A Saturday | 11.26.16

These kinds of weekends are my favorite.

No plans.

A little cleaning.

The sun shining in through the billowy curtained windows.

And my sweet napping Rowan.

Happy Saturday.

A Lost Pregnancy Archive | 11.25.16

I decided I wanted to get into blogging (AGAIN, I know!), and upon typing in that www.blogger.com into the search bar, this little number came up as a draft.  Rowan Michael Nelson is now 7 months and 19 days old.  Reading something like this makes me want to document and inspires me to document what's going on in our lives.  To have something like this to look back on that depicts exactly how I was feeling at that time is amazing, because this feeling I wrote about below has now been completely lost in the chaos of life.

Without further ado, thoughts from a 6 and a half month pregnant soon-to-be momma.

"Today, I am exactly 27 weeks and 4 days pregnant with our growing baby boy.  The third trimester is popping up fast (and so is my belly button, amiright??) yet not.

Here's my answer when anyone asks anything regarding my pregnancy.

"It's going by fast but feels like forever at the same time."

I really can't believe I'm almost into my third trimester, and it's so true what they say, the second trimester is the. best.  My first trimester was horrible.  Those days were the longest days I've ever encountered (in reality they were actually the shortest because I was asleep by 6:30 - 7 pm every night).  I was sick everyday.  Every. Single. Day.  And of course everyone I asked about morning sickness (who ever thought to call it that anyway?) and nausea said "No, I didn't really experience it."  I wanted them to spend a day in my shoes ohhh so badly.  I had quite a few good cries, telling Jordan how hard it was because it felt like my body was turning against me.  My appetite was at absolute zero, yet I needed to eat to keep my strength up and function AND, counterintuitively, try to dismiss my sickness.  How backwards is that?!  I missed so many events because I just couldn't handle going out, fearing I wouldn't be able to keep my lunch down, and just being too tired to go out for more than 3 hours.  But finally, in week 16, it ended.  The forever first trimester woes had finally ended.

As I'm nearing the end of my second trimester, the joys of becoming a mother have overwhelmed me.  It's so cliche to say "We can't wait to meet him!" but seriously, we can't wait to meet him. 

The moment when we found out he was a boy, I was shocked, delighted, oh so emotional, and I just felt like everything was finally put into perspective.  It started to feel really real.  That will forever be one of the best moments of my life.  I have a little boy, MY little boy, growing and experiencing his first moments of life inside my growing belly, and ever since my love has been growing and growing.  And feeling him move, ugh, now THAT is the most amazing thing I have ever experienced.  My child, that I helped create, that was created out of the love I have for my amazing and goofy fiance, moves and wiggles and karate kicks, and tap dances around inside me.  I can't even begin to explain the joy that radiates through me when I feel those pounces."

Oh, how I miss this bump!

1 Year | 12.24.15

1 year ago today, around 7 o'clock in the evening, Jordan and I drove through downtown Fargo to look at Christmas Lights, came home and took the dogs to a moonlit park, I told him I wanted to be close to him forever, he got down on one knee and I said yes.

As magical as that sounds, only about 1 out of 10 houses we drove by actually had Christmas lights up, the park was actually a moonlit/streetlight-lit dog park, and the only reason I said I wanted to be close to him forever at that moment was because I was f***king freezing.  And then we came home so I could take a picture of the beauty on my flaking dry hand.

It was perfect.

SOME INSPIRATION | 12.24.15

I need inspiration.  Not just for creativity, but for my job, my sanity, and as my outlet.  I'd say for the past couple of years, my life has really lacked inspiration, and I'm not even really sure what inspires me anymore.

So, I'm looking to fix that.

LIFE UPDATE | 12.23.15

It's December 2015, and this year has felt crazy.  With my starting a new job last December, traveling all around the country for new stores and remodels, Jordan losing his job, being laid off for 3+ months, starting a new job, AND the biggest surprise of all... WE'RE HAVING A BABY!
Oh, side note, I also starting putting my wedding planning skills into full gear since we're still planning on getting married next September.  Speaking of 2016...

1. We're moving
We bought a house!  Hoorah, hooray, hoo-WEE!  And it's perfect!  Well, not aesthetically as of right now.  Let's just say, Jordan is going to become a painting expert.  We're painting every. single. room.  Not to mention the kitchen cabinets.  Oy, I still can't believe we're homeowners.
Once we found out we were having a baby we immediately started looking at houses, because the space we're in now is in no way going to fit a wee little human and all he (yes, HE, a boy!) has to offer.  Luckily about two weeks ago, we found a house in Jordan's hometown (about a 15 minute drive from where we're living now) with 4 bedrooms for our growing family, and a super humongo backyard for our two furry children to run and run and run their wintery hearts out.

2. The baby boy
The whole reason we needed to find a house so quickly.  Ya see here, baby R (yep, he has a name!) is coming in April.  April 5th to be exact (well not exactly, since um baby's don't get the whole "due date" concept), and our current lease is up at the end of May.  Now, it wouldn't be much fun getting everything ready for baby, going through the whole nesting, furniture building, decorating process only to have the move it all one month later.  I didn't want to do that, Jordan didn't want to do that, and baby R is definitely not going to want to do that, especially since he would probably have to hole it up in my office.  No more worries, baby R!  You have your own room!

3. The wedding
Wait, this is still happening?!  Yep, we're going to make it happen.  Err, well... try to make it happen.  I'm optimistic as of right now, but who knows how I'll feel after moving, having baby, and going back to work.  We have to have some kind of party though, because the photographer, musician, and ceremony/reception site has already been booked.  Not to mention my dress!  How could I forget the most important part?

2015 was a crazy year?  Pffff, it hasn't even started yet, and 2016 has already blown 2015 out of the water!  I'm just so gracious that I have wonderfully helpful parents and a loving supportive future husband/baby-daddy.  Does anyone else want to join in on the painting party?

WEDDING DIARIES // 1

Next September, 2016, I'm getting married (who, me?).  And so, as all future brides in this modern age now do, I've been perusing Pinterest like it's NOBODY'S BUSINESS.  I definitely know the aesthetic I want to go for; think very bohemian meets art deco meets I'm on a serious budget crunch.  I am on the biggest mission to throw a beautiful, totally "me" wedding while saving the most amount of money possible.  The biggest money-saver,I've read, is location location location, as any stuffy businessman will also tell you.  Living in North Dakota, there honestly are not many absolutely fantastic wedding venues to choose from, nor do I want to spend the cash on the ones that we do have around.  So here are a couple of options that I've chosen:

A park
Depending on what the weather will be like in September, I'm certainly swooning over an outdoor, lakeside wedding.  Well, ok, maybe it is a manmade lake (a reservoir if you will), but picture perfect nonetheless.  My worry?  Passers-by.  There's really no way to control who comes and goes from a public park.  That's why the park that I've been looking at has the option to rent our whole sections.  The best part?  It's in small town North Dakota!  Is there such a thing as, um, not small town North Dakota?  Anyway, this means that the price will be substantially cheaper than other traditional wedding venues.

My Parent's House
My mother was recently grilling me about the wedding.  I mean, c'mon woman, it's a year and a half away, RELAX.  But during this grill-session, she made the greatest offer a mother can: to have the wedding at my paren't house.  Being I'm from small town North Dakota (again, there's such a thing as not?), majority of families live out in the country.  Now, I know what you're probably thinking, farm.  But, no no, my father is by far not a farmer.  He's a geeky engineer.  Being that he is, he built a beautiful house that we moved into in 2007 that is HUGE.  With an even more HUGE front yard.  A beautiful sunny day, wearing a flowing lace wedding dress, taking pictures in the woods that I grew up in?  That sounds like it's straight my from girlhood wedding dreams.

Right now, I've yet to make any finite decisions, mostly because the thought of planning a wedding solely by myself makes me a bit nauseous and gives me a headache.  I know, I don't need to do this on my own, I could ask family and friends and so on, but I'm the kind of person who trusts no one else, SO I'M ON MY OWN, OK?!

Here's to wedding planning!

COMFORTABLE NEWNESS

We're getting a new couch!!

Exciting?!  Very.  This will be my and Jordan's very first really BIG adult purchase together.  I mean, I guess we did buy an TV console a couple of years ago, and we did buy a new mattress last year...

Anyway, this one is the most exciting because I, as in me, get to pick it out!  Jordan says he just wants something microfiber (for the dogs) and comfortable (for the J-dog).  Which, hey I can totally work with that.  The only problem?  We don't have access to many, let's say, on trend furniture stores.  It really is quite unfortunate.  I have been oooh-ing and ahh-ing at all of the glorious options the world wide web has to offer, and I'm really considering purchasing online, but I also want something NOW.  Like, RIGHT NOW.  And this week is clean up week in our city, so if we want to get rid of our old, broken, hairy, stinky, brown (eeesh, the WORST) couches, now is the perfect time to do so.  Oh, you want to see a picture of the atrocity?  With pleasure I will show you...

I don't even want to know how many times these have been peed on (thanks a lot, OBA - I mean LOKI).

But, hey hey, look on the bright (meh, more like gray) side.

1. Fillmore Sofa // 2. Landskrona Sofa // 3. Stockholm Sofa  // 4. Club Sofa // 5. Nockeby Sofa // 6. Pica Tufted Back Sofa // 7. Cloverdale Sofa

Of course, these are styles that I'm just lusting over that maybe aren't in our budget.  Here is a more accurate representation of what we'll probably be purchasing...

But hey, a girl can dream, right?