Almost to the 3rd Trimester!

It's hard to believe how quickly this pregnancy is going! On Saturday we will officially be at 25 weeks, putting us just a couple of weeks away from reaching the 3rd trimester! Since our last post, we learned that baby Bean is a girl! :) We will be naming her Ellie Cathleen. Before you ask, I'll go ahead and tell you that the name Ellie doesn't really have any significance to either of us. However, Cathleen is my mom's name, so Ellie will share part of her name and that obviously is a purposeful and special choice for us. 

Our gender reveal picture

According to many of my weekly baby updates, Ellie is approximately 13.5 inches long and 1.5 lbs at this point. She's been very low all of my pregnancy, which has been frustrating at times. I can't see her kicks very well over my belly, and she's kicking in not-so-nice places. That can get a little tiring. However, she responds to specific voices at this point. She LOVES her daddy and will consistently always kick his hand when he says hello to her. :) It's pretty precious. She's hearing more and more of my parents voices too, so I'm expecting her reaction to them to increase soon. Ellie loves worship time during church, but seems to adore our lead pastor Steve Poe, and typically kicks his entire sermon each week. 

Watch us grow!

We've celebrated a few milestones in the past month. My parents celebrated their 33rd wedding anniversary on May 3rd (woohoo!) and Ben and I celebrated meeting/knowing each other for a year on June 3rd. ;) Life certainly has changed from that first date at Starbucks and Steak 'n Shake. 

                                      

One year!

June 3rd I also wrapped up a major milestone in my life. That was officially my last day at ZMS teaching. I had been preparing myself mentally for quite a while... I slowly took things home so my room looked less and less like my space for the last couple of months. I started saving things early and sharing stuff with staff that I knew was returning so that things could get used again in the future. But the inevitable happened on that last day... I bawled my eyes out. Two of my favorite people retired this year, so a lot of my emotional mess was partially tied to celebrating their amazing teaching careers, but when it came time to turn in my keys and walk away I simply couldn't stop crying. I have no doubt in my mind that I'm going to treasure being able to stay home with Ellie, and be the one who helps her reach developmental milestones, but it is also going to be a big shock to this over-achiever's system when August arrives and I'm not heading back to long days of working with my resource kiddos. I'm abundantly thankful for the time I had at ZMS and the lessons I've learned are innumerable. The staff is amazing and the kids have been a blessing. All that said, I've spent the past seven years pouring my heart into those kid's lives and now it's time to do the same for my own munchkin. 

Farewell, my friend.

Last, but not least, we celebrated Father's Day last weekend. It's Ben's first official/unofficial Father's Day and I can't describe how excited I am to see him hold his baby girl for the first time. (Soon enough!) He's going to be amazing, and based on how she already responds to him, I know that she's going to very quickly have him wrapped around her finger and adore him for life. I'm so blessed to have him, my dad, and my brothers as amazing, Godly men to help encourage and support Ellie to know how amazing she is as she grows up. 

Some of my many special men!

Coming soon... Update on Ellie's room transformation! Guest bedroom update! Mini-McClew family reunion and 4th of July festivities.

Hope everyone is doing well! <3

Surviving the 1st Holiday Season

I think it's fair to say that things have been just a little busy around here since our last post. The Holiday Season hit with a bang just a few short weeks after our wedding, and so life was off and running. We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with Ben's family on Thanksgiving Day and then met up with my parents, brother Ryan and sis-in-law Lauren, and adopted sis Jess for the Church Thanksgiving on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, Ben had to work a lot during this time and his schedule was frustrating during an already really busy month of December. He worked a lot of odd hours and a lot of late hours which does not translate well for a teacher who gets up at 5:30 every morning. We made it through though! December is a busy singing season for me. I once again was blessed to participate in Northview's Christmas concert the 1st wknd in December and helped lead worship a couple of other weekends that month. We somehow squeezed in birthday parties and other holiday parties in that month too... have I mentioned it was busy yet? ;)

 

Christmas Eve is the time that my family has chosen to celebrate Christmas. This started probably 8 years ago and has worked as our families have expanded. I treasure going to church with everyone that evening, enjoying dinner together, and then celebrating with a few gifts. This year was no exception and I enjoyed the different exchanges we decided to do this year. We did 3 different exchanges; the first one was an individual gift where we didn't spend more than $20 on that person, the second gift was a family gift that was a DIY gift that we had to create ourselves, the third gift was an ornament exchange for one family that would represent their year. It was fun to see our already creative family be creative & crafty...they did not disappoint. :)

  

Ben's family didn't have any specific drawings or exchanges, but they also did a DIY Christmas. We loaded up on tons of yummy treats and we also got my new favorite blanket to snuggle with. It's so fuzzy and warm and has dog bones on it. It's like they know we like dogs! ;)

 

Jackson caught snuggling in my new blanket

 

Just a few short days after Christmas was over, Ben and I hopped on a couple of planes and headed south for our long-over Honeymoon! We went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and stayed at the Dreams Villamagna All-Inclusive Resort. We had such a great time! The resort was a lot of fun (I highly recommend the upgrade for the Preferred Club...worth the money!). The food was excellent, the pools were relaxing, the service was unreal, and we very much enjoyed all of the hotel's amenities. We walked the beach, read poolside, jumped waves in the ocean while the sun set, and listened to the waves crash while we enjoyed our private balcony jacuzzi.

Our view from the top floor suite!

 

                                               

 

Quick sunset pic before heading to dinner!

In the middle of our trip, we took an excursion into town and went ziplining up in the mountains. Ben had never been ziplining before, and honestly I can't say that my experiences with ziplining in Indiana can really count after this experience. In Indiana, you zipline from tree top to tree top. While that's exciting for the flat lands of Indiana, it definitely was not comparable to our experience in Mexico going over 30 mph from mountain top to mountain top. There were 9 ziplines on our excursion and on the longest one (1/2 mile long), Ben and I both got to ride with a guide and hang upside down the whole time! It was awesome!

 

After ziplining!

Returning home to cold Indiana was a rude awakening after the warm 80 degrees we enjoyed in Mexico, but we were looking forward to a little normalcy returning to our lives. Ben got to work right away on updating our kitchen, and while I may be biased, I'm telling you- he did an amazing job. For whatever reason when the builders of this house put in my kitchen they left a 5 ft gap between the end of the counter top/cabinets and the wall. It was a total waste of space, so Ben added cabinets (I have more than 2 pull-out drawers now!!!) and installed a beautiful new counter top in the whole kitchen. The change was small compared to most kitchen remodels, but it's been such a nice improvement to the space. Later, he's going to add crown molding to the top of the cabinets and dress it up a little more too! :) He's so good.

 

What the kitchen looked like when I bought it in 2009.

One picture of what it looked like after I painted the cabinets and added new hardware. You can see the random gap that I was referring to earlier.

The new cabinets and counter top! Complete with built in dog bowls (thanks, Pinterest!).

 

And that gets you caught up to about the 2nd week in January. I think it's safe to say we survived our first holiday season with a bang! :) Merry Christmas to each and every one of you!