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[hannalo630]

My sweet friend gave baby girl her first pink item in her wardrobe. It's a bit foreign to own baby clothes so girly and it gets me a bit giddy. :) At 21 weeks, I'm starting to feel baby girl's kicks and summersaults more regularly. I'm also feeling more pressure in my belly and heavier overall while doing everyday activities. When bending down to bathe my son, I feel my pregnancy more. In my Zumba class last week I definitely felt more weight in my belly. Oh dear and I still have a bit more to go!!!

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It's a girl!!!!!! :)

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I'm so excited to have discovered these two new eyeliners that are currently my favs. The NARS Larger than Life in "Via Venuto" is perfect for tightlining. It doesn't smudge on me over time which is a huge plus because so many other eyeliners, including the beloved Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-on liners, smudge on my oily eyes! Then I picked up Kat Von D's tattoo liner in "trooper" and I love how the tip is so thin and you can really get close to the lash line. It's easy to achieve the winged eyeliner with this pen too! I also prefer the brush tip vs the felt tip in the Eyeko eyeliner that I previously was using. The Kat Von D's liner is even skinnier than the Eyeko liquid liner by the way! love love. 

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The birthday celebrations continued with dinner at Pampas tonight. It's a Brazilian steakhouse in Palo Alto and we both ate too much. But we prepared for it by skipping lunch today :) here's a pic of us before leaving the house. thankful for date nights and sweet babysitters!!

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18 weeks today! The baby is now the size of a bell pepper at 7 oz. I’m feeling the baby’s kicks more consistently now which is so exciting! Yesterday we celebrated my husband’s birthday and the baby kicked just at the right time he touched my belly. I guess baby was saying “happy birthday daddy!” Either that or he/she was responding to the rainbow jello I ate :)

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My Pregnancy So Far

I haven't been documenting my pregnancy journey anywhere. I was a lot more diligent with my first, surprise surprise. I even got the belly book to write my weekly pregnancy musings, but yea no book or journal this time around. Just busy chasing around my active toddler, but I thought I should jot down some thoughts even at 17 weeks while I have some time and energy to blog. Better late than never, right? 

So far my second pregnancy has been very similar to my first. Morning sickness was minimal and I only remember about one week where I really didn't want to cook. My first pregnancy I remember eating out a lot more my first trimester, but maybe because it was easier to go out without a toddler. Cravings have also been pretty similar, nachos/burgers/fries/pizza...you know, healthy stuff :) That is up until last week! I was shopping at TJs and for some odd reason, I was attracted to pick up ONE organic grapefruit. This might not be odd for some of you, but I can't remember ever in my life eating/buying grapefruit. I recall trying a piece of it once but I had an adverse reaction to it being tart. So anyway, I bought it and ate it that afternoon and I just ate the whole thing up! The following week of grocery shopping included not one but two grapefruits, I know, it's getting wild folks. And you bet I devoured them too. Up until this newfound love for grapefruit, I really had no "gut feeling" of the gender of my baby. I leaned towards baby #2 being a boy by default because I was eating so similarly to my first pregnancy. Now I have a strong feeling that maaaaybe baby is a girl. *squeel!!* My next ultrasound is just shy of two weeks and I'm so giddy to find out whether or not my mommy feeling is right. If it turns out to be a boy, maybe grapefruits are just REALLY good this season. Before I move on, one last story on this topic. Today we went to Ici Ice Cream which is delish btw, and I sampled a few flavors of interest. I also sampled by husband's samples one of which was a strawberry rose-geranium sorbet. I'm typically a coffee, chocolate, peanut butter flavor type of gal. To my husband's surprise I ordered a scoop of the sorbet and he said "Wow, I've never seen you order a sorbet before...'hey baby girl' (rubbing my belly)." And my dinner of choice tonight was a salad. So yes....my world is real cray-cray right now. :)    

In terms of fatigue, I do feel more tired this time around. Perhaps because I have to watch over another human being that is constantly demanding my attention. But I try to take naps while he naps once a day, it's for my sanity. :)

I would say I was a lot more anxious in my first trimester this pregnancy. Perhaps its because over the past 3 years since my first pregnancy, I've known a lot more of my friends who miscarried, even with their second. I know that ultimately all things are gifts given by God so I'm counting my blessings and giving thanks each day he chooses to sustain this precious life within me. :) If I've forgotten anything else, which I'm sure I have, I'll just blame it on the prego-brain. 

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My 10 week belly and my first born :) praying for a smooth pregnancy! 💗 praise God!

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Confession

I have a major problem and it's overeating. Why do I do this to myself?? Any helpful tips to avoid overeating when I'm starving before my meal? I'm in regret mode right about now, per usual.

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Empty to Fill

More quotes from the wonderful "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp.

"A life contemplating the blessings of Christ becomes a life acting the love of Christ." 

"whenever man is made the centre of things, he becomes the storm-centre of trouble. The moment you think of serving people, you begin to have a notion that other people owe you something for your pains...You will begin to bargain for reward, to angle for applause." -D.Sayers 

"The work we do is only our love for Jesus in action." writes Mother Teresa. "If we pray the work...if we do it to Jesus, if we do it for Jesus, if we do it with Jesus...that is what makes us content." 

"Christian hands never clasp, and He doesn't give gifts for gain, because a gift can never stop being a gift -- it is always meant to be given." 

"Spend the whole of your one wild and beautiful life investing in many lives, and God simply will not be outdone. God extravagantly pays back everything we give away and exactly in the currency that is not of this world but the one we year for: Joy in Him." 

"I slept and dreamt life was joy, I awoke and saw life was service. I acted and, behold, service was joy." 

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A blurry/dark pic but a happy one! The day after valentines we went out on our first date in way too long at Flemings steakhouse, yum! It was a well needed date bc we actually had a little tiff the night before. Though in our natural state we'd prob stay selfish and mad, God's redeeming love prevails. This is our 7th valentines together and I'm thankful to God who shows us how to love each other more and more each year. To God be the glory!! I love you husband. ❤️

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Pizza making night for valentines! This is z's "cheese" face. Teehee.

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Sweet valentines snail mail from J. Everything this girl touches turns into serious beauty. 💗💗💗 thanks!

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The Shopping Mom

Yesterday I was having a bit of a rough day and by the end of it I just about had enough. For a quick and easy pick me up I turned to some friendly online shopping. Shortly after I happily submitted my order, I received a package from my previous week's online purchase which was also the result of retail therapy. I opened my package and didn't even like anything I bought so I quickly repackaged what served as a momentary high last week. Discouraged, I thought to myself "why do I waste so much energy browsing online, purchasing things that mostly end up going back to the store?" Then it occurred to me that perhaps I've become enslaved to the feel-good aspect of shopping. Somewhere along the way, I had become an impulsive and emotional shopper. It's hard for me to admit because never in the past had I used shopping as a means of feeling better about some lack. 

I've been trying to figure out the reason for this new struggle. It took me over a year of processing to fully identify the root because it all started out so innocently. When I first became a mom, I found myself frequenting malls/Target more than before because I needed to pick up stuff for the baby or needed to kill time till the next nap. These innocent trips to the store coupled with my growing struggles as a new mom slowly gave birth to my emotional shopping. As a new mom, I found myself giving fully to a dependent and helpless being who demanded my attention 100% of the time, without an ounce of appreciation in return. This stretches you in ways unlike anything else and can drive you to both physical and emotional exhaustion. I feel like I do SO much but at the same time feel like I accomplish little. Yes, I'm raising another human being which is AMAZING but the fruit of my labor is realized so slowly. Even though I try to remind myself that motherhood is a high calling, the struggle of feeling small is very real some days. Battling with this day in and day out over the first year, I've slowly bought into the lie that being a mom means that I'm insignificant. This revealed that I felt more so-called self worth before I became a mom whether it was as a student or working professional. It's ironic because my dream job growing up has always to become a mom one day and I was willing to give up my career when I found out I was pregnant. 

While wrestling with these new emotions, I realized I've loosened my grip on truth and my God who sustains when I have should have been holding fast all the more. I slowly turned to shopping which offered instant gratification and in an odd way a feeling of productivity. I now realize that I need to redefine "productivity" because it was easy to feel accomplished as a student/working professional with each new milestone. As a mom, doing 3 loads of laundry, changing diapers, preparing meals, and washing dishes doesn't quite achieve the same feeling of "yes! I've reached my goal for the day." It takes quite a bit more effort to look past all these menial tasks to see long-term. And to be honest, most days I don't have that kind of energy. But praise God he gives me a reason to strive each day.  

The fact that I personally didn't struggle with impulsive shopping earlier in my life isn't because I was stronger, but it's because I was able to hide behind a false security tied to my success as a student/working professional. Now that I'm stripped down to the core I feel exposed and have nothing to hide behind and I have the opportunity to take an honest look at my faith. Previously I thought I identified my life in Christ alone but now I feel challenged to reconsider that it might have been mixed with other aspects of my life. I guess this is why people say having kids sanctifies you like nothing else because you're really pushed to your limits which makes you more dependent on God. I want to rededicate my life fully identified in Christ alone so I wouldn't rely on meaningless and momentary pleasures. I'm thankful that God chases me even still.

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When we found out that we were pregnant with my son (now 4), my husband and I became one of those “new parent” couples. We researched together, shopped together and made every choice surrounding th...

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I've been toying around with some bronzers. I first purchased NARS Laguna but wasn't sold on it. I've always heard good things about the Hoola bronzer so I decided to give it a shot after months with the Laguna bronzer. I feel like the Hoola bronzer is so much more pigmented than the NARS and it's completely matte, whereas Laguna has the tiniest bit of shimmer. Hoola takes the cake for me! 

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This girl can siiiiiiiing!