Birthday Part 1

So today is my birthday and I am 29! The last year in my 20's :(  BUT I'm thinking that the 30's really WILL be the new 20's..haha! I'll make sure of it! Tonight my parents are taking Brent and I out for my birthday. I am thinking Cheesecake Factory. It's a good birthday spot especially since they have tons of flavors of cheesecake to choose from for dessert! I am working today but I love those of my friends that take the day off of work for thier birthday. My co-workers brought out brownies( LOVE BROWNIES!! ) and a pretty sparkly card for me! They are a great group of people.

See..pretty sparkles! I think thatI have "I love Sparkly things" written on my forehead. haha

I have felt ssoooo special today! I have gotten cards, texts, calls, and sweet wishes from family and friends. I got a funny little email from my friend Shannon. It's actually an app on iPhone but you can record it and send through an email or text. It's this silly cat named Tom and you can say something to him and he will repeat it in a cute and very funny voice...


(Make sure to hit "replay" if the cat is not on the screen or it will play other people's cats...and I have no clue what the others say! Just a warning! :) )

                                 

:) I have watched it a dozen times today! It makes me giggle everytime.

And these beautiful flowers got delivered to me at work from my mother in law!

More to come later...

~Rachel~



An Early Birthday Celebration

My birthday is not till tomorrow but Brent got a small group of friends together to go celebrate my birthday this past Saturday. We met and had dinner at Rosepepper! I love that place. It's really delicious. They have a great patio that is covered and they also have fans going to keep it cool. It was really pleasant. There were 7 of us there and a few people couldn't make it for various reason but that's ok! I get the same thing everytime! I know I should venture out but the quesadilla is just too good. Shannon wasn't so impressed with a vegetable mixture on her plate so I ate that too :) The chips are delicious and so are the salsas. I always eat too many chips...but doesn't eveyone do that?!!

It's always fun to get together with friends! :)

          

20 Weeks!!..Halfway there!

Well, I have officially reached the halfway mark in my pregnancy! Yay! I expect some uncomfortable-ness to come along in the near future but I am still feeling great and have gotten use to having to sleep on my sides instead of my back and stomach...I don't like it but I have gotten use to it! I can't wait to sleep on my stomach again! 

Baby Rowen is now the size of a cantaloupe! That's pretty big :) His weight is about 9 ounces or a bit bigger, I am thinking. On our next doctor visit at the end of this month, we have an ultrasound along with a check up so we will get to see how big he has gotten since the last ultrasound...it will be a month since the last one. At the next ultrasound, Rowen is suppose to weigh about 12 ounces so we'll see if he is overly healthy :) Also at 20 weeks, crown to rump length is 6 1/2 inches. After 20 weeks, I should grow( my stomach that is should grow ) 1/2 an inch each week...Oh boy! The epidermis and the dermis are forming layers...surface and deeper layers of skin. "Your abdominal muscles are being stretched and pulled apart"...they sure are. My stomach is always pretty tight now. It's even tighter after
I eat! It's good to know that the abdominal muscles tighten back up after pregnancy! I am also doing a few standing ab exercises a couple times a week to keep them strong. My waist is definitely gone at this point and I'm wearing maternity clothes everyday. None of my pre-pregnancy clothes fit but of course that is normal!! I found a bathing suit @ Target that fits my growing body and Brent actually ordered a bathing suit for me for my birthday!...I picked it out of course :) So I now have some bathing suits that I can wear in Florida next week. 

 20 weeks( and 2 days ) June 12, 2011

A bit sunburnt in this picture!

I have definitely started to feel Rowen moving around. No kicking yet just movement. I can usually feel him the most in the evenings when I am laying still on the couch or in bed. Last night he was moving all around and I told Brent to give me his hand! Brent felt him for the first time last night. He said it kind of freaked him out! It is pretty weird and awesome at the same time. Now that I have been able to feel him move for about a week now, I have gotten use to it and just think it's really cool now. 

             

Wednesday Loves!...(there are lots of pictures!)

Today I am LOVING

all the pictures Libby Barker took at our Gender Reveal Party on May 28, 2011! She just posted them on my facebook yesterday so I am going to share them with y'all today :) To preface the pictures, many of y'all know that Brent and I chose to have a Gender Reveal Party to reveal to our family and friends if we were having a boy or a girl. So here is the party in pictures!

The theme was "Blue and Pink". So I tried to get everything that I could in those 2 colors! This was the food table's centerpiece that I threw together last minute. It's just a bunch of tissue paper in an apothecary jar.

This is the food table. We had everyone over at dinner time so we grilled burgers and hotdogs and had a slew of other foods like potato salad, fresh fruit, chips, etc...I made several "party poms" and put them around the house. I made those 2 that are hanging from the light fixture.

Of course the drinks had to go with the theme! The pink drink is pink lemonade and the blue drink is berry blue kool-aid. There were blue and pink straws as well!

I tried to make pink and blue desserts as well...these are oreos dipped in blue and pink died white chocolate.

Fudge swirled with blue and pink food coloring

Boy and Girl sugar cookies that I made from scratch :) There were also blue and pink rice krispie treats and blue and pink swirled hard candy in the flavor of cotton candy.

There were several activities for guests to particpate in. First was a basket of blue and pink leis that greeted everyone. You were to pick the color that you thought the baby was( Blue=Boy, Pink=Girl )and wear it for the night. Then the Blue Team and The Pink team would get a group picture later on. I made signs for each activity so everyone would know what to do.

Candy guessing game. Whoever guessed right w/out going over won the jar of candy. The pink candies were Hershey's Bliss chocolate with a raspberry creme filling and the blue candies were Hershey's kisses in cookies and cream and some were coconut. Mamaw( Brent's grandma ) won the pink jar and my mom won the blue jar....these jars held a lot of candy!

Vote for "boy" or "girl". I made the signs and then got smiley face stickers for everyone to cast theier vote with.

Baby name board. I took a corkboard and covered it with polka dot fabric that I found in the baby fabric section at JoAnn's. There were 3 boy names and 3 girl names on the board. Guests were to choose a boy name and a girl name that they thought we chose for our baby's name! Brent and I had already picked out the name that we were naming our baby so we got to reveal that to everyone at the party too :)

Boy's names: Beckitt, Rowen, & Warner

Girl's names: Hadley, Olivia, and Isla( I-la NOT Iz-la! )

We got group shots before the reveal:

BLUE TEAM

PINK TEAM

Now to the reveal( Brent and I actually found out the day before at the ultrasound appointment. We wanted to know before the party ). Even though I already knew, I was so nervous when it came time to reveal!!

We made cupcakes and injected them with the color of frosting for what we were having...So when everyone took a bite, the answer was there in the middle of their cupcake!

Everyone finding out that it is.....

A boy :) And his name is Rowen Thomas Easley.

Blue lei picture after the reveal

~ Rachel ~

Yummy!

Tonight Brent and I had one yummy dinner! We tried out a new recipe. We actually like to try out new recipes all the time but we put our own twist on them. Tonight was bowtie pasta with Italian sausage and marinara sauce! I got home tonight before Brent b/c my personal training clients cancelled so I made dinner :) I started by sauteing  half an onion and freshly picked basil from our wonderful basil plant! I sauted them in olive oil for about 7 minutes. 

After the onions got a bit translucent, I added the Italian sausage. Brent has started getting most of our groceries at Whole Foods. He got the Italian sausage there and it was SO good.

I let the sausage, onions, and basil cook for 15 minutes and then I added the sauce.

The sauce was one can of marinara sauce and one can of fire roasted tomatoes. It was a good combination. Now the actually recipe was very basic...pasta, sausage, sauce...etc...so 

I added onion and basil and fire roasted tomatoes and so on to make it even more delicious. So the sauce and sausage simmered for about 20-25 minutes while the bowtie pasta cooked. When the pasta was done, I added the sauce and sausage to the pasta.

And then topped it with parm!!

It was so so good! We will definitely be making it again. And unlike most italian meals, this was actually really light and nutritious :) We also had a salad of greens, edamame, cucumbers, black olives, and freshly grated cheddar cheese. It was one delicious meal!

                

Summer Maternity Wear...

So if I was not pregnant I would say that Forever21 is my most favorite store to go shopping at! Of course! My closet is literally 90% Forever21!! Well, since I can't shop there right now, I will say that Motherhood Maternity is my go to place for maternity clothes! They actually have cute things and are reasonably priced. I went last week to get summer wear. I don't want to spend tons of money on maternity clothes but I can't not buy summer stuff considering none of my skirts or shorts fit and I don't want to stretch out my regular size tank tops just to have them not be able to return to their normal size! Sooo, I went last week and there was SO much to choose from. I had a giftcard for $110 and I decided that it would all be spent on maternity clothes!! Let me tell you first how I got the giftcard...it's a great story :)

 

There is a research group in Green Hills and they conduct all types of different surveys... anything from household cleaners to jewelry! They need volunteers to come in and be part of focus groups. Actually you get paid for your time or I definitely wouldn't do it!  I probably get one email a week from them! You take a quick survey that is sent to you in your email to see if you might qualify for the study group or not. The study is usually in the next week from when they send you the email. Anyways, I qualified for one that they were having last week and it was about self tanners. So I showed up along with 7 other girls and waited patiently in the lobby last Tuesday evening. A lady called all the girls names but mine. I was like oh shoot the $110 giftcard I have been longing for is not going to happen! Wrong! They acutally overbooked for the survey and they didn't need me so I got to go home right away AND I got paid :) And did I mention the survey was from 7:30pm-9:30pm?! Yea, I was ecstatic to go home while I got paid for doing nothing!! So that's where the giftcard came from!

I found a ton of stuff at Motherhood Maternity. Here are  some of the things that I bought:

I got this tank top in the color above and in black, light pink, and a dark orangy color.

I got these shorts in khaki and grey

jean skirt

silky grey shorts w/a black ribbon belt

I also got this dress which I have on today and I wore to church yesterday

I bought this adorable light weight sleveless shirt! I was going to buy white shorts to go with it but the shorts were see through???!!! Ok, I passed on those!

And I found this shirt on the sale rack and had to get it b/c it has sequens on it!!

I think I am good on clothes for the whole summer! While I wish I wasn't having to spend money on these clothes that I will be wearing for only 20 more weeks, I had no choice! And I'm sure I will be wearing them later on down the road again! I'm oficiallly ready for the summer :)

~Rachel~