome and I cant wait to see Little Miss at our next ultrasound, to see how much she has grown. Im beyond excited to have a baby girl on the way and Brian is so excited to have "Daddy's little girl" but he is also nervous as he didn't grow up around girls so I think he is a little worried about what raising a girl means. He did say that he can now get a Shotgun to add to his gun collection to scare off the boys someday. (ADORABLE) Now to decide on a name.

Baby Girls Nursery

As a FTM its hard to not want everything to be perfect! The day you find out your expecting the ideas began to flow of how you want to do the nursery and names you may like, but then once you find out the gender those thoughts consume you. You want to make sure it's the perfect nursery for your little one to come home to, and the perfect name. 

The name was the first thing we started talking about. We both knew if it was a girl we wanted to name her after her Grandma Bev who passed away a few years back. We also wanted to name her after my Mom, thus the name Everly Yvonne came about. We both love it and can't wait to meet her. 

It took Brian and I a few months to decide exactly how we wanted to decorate the nursery, but we did know one thing for sure which was what room in our home would be the nursery. In our home we have three bedrooms, one is my office and also where I house my inventory, the other is our master, so it was only fitting that the "other room" which was holding Brian's desk and his drum set would be the nursery. 

I'm not going to lie it took him MANY months to accept this fact and "move outl into my office. We bought a new desk to make the transition smooth as he is still in grad school, and put his drums in storage so someday at our next home, he can still rock out. 

With exactly 30 days until Baby girls expected delivery date we finished the nursery. I could not be more thrilled with how it turned out! I think Brian is pretty excited too because he keeps showing photos to his coworkers of the room. 

The nursery is so special to us in many ways. First of all the dresser and crib was given to us by Brian's Grandparents, because they were Brian's, his brothers, and his mothers, so they are very special to us! 

I am by no means a "painter" but I do enjoy painting for fun so I painted a few pictures for Everly's nursery and I know she will love them because her mommy made them. 

We also used the ikea shelf on its side for the changing table. I love that it has a ton of storage! 

We got so many books from our showers which was nice so Everly has a good supply of books on hand to read once she debuts. Brian's Aunt Annette and Uncle Eric got us our nursery chair which we are so thankful for. 

Finally we have the chandelier which we adore and the closet which Everly's Grandpa Baird designed and made for her. 

I think it is safe to say we are ready for her to arrive. Which is good as she is officially head down, ready to go and I'm dialated 1 cm! 9 more to go lol! 

The truth about pregnancy (from my point of view)

Holy cow! Pregnancy has been a crazy ride so far. From the highs to lows we are so blessed with this little baby that continues to grow. 

Everyone has their own pregnancy story, and trust me everyone wants to tell you theirs. They are either one of three things 

1. "I never got sick during my pregnancy, you poor thing"

 or 

2. "I was sick the entire pregnancy I hope that's not the same thing as you."

or 

(my favorite) 3. "you should get better by ____(filling the blank with the week, which never has happened) 

I hate that one because it gives me hope and the second I hit that week and I'm still puking I wanna cry.... And sometimes I do. 

 

Don't get me wrong I am so blessed that we are having a baby, (and on the first try at that) because I know there are so many people out there who are unable to have their own children, or who struggle to conceive. Which is something that I have to tell myself every day as I'm getting sick (still) and fighting all the pains of your body changing. No one ever tells you how dry your eyes will be and that your contacts will hate you, and how stuffy your nose will get. They only tell you the happy things like "oh wait until you feel the baby kick." 

 

So let's be real for a second. Pregnancy is hard! It's a joyous ride but it's hard. It may not be as hard for everyone but think about it, you were growing a little human inside of your body. Your body is working harder than a mountain climbers on a daily basis. Talk about exhausting and trust me you will feel it. I just pray that you're blessed to take as many naps as I do.

A new symptom that has hit this week is insomnia there's nothing worse than being wide-awake at 4 o'clock in the morning and literally starving. And for me that burst of energy that they promised would happen the second you hit the second trimester it never happened!! The only thing that changed is I don't feel like I'm going to fall sleep at every stoplight. 

Onto the exciting parts of pregnancy first maternity clothes are actually getting cute so no worries about looking like a huge whale in a trash bag. But I will say during the "awkward stage" dresses are your best friend. There's nothing more uncomfortable than trying to fit into a pair of pants that are smooshing the baby and it's screaming "hey help me out I need room to grow." Another great thing about pregnancy is getting to hear the baby's heartbeat it's something so unreal and like nothing you've ever imagined before the fact that there are two heartbeats inside of you. And don't get me started about the ultrasound! That is like the coolest thing in the whole wide world to actually get to see a baby moving around inside of your belly, yet you can't feel it yet, but it's the most amazing thing to know that you created that and there it is inside of you growing and getting bigger every single day until the day you get to meet it. One thing that I wasn't sure that I would like, because in the "non pregnant" world you would not like your belly getting bigger, but when you're pregnant it's the most exciting thing to wake up in the morning and see that your belly is growing! Just knowing the fact that because your belly is growing means that your baby is healthy and your baby is growing.

I'm one of the most impatient people. And I can totally admit that. So when they say "will see you in four weeks" it's the longest four weeks ever, and when they say "you can't find out what the baby is until 20 weeks at your ultrasound" it's the longest 20 weeks of your life. Because honestly the truth is all the fun stuff starts after you know the sex of the baby especially if you're going to find out. Because then you can start shopping, and you can start registering for doing all those fun baby things. There are definitely ways around finding out what the sex of the baby is before 20 weeks, but besides genetic testing and pain to send off a blood sample, there's really no easy way. We decided against all genetic testing because of too many false positives. We didn't want the extra stress on our pregnancy just because we were too anxious to find out the gender.  So now we are in the waiting stage again. In four weeks we get to find out the sex of the baby, and I'm ecstatic! I have literally done every wives tale there is in the book to determine the gender. Let me just tell you it's all over the board, it's not clear whether it's a boy or girl so I guess we will have to wait until the ultrasound. I know Brian and I both have our suspicions on what the baby is but at the end of the day we only pray that it is a healthy baby.

So as the countdown continues, only 25 days until we find out the gender of baby T. 

BABY ON BOARD

There has been so much excitement going on around here lately.

1. Finished Directorship in Qualification and am officially a Mary Kay Sales Director.

2. Earned my first Mary Kay career car, and was able to use the money (instead of taking the car) and buy a 2016 Mazda CX-5.

3. Found out in June we were expecting in February 2016. 

When we were in Prague, we saw these large babies that are by an artist named David Black. It is said that if you touch the babies butt you will become pregnant within the year. Of course I touched the babies butt, and what do you know, a few weeks later we were pregnant.  :-D

We began by telling all the family around 8 weeks, and then decided to tell "Social media world" at 11 weeks. By this time we had been to the dr, seen the baby and heard the heartbeat and all looked great. 

We have been so excited yet I have been so sick :-(

Im really hoping that in the next few weeks I began to feel better because as of now we are going to be 14 weeks in a few days and I am still getting sick, taking Nausea meds and feeling super sleepy. :-(

At our first Appointment when we got to see the baby it was pretty neat because they actually did a 3D scan which was really neat because you can see so much more. Although I was only 7 weeks at the 1st appointment you could still see the main parts of the baby, like the head and spine, and then small nubs for the arms and legs. 

At 12 weeks I was really hoping to feel better but unfortunately, that just did not happen. :-( The belly has begun to grow, part is obviously bloat, and some is constipation, then the rest is uterus. 

Today was my 12 week appointment, at 13 weeks and 6 days. When we got into the Dr.s office I was a little nervous. My blood pressure was good, but my heart rate was over 100 so they had a hard time finding the heart rate. They decided to go ahead and do an ultrasound. It was very exciting because we were able to see the baby. It was neat because it was moving around a ton and it had the hiccups so I felt kinda bad. I have had hiccups the whole pregnancy and they have been painful, so I thought it was cute that the baby did too. Brian was excited to see the baby, and for it to look like a real baby and not a blob.