Thirteen.

According to Baby Center, our Love is the size of a medium shrimp this week. I’m not sure why they veered away from their usual fruit analogy, but I AM sure that I wasn’t about to pose with a medium shrimp. Gross. So, we scoured the produce section for another fruit approximately 3 inches in length. Meet the Pepino Melon. 

 

I don’t really like melons, and I’m sure we probably won’t be eating Pepino (it smells kind of weird), but its pretty stripey exterior and 3 inch length were perfect for our photo purposes.

13 weeks finds me still feeling sick, but incredibly excited and thankful. Friday is our first midwife appointment. Mom is covering the store so that Timmy can come with and we will listen to our baby’s heartbeat together for the first time. So amazing.

This pregnancy has definitely furthered my love for Timmy, and I can’t imagine going through this journey with anyone else but him. He is so perfectly right for me, and I am anxious for our little babe to meet her father. He has already begun talking to my stomach, and he narrates silly stories of what is going on in there...
 

Being pregnant has been slightly uncomfortable, but I’m loving it.
I feel like the happiest, luckiest girl in the world! Yay for 13 weeks!

Bitty Booties

Today was a happy sort of day. Because my good friend Elizabeth came to play with me, and she brought my mom. And they were so excited to help me make some little bitty booties for my baby.

We had a blast. And for $12, I got enough materials to make at least 15 booties. I feel so thrifty! 

Two of them are made from felt, and one is made from a soft suede. They're quick and easy to make, and the embellishment possibilities are endless. I chose gender neutral colors and ribbons. (Mom and Elizabeth had to convince me that no, boys cannot wear mauve booties. Boo.)

For when she's feeling Native American.

(I AM part Cherokee, you know.)

For when she's feeling English.

(Can boys wear lace? Mine definitely will.)

For when she's feeling Japanese. 

(Rynn, who is an expert on all things Asian
says these look like they came from Japan.)

Aren't they adorable?

I can't wait to make more.

(Timmy loves them too!)

Room Service.

 (Dinner in bed, served by my handsome waiter/chef/husband.

Feel free to laugh at how he cut the onions. But doesn't it look yummy?

Morning sickness has NOT disappeared

but I've been pampered.)

Twelve.

Our little Love is the size of a cheery green lime this week.
12 is a welcome landmark in the progression of my pregnancy,
and I am excited to leave trimester one behind me.
Day one of trimester two has been fabulous,
and I am truly hoping that my morning sickness
is going to magically disappear altogether.

My tummy has a tiny little bump that I was sure only I could notice.
But last night Tim commented that there is definitely
a small something there that was not there before.

We bought a lime yesterday to visually illustrate the size of our baby,
and Lime was carried about all afternoon.
We had a little photoshoot on the front porch,
and marveled at the (relatively) large size of it.
I was actually beginning to feel rather attached to Lime,
and abandoned my initial plan to slice it in half and use it to sweeten my water.
Without my knowing, Tim decided to play hacky sack with Lime in the living room,
and somehow ended up stepping on it.
He confessed to me, quite chagrined,
“Babe, I think I made a hole in our lime. It’s leaking juice…”
It was a little horrifying.

But the good news is he won't ever play hacky sack with our baby

and he is going to be one great Daddy. 

Golden.

20 times we've met

this special day

since 20 months ago.

The anniversary

of "you and me"

and the day our life

begins.

(It's safe to say

I like life this way

and I am bursting with

big grins.)

I never knew

I'd find a "you"

so much sweeter

than my heart foretold…

and

(even when you fuss)

This thing called "us" –

it's golden.

20 Months on February 20th!

Happy Golden Anniversary

to my best friend.

Typical

Becki emerges from the back room of the store and doesn’t seem the tiniest bit surprised to find Timmy racing along the tops of the freezers. Rynn is jumping up and down with excitement and says “Oh, oh! Me too!” Caleb looks at Becki and wonders “What are we going to do with these two?” 

Rynn scrambles up the side of a refrigerator. Tim and Rynn run back and forth, swing on beams, and make a lot of noise. Tim runs straight into a long pipe hanging down from the ceiling, hits his head, lets out a loud yell, and exclaims “Wow that hurt! I think I’m tasting blood!” 

Becki sighs and smiles and suggests they climb down now. Tim easily maneuvers his way off the end of the refrigerator row. Rynn jumps onto Caleb’s shoulders. Becki photographs the whole escapade.

The End.

 

Note: All of this occurred after the store was closed. 
Note, note: We really enjoy Rynn and Caleb.

Valentine's Day

Our Valentine’s Day weekend was celebrated with a long nap, basking in the 40 degree sunshine, guacamole, Jamba Juice, travel destination dreaming, and a sleepover by the fireplace. (Which did not last all night, but should have, because sleep is sweet when flames are flickering a lullabye.) We were a little lazy, and a little adventurous, we drove long distances and we celebrated the sweet love we enjoy every single day of the year. And I broke my sugar fast long enough to delight in a decadent dark chocolate bar studded with dried pears, blueberries, and crystallized violet petals. (Talk about a magical dessert.)

It was the perfect mix of relaxing, sweet, and romantic.

Valentine's Day is the best. 

*adorable photo by Laura Zastrow Photography 

 Loving…

… my pajamas, and the fact that I've been wearing them all day.

… having a little sister who lives close enough to "pop over".

… smoothies for lunch.

… buying books for our baby.

… seeing our Apple Wellness ad in the Isthmus.

… writing and re-writing baby name ideas.
(because it HAS to be a name that writes prettily.)

… wearing Timmy's socks, they're extra big and cozy.

… having a little nephew and a big sister who sends me movies of bathtime.

… that it is February 12, and we're getting closer to Spring.

…almond scented lotion.

… my husband and his contagious laughter.

… Valentine's Day weekend.

tasting
Cranberry muffins. (Just about all I can eat these days, thanks to our little Ducky.)
hearing
Caleb Jacobson. (He makes pretty music. www.myspace.com/colormehonest)

seeing

Baby name ideas. (I can't tell you what names are in the running,
but I can tell you that Charlotte and Clarence are not on the list.)

touching
Yarn. I've been attempting to crochet a stuffed hedgehog for the baby.
(Funny thing is, I don't remember how to crochet quite as well as I'd thought.)

smelling
Everything. Really well. (My sense of smell has basically quadrupled in these past weeks.)

 

My goals for the weekend are to relax and to start feeling better. I can't control the second one, but I'm hoping my body will hear my resolve and magically decide to say goodbye to morning sickness.  

 

Also, Timmy has a Valentine's surprise in store for me this Sunday. Aren't weekends sweet?

A Conversation: About Shaving

Timmy: Babe! I have a freshly shaven face!

Me: Nice. And how does that make you feel?

Timmy: Like a gentle angel.

Yellow.

Timmy bought me a new pair of mustard yellow mittens. They pop like bright sunshine amidst a world of winter whites. Yellow is a shade of happy, and happy is the color of my heart.
 

My weekend consisted of all things beautiful, (and absolutely no football).
A Friday night sister night with my favorite little sweetheart. A lazy Saturday at Apple Wellness with a handsome husband who was more than willing to lounge on the futon and make me smoothies, in between a stream of customers. Chipotle for dinner, a secret celebration, a pajama party in our bed, and time spent watching an eye opening documentary called “Food Inc.” An impromptu Sunday road trip home to visit Mom and Dad. Sunny hours spent cozied together in their warm living room, long talks about life and happiness, and my favorite orange kitty purring in my lap. Mom-made chocolate oatmeal cookies, hummus and homemade pita chips, and warm vegetable soup. A long, starlit drive home with my best friend, a late night snack of hot cranberry muffins, falling asleep under piles of warm blankets, and the promise of a great week to come.

 
I feel full of good things. 

(And, in my mustard mittens, my fingers have never felt happier.)

 In seven short months
we will have a September baby. 

 (baby "bump" 9 weeks)

 

 Our wee one will take a breath and arrive
into the ninth month of the year.
How will our September baby first find this big world?
*She will be welcomed into a season where evenings are spent
outside under a canopy of summer constellations.
Our baby will first feel the rays of warm sunshiney weather,
will first experience the joy of green grass,
will first know a world that is everlastingly bright
and brimming with golden sunflowers.
Tiny eyes will take in blue skies
and a tiny nose will smell the sweet and spicy scent of summer air,
just beginning to cool down into autumn.
She will find a world of thunderstorms and long days.
She will greet the vividness of September and,
just learning to live,
she may believe it will always be this way.
Of course, she’ll find that, along with everything else,
seasons change.
But September sounds
like a good place to begin. 

*I say "she" because I hate to refer to our baby as "it" and we obviously don't know if we're having a little girl or boy

Oh, Happy. from Becki O'Brien on Vimeo.

Month number two is pink and rosy, 

a welcome marker in the progression of winter months.
February promises to bring valentines and candy hearts,
twenty eight days, and the hope of Spring. 

(But so far, all it has brought is a blizzard and a flat tire. Happy February.) 

Blurry Pictures

 

Something you don’t want to hear
when you’re having blood taken:
“Oh wow, you certainly have tiny veins…”

Something you don’t want to hear
when your husband is cooking you lunch:
“Uh oh, you’re going to be upset…”

Something you don’t want to hear 

at 5:00 in the morning:
Your alarm.

I heard all three of these today. Combine loss of blood, a burned lunch, and lack of sleep with an awful case of feeling icky, having to come in an hour early and stay an hour late at work, PLUS a marathon shopping trip for groceries… and I’ve had one crazy day.

However, the one good thing all those not so good things have in common is Timmy. Getting blood taken is much happier when you have a husband to hold your hand (and put cold ice on your head when you very nearly pass out). Having a husband willing to cook lunch for you every day is pretty fabulous (even if he does burn it sometimes). And having the alarm go off at 5:00 AM is better when your husband is also awakened to share the misery.

All that to say,
I like being married.
More specifically, I like being married to Timmy. 

 

(Even on those days when all we have to show for it

is a blurry picture of us pretending to smile.)

 

Some days are just blurry picture days. 

 

The End.

Gathered Fabric Flower DIY

My new favorite fabric flower making technique.

  

Materials Needed:

Fabric (I used lace)
Matching thread
Needle

Beads

Step One:

Cut out a circle. (It can be any size. Mine is about 4' in diameter.)

Step Two:

Sew a running stitch around the outside edge.

Step Three:

Pull on both ends of the thread to gather the circle.

 

Step Four:

Tie a knot, and push the outer edge into the inside of the flower.

Step Five:

Sew beads into the center.

Ta-da! So simple. 

These romantic blooms can be used in a variety of ways. I grouped mine with two other flowers and added an alligator clip to the back, using felt.

Darling.

A Conversation: About Eating

Me: Babe, you should eat a bagel before bed.
You didn't eat dinner - you must be hungry!

Tim: *whining* But eating a bagel is just SO much work…

Me: I'll toast and butter it for you!

Tim: But you can't help me chew.

If I were to pick a favorite,
today would be the day.
Time keeps moving quickly
and there is hardly time to stay.
Right here in this moment,
I am happy as can be.
At 19 Months of living,
and of being “you and me”.
Each day that comes and passes,
is better than the last.
Because we’re one day closer,
and life is moving fast.
Today is like a treasure,
and treasure it we may.
For if I must pick a favorite,
today would be that day. 

(Happy 19 Months, Babe!
Every day with you is
my favorite one yet.) 

60 days until Spring…

B&T 2010

 
Sometimes I get big ideas in my mind and I estimate the time it would take to create these big ideas to be much less than what is actually true. This was the case with Timmy’s Christmas present. I decided to make him a book of our past year, complete with daily activities, quotes, conversations, and photos. It ended up being a little bit more of a project than I anticipated. As in, I spent every free second I had working on it, and I still didn’t get it totally done in time for Christmas. (Tim promised he didn’t mind.)  

I guess I should be happy that it isn’t too easy
to sum up our last year of living.

It was a huge job, and a little overwhelming. But as I looked back through hundreds of pictures, my daily planner, and my blog, I became more and more thankful for all that 2010 has been, and how blessed I am to have a handsome husband like Timmy to live my years with.

The book starts out with a little section full of fun facts and charts and graphs about our year. Tim loves graphs, and it was pretty fun to gather statistics, like where we'd been, how we spent our time, and how many times we ate at Chipotle per month. 

 

There is a section for each month of our year,
with a highlight page beginning each new section. 

I’ve never been good at keeping a diary, but I have adopted a new method for keeping track of days,
and it works very well for me. Every year I buy a small monthly planner, and every day I write just a sentence or two, detailing a little bit of what we did that day. 

It’s easy, and because there isn’t much space, I’m forced to only write a little bit. It’s perfect for me, and it’s so fun to glance back at “last year on this day” and see what we did. Usually it’s just things like, “Grocery shopping. Pizza dinner. Scrabble game.” 

It is fun for me to see our marked days, and how we spent them together. And my monthly planner was invaluable when making Tim’s book. It’s easy to forget the little things, like the night we got our hair cut together, or our first picnic of the year, but I thankfully had it all on record. 

I rounded up 12-15 photos from each month, and printed them on photo paper. 

For captions, I found quotes of different things Tim or I said or wrote during the year, explaining what was happening in the photo. This part probably took the longest, as I did a lot of searching through emails, love letters, and blog comments to find the perfect caption for each photo.

 

Timmy says so many hilarious things. I share lots of them, but for every one I share, there are ten other ones I don’t (or can’t) share. Every time he says something particularly funny, I jot it down somewhere and add it to my file of funny “conversations”. 

I started this when we first began dating, so I have a very extensive file by now. I took some of the best 2010 conversations and added them to Timmy’s book. (I think this was his favorite part.)

I tried to keep it simple (and it still took me forever to finish!), and bought a pretty binder at Target to house the pages. I started out doing it another way (more complicated) but then was inspired by Jamie's inspiration from this. I love the simplicity, and since I want to be able to continue this project into the coming years, simple is important.    

Timmy loved his present. We read it from start to finish together, and it was delightful for us to relive our year, remembering lost memories and realizing all over again how very blessed we are. I picture our children looking at this someday, and I hope they can catch a glimpse of who their parents were when they were young, just married, and blissfully in love.