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Sunday, January 29, 2012

28 weeks, Hello 3RD Trimester!

Hey All! We are in the last trimester, wohooo! We are feeling awesome, actually we are really exhausted. We have been working on Brian's house non stop. I even took off a day of work this week to hit it hard. I spent 9 hours, cleaning, packing, throwing away stuff. I think I over did it. I was so sore the next day and have now been getting Braxton Hicks contractions. But hey that's okay we got so much done and it was well worth it! Brian has been working non stop on his house. Between his full time job and part time job that's all he does. He can obviously do a lot more than I can as far as move lots of the big heavy stuff, so keep up the good work babe, we are almost done! It's sure coming along and we are working all week this week on it as well.  Woohoo we can't wait to have it finished.

I have been working on our entry way table this week. This is a piece my mom got for our wedding. She found it on the side of the curb, yup another free one! Gotta love it. We used it for our Photo Booth. It was used to hold all our cute props. It was a minty green when we got it and we left it that color for the wedding. It was super cute. I posted pictures to my Facebook of me painting it gray, and then distressing it. Here is the final product, I'M OBSESSED!




Isn't she beautiful! Ahhhh I love it. I will say the pictures don't do this thing justice. All the detail looks amazing in person. I am even slightly obsessed with how well this turned out, that we might be doing the two dressers for the nursery with this color. It goes really well with the carpet, room color and our crib is a dark espresso color. PERFECT! We will see. Once we are done with Brian's house within the next week we will move our focus back to the nursery!

Baby Bump Pic: 28 Weeks- 3rd Trimester-7 Months

How far along: 28 weeks
Total weight gain: 21 pounds
Maternity clothes: None, just work pants
Stretch marks: I'm getting a few little red lines here and there. 
Sleep: Good, just needing more back rubs before bed from my sweet husband!
Best moment: Buying some adorable clothes for our cute little miss
Miss anything: I miss my ribs not hurting
Movement: Lots.
Food cravings: salads, oranges, pineapple, coke Slurpee's, and a little piece of chocolate after a meal.
Queasy or sick: nope
Showing: Oh yes!
Gender: Girl
Labor signs: nope, just Braxton Hicks
Belly button: It's still in and so is my belly button ring
Wedding rings: On
Mood: Happy!!! and Exhausted!
Looking forward to: finishing up Brian's house in the next week or so. We are praying all this hard work pays off soon!! :) 


Sunday, January 22, 2012

Teal Armoire finished & moved in!

This week we got our new piece of furniture moved into our kitchen, HORRAY! My mother and I worked on this piece together. She got it for free on the side of the road about a year ago. It's a huge piece that is nice and sturdy. It was originally an oak color. She then primed it white. Her and I painted it two coats with a teal paint. Then we sanded/distressed the crap out of this thing. Last we stained it with a dark dark dark wood stain. It turned out PERFECT! It only cost me a total of $23.00 for the paint and stain. AMAZING! This piece of furniture has lots of storage and will be used for baby items. Here she is, isn't she lovely?





While I was taking picture of this lovely piece I took some other pictures of our new carpet. Take a peek. I am in the process of redecorating so stay tuned for more updated pictures of the decor. The pictures really do not do the carpet justice. It's soooo shaggy and sooo cozy! But you will get the idea.



On to Baby bump pics
26 weeks

27 weeks



How far along: 27 weeks
Total weight gain: 21 pounds, Guess the Holidays were good to me! 
Maternity clothes: None, just work pants
Stretch marks: I'm getting a few little red lines on my upper leg but I'm lathering on lotion as much as possible
Sleep: good I'm switching side to side more.
Best moment: This week starting on the nursery with Brian
Miss anything: Nope
Movement: Lots. Her head is up by my ribs and her little feet are nice and low dancing on my bladder!
Food cravings: Oranges of course, and salads with Caesar Parmesan vinaigrette dressing. I've also gotten Coke Slurpee's a few times this week. MmMmMm
Queasy or sick: nope
Showing: Oh yes!
Gender: Girl
Labor signs: Nope
Belly button: It's still in and so is my belly button ring
Wedding rings: On
Mood: Happy!!! 
Looking forward to: Getting the Nursery completely painted and moving in the crib and furniture! I think when we do this it will feel even more REAL!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Christmas Crafts!

I forgot to take pictures of ALL the lovely things Brian and I made for our family members this year! One thing, we need to get is a picture of this huge frame thing we made his mom! Hope to get a picture of it soon to show all of you!

Here are some of the little things we got pictures of! We had lots of fun being crafty this past Christmas.

Yummie Oreo Truffles I made for all my Teacher Friends

Here are the Truffles all packaged up and ready to give/eat

Coasters I made out of tiles, scrapbook paper and modge podge. Here is one set. I made a total of 4 different sets.

Scarves made out of soft cozy jersey material with lace. I made a green one and black one.

Just trying it on to see if it looks good. Ignore my no makeup and pj's!

These next are my favorite. They are pictures frames. Made out of wood, knobs and rosettes/buttons. They really turned out adorable. We gave a lot of these to family and included our family pictures from our wedding, so fun!
Gray/Silver with cream buttons

Navy with black polka dot rosette

Light Brown with gray, cream and black rosette

Here is what it looked like with a picture attached!

That's it for now. Stay tuned for our new deep teal kitchen cabinet/pantry piece that is finished and ready for a sneak peak! It looks great. I'm just trying to figure out what fun decor to put on top of the cabinet and what to place on the wall next to the cabinet.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Is baby Shields a Little Sir or Little Miss?

Hey guys! We have been doing great and super busy. I'm back at work at school and have some dance stuff booooooo and Brian is back to working his full time job and part time job! So free time is limited. Which we still have a million things to do!

This week was it....... We got to do another sonogram to see our sweet little baby! Everything looks healthy, perfect and normal. We are so blessed. Our baby is measuring a little small which is fine, it will be a little petite baby as of now! And YES we found out the sex of our little one!! EEEKKK! We are beyond thrilled. We immediately called all our family! Before I reveal we tossed back and forth with having a reveal party for friends and family. We already had to cancel one because we didn't find out the first time. After Brian and I went back and forth we decided we wouldn't have a reveal party and just call all our friends to let them know because we just wanted to finally TELL people! And.....we have ONE million things we need to be doing and focusing on! I have a million projects to be done along with life itself!

Now on to the exciting news........







We are absolutely ecstatic to have a little girl. Brian is too sweet and one of the first things he said was that his heart would melt when he saw her! He then started talking future on the way home from the doctors office. He said, "Jen what are we going to do if our daughter wants to wear a thong when she is in high school? And will you have that conversation with her and tell her it's not allowed in our household?" I laughed SO hard! Good thing the baby comes out as a baby and we will have SEVERAL years before we even have to think about that!! Ohhhhhh Brian!!!

Here are the first two things we bought our Little Miss!!!

The first thing was:

Magenta snow boots! Marshall's $6.00

The second thing was:

A sweet little lace romper! In love!
Got this on groopdealz.com for only $10.00

Let the fun begin! Let the hair bow making begin! Let the clothes/onesie making begin! Let the nursery decorating begin! Let Brian & I's journey of being parents begin!! Woohooo! So excited! As far as names we have no names picked out. We have a list started though. The name will be a surprise when we have her. As far as the nursery, it will be painted soon. We have all our furniture we just need to refinish the dresser/changing table. And then I will begin crafts and decorating soon!! Yippee! Colors we are thinking: cream/white with accents of coral, gold and turquoise/teal/blues! We do not want something girly or babyish. We are going for more of sophisticated, chic, vintage and unique for our little miss! 

I believe Brian and I are going to be tackling the registering this Sunday. We are thinking Target and Buy Buy Baby. If any of my mom friends out there have suggestions on where to register? What's one thing I MUST register for? Message me!

This week at school one of my students who isn't normally sweet or really caring for that matter (hehe) said to me, "Mrs.Shields OH MY GOSH there is something really wrong with your feet, they are BRIGHT RED! Are you going to be okay?" haha. I responded with, "I'm fine, go sit down and stop talking in the hallway." Which then I realized well that was nice of him to ask me if I was okay.I knew if I said, "Oh it's just because I'm pregnant," then everything I did wrong or did my students will catch on and say "It's because she's pregnant." Sooo let the swelling begin. I'm trying to not be on my feet as much at school which is almost impossible. I've noticed that my feet will only swell if my room is hot or if I eat salty food. Which I hate salt so that's fine! Last week we had those 2 nice days outside and I noticed I started swelling in my feet too. Thank goodness the majority of my pregnancy it will be winter. Oh the joys! :)

Prego Pics:



How far along: 25 weeks, Almost 26
Total weight gain: 21 pounds, Guess the Holidays were good to me! 
Maternity clothes: None, just work pants
Stretch marks: I'm getting a few little red lines on my upper leg but I'm lathering on lotion as much as possible
Sleep: great! Love getting back rubs from the hubs right before bed
Best moment: Find out we are having a LITTLE MISS!!!!!
Miss anything: Nope
Movement: TONS, Love it and it keeps getting stronger and stronger
Food cravings: Oranges of course, and salads with Caesar Parmesan vinaigrette dressing (Yum, Yum, Yum) I will say Brian has been getting up in the mornings to make me salad for lunch because he makes them SO deliciously! He so sweet!!! :) Oh yes and how could I forget my first guilty craving is..... chocolate homemade milkshake that my sister makes! I mean REALLY to die for. I probably need to cut back to 1 a week. Shesh they are so gooood!
Queasy or sick: nope
Showing: Oh yes! I love when random kids at school stop me in the hall and say, "HEY Mrs.Shields you got a baby in there?" haha! What the heck who says that? Good thing I am pregnant and not just really chubby! 
Gender: Girl, Girl, Girl
Labor signs: Nope
Belly button: It's still in and so is my belly button ring
Wedding rings: On
Mood: Happy!!! My husband might not agree after I get home from work and haven't eaten is usually when I'm a little grumpy grumpy!
Looking forward to: Starting on the Nursery with Brian this weekend and registering for baby stuff! YAY!

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy 2012! How in the world can 2012 top 2011?

Happy New Year Friends! Holy smokes we can't believe another year has gone by. I wanted to dedicate this post to the amazing year of 2011. Brian and I would have to agree that this year was by far the best year of our lives! Talk about a year loaded with EXCITEMENT after EXCITEMENT. How can 2011 be topped? Well there might be a way.....

Best Memories of 2011:

 Brian and I got engaged Christmas 2010. Although it was 2010 technically I would consider this event as 2011! Just thinking about this time in our lives gives me goose bumps and brings butterflies to my stomach. The best moment was to see Brian get down on one knee and tell me that I couldn't be his girlfriend anymore because he wanted me to be my wife. OK... I'm already tearing up, darn hormones! But really this was one of the best days of my life. Just hearing him say this justified our unbreakable, undeniable love for one another! Not to mention it did help a little that he put a giant/gorgeous rock on my finger. :) That's besides the point though because I know that the important thing is what our rings symbolize! This was one day we sure will never ever forget.

The night we got engaged!


After our engagement we had a WORLD WIND of events happen especially since we were planning a wedding in uhhhh 5 months!! We pulled it off I must say! My best friend Angie's parents threw us an engagement party in January, with the help of our wedding party, SO FUN! We got engagement pictures takin by the talented Tim Fleenor in January. Our wedding party threw us a couple's shower in March! My sister threw us a beautiful bridal shower in April. My work threw us a bridal shower in May! My wedding party took me out to the Lake for my Bachelorette Party at the end of May, and threw me another one back in Kansas City in June! WHEW! Talk about something every single month, we were sure busy busy in a wonderful way!

Engagement Photos!

Bridal Shower with SarBear and G!

Bridal Shower with my beautiful sister and mama!

I am still bitter about this veil, sash and cup I had to carry, lol! just Kidding. Brrrrride! 
We had a blast at the Ozarks!



We bought our first car together. I had been leasing a new Jeep Liberty and we decided to buy it together. This was an exciting event knowing we were doing something together!

Our first car, together!


The wedding crafts! Someday not just yet I will blog about the million and one crafts myself, my talented husband, our family, and my sweet friends helped out with! Without them ALL we wouldn't of been able to pull the wedding off! I mean seriously when we weren't having a shower, party or event to attend for our wedding we were at home crafting and I mean CRAFTING AWAY! It made for a perfect, memorable, detailed wedding that's for sure!

Here is one of the projects, the alter we made out of old vintage doors and Brian created a doorway in the middle, so neat! Already thinking of how we can reuse this alter in our house. I think I have an idea, stay tuned! :)


Our wedding day. Awwwww sooooo amazing! Many of you know I've never dreamt about my wedding nor cared to have a wedding. My belief is that you get engaged to get married (hence the rather short engagement) and then it doesn't matter where you get married. All that matters is that you are making a commitment to the one person you are meant to be with for the rest of your life. I truly would have been okay with getting married in a courthouse, off on a beach by our selves, yup by ourselves! It didn't matter we could make this commitment anywhere and it would still have the same meaning! My testimony to this belief is my parents, who have had in my eyes a perfect, successful marriage of almost 30 years! Yup pretty amazing huh, well they got married in a courthouse. It's proof that it doesn't matter where you get married that is going to measure how successful your marriage is. I think this is partly of what's wrong with our society today. So many people get caught up in wanting their wedding to be perfect, perfect, perfect. Vomit! Well let me tell you......that's not going to measure the success of your marriage! And let me let you in on a little secret too..... no wedding is perfect. Things go wrong. Everything you could ever think of went wrong on our wedding day. Did I care, nope! I laughed, and said okay what's the plan now. Oh we are on plan Z! Great, we got this! Although everything went wrong, it was perfect to us! I would never change a minute of that day! We will remember it forever. I'm a little exhausted still from thinking about our wedding day, but to sum it up in one word..... perfect!

Although marriage is about compromise, which I figured this out quickly and I think this is why Brian and I are such a great team. Brian had dreamed of seeing his Bride walk down the aisle in a gorgeous white dress. So we compromised with a short engagement and a wedding. Yup I had to bite my tongue and put together a wedding to remember! Now our wedding was a bit over the top with the details and crafts let me tell you. Most of you that know me know that I only do things one way.... THE RIGHT WAY. lol So since my hansom groom begged and talked me into having an actual wedding I said, "Fine, then I am going all out and this is going to be the most gorgeous, vintage, elegant, detailed, EVENT EVER!" :) Right then Brian knew he had his work cut out for him! He kept up and did an amazing job at all the projects, creating and crafting!

Like I mentioned before our wedding day was the most hectic, crazy, bizarre, unreal, yet AMAZING DAY! Here are some pictures of how perfect it turned out. You would have never known that a micro burst came through and ruined the tent the night before, almost $30,000 worth of damage done. You would have never known several tables and chairs flew into the fields and snapped in half . You would have never known that the port-a-potties ended up in the fields. You would have never known that several lanterns broke and glass was all over the back yard. You would have never known there were tree limbs in the pool, glass in the pool and chairs in the pool. You would have never known the new tent wasn't set up till almost 5pm. You would have never known the WHOLE wedding party was sweating bullets trying to get everything set up until 6:15. The wedding started at 7. You would have never known that I didn't get into my dress until 6:30. You would have never known that Brian and I had to schedule another date to take pictures together because we ran out of time. You would have never known that my ring didn't come in that day. I could keep going but I think you get the point!!! This day was one to remember. All that mattered is that Brian and I were officially husband and wife. There was no ruining our day, that's for sure! We were willingly ready to overcome any challenges that stood in our way. I think this says a lot about us as a couple! We can get through anything. We have been through a lot of things over the course of our relationship, so we know in our hearts that their isn't anything we can't get through! This love story ended happy as "Mr. & Mrs. Shields". We officially were married and starting the journey of the rest of our lives together as husband and wife!






After our amazing wedding day, we headed to our honeymoon. The exotic Costa Rica. We were able and fortunate to stay for 2 weeks. Which was much needed after our exhausting yet perfect wedding! :) We did some amazing outings and got to relax too! We stayed in this beautiful all glass house on top of the mountains. We went to the beach for a few days, horse back riding in the mountains, got massages, zip lining through the rain forests, saw volcanoes, got to see coffee plantations, cigar factory, several water falls, cooked many meals together, met some great people and really got to experience the rain forest! Simply a trip we will remember forever!














































As soon as the Honeymoon was over Brian and I moved in together! FINALLY! SO wonderful. I am a huge advocate for not living with your spouse until your married. It was one of the best decisions we made as a couple. It was that much more special when we were able to move in together and share our lives together as husband and wife! It was awesome! Brian's moved in now. However, we are crazy and still have 2 houses! Yup, 2. We are in the process of getting his house rented out and eventually sold! It's a process and there was one little thing that has slowed us down.....

The next big thing in 2011..... The announcement of BABY SHIELDS! Okay okay okay who are we kidding, 2011  was amazing and unforgettable but there is one thing that could top it..... The arrival of Baby Shields! :) Knowing it's 2012 and this is the year our child will be born is so crazy to wrap my brain around! We couldn't be anymore excited to bring this new little one into the world!

So all these events sum up our 2011. This year was a true blessing! One our best years yet! Here are some thoughts for 2012!

Here was my New Years Kiss, I'm so lucky and can't wait to share many many many many more years with this special man!!


HAPPY 2012 FRIENDS & FAMILY! 
WE sure love you all and love all your support!!