I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.


To think it wasn't possible for me to get more tired and uncomfortable. This week was definitely a rough week where I wanted to (and did) stay in bed majority of the day. I am still trying to follow my previous pregnancy bedtime routine and it helps some and as I mentioned in my 28 Week Update, I did try 30 minutes of Yoga and that did help tremendously on that day. I was very sore in the groin area the next day so I took it easy and skipped Yoga for two days as I was told you can still over due it even if it's just simple stretching. Despite my discomfort and exhaustion, I love feeling all these kicks and movements from baby boy. Although I have to pee a billion times a day and sometimes I feel like a boulder is sitting on my lungs, his kicks remind me that he is there and growing stronger.

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.

We are officially in the third trimester!! Almost at the finish line so I decided it was yet time again to start doing my bump dates in a weekly format as once my third trimester is over, I will be too busy figuring out life as a mom to a newborn and a toddler. Along with sharing my updates on this ever growing baby bump, I may also include my third trimester style within these weekly updates if and when I find the energy to actually get dressed. You are also more then welcomed to follow me on Instagram as I am on there daily.

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.

The time has finally come my friends to share Sophia's nursery with you all. It's funny that this journey started in December of 2015 with a goal to be finished by March 2016, ha. That clearly did not happen as we are already more than halfway through 2017. All in all, I am sort of glad that it took this long to complete as it gave me time to finalize certain details that I was unsure of without feeling rushed to do so. The biggest reasoning for taking so long with this room is simply put, budget. You can find the full source list here!

Although I must admit, we only spent about $100 on this room. How? Everything was gifted or was purchased with gift cards or monetary gifts Sophia received from our baby showers, Christmas and her first birthday. So my biggest advice for anyone designing a nursery or a toddler room is to save up those gift cards and monetary gifts to be used where actually needed. Sophia has plenty of toys and clothes that she is gifted throughout the year that we rarely need to spend any of those monetary gifts on those items.

I hope you guys enjoy this peek into our home as this is a room I truly love spending time in and I enjoyed every minute designing it and styling it.

Thank you PinkBlush for collaborating with me on this post. As always, all thoughts and opinions are of my own.

When I was pregnant with Sophia, I was lucky enough to not have to endure a full summer of pregnancy and I actually joked that Anthony and I would have to work on our timing for any future pregnancies so that I wouldn't have to go through summer being pregnant. Of course, I was halfway kidding as we know all too well that the Lord is in control no matter how much planning or cycle/fertility tracking you may do. 

Hey guys! So today's post has been a long time coming. Like 9 months coming. About the time it takes to gestate a baby coming. Although I have a baby gestating as we speak, that's not what today's post is about. It's about our trip to New York... last Fall. 

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.

After having a Gender Reveal for our first pregnancy (see here), there was no way I couldn't do one for this little babe as well. I know the norm is typically going all out for your first and coasting through with any other pregnancies but it just didn't sit right with me and I want this baby to see that we love it just as much as we love Sophia regardless of what order they were born in.

However it was tough deciding how exactly we wanted to do the reveal this time around. If you remember with Sophia, I had it planned for years before we even were pregnant. We played with different ideas such as throwing a softball since I played on a softball league during my first trimester or somehow incorporating it with basketball since that is Anthony's favorite sport to play. We even thought of doing it the exact same way of Sophia's Gender Reveal but decided against that as we wanted it to be different.

The ideas we ultimately went back and forth with were with silly string or smoke bombs. Smoke bombs would have been perfect, in our opinion, if we were going to have the party closer to Fourth of July. Also, I let Anthony take the lead on this reveal since he didn't have any say so in the first and he had a vision in his mind of having everyone included by spraying the silly string with us to reveal whether Baby Ramirez 2017 was a he or she. I'll stop my rambling now and share the amazing moment of finding out.

The Reveal

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.

My first trimester was more of the stereotypical which was the total opposite of my pregnancy with Sophia (read more here). This time around I had fatigue, heartburn, nausea, food aversions, sore nipples which made breastfeeding fun (read more about my breastfeeding experience with Sophia here). I even started to wear maternity pants immediately although I could have gotten by with regular pants for a little while longer but maternity ones are much more comfortable so I thought what the heck.

As some of you may know, I have begun reading the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I have heard so many great things about this book and how it has truly helped others get rid of the clutter in their homes and become more organized. 

Before a few years ago, I never gave much thought into breastfeeding. I was so accustomed to seeing my family use formula that I didn't really understand that there was another option. In my entire life before pregnancy (so about 20+ years), I have only seen breastfeeding twice. The first time I witnessed it was from the movie "Me, Myself and I" and of course they perverted the act of breastfeeding and the second time I witnessed breastfeeding was when a family friend breastfed her baby boy when I was in high school. 

I decided to document our pregnancy as a way to get all my feelings and emotions out and to later look and remember this beautiful time in our lives while noticing the differences and similarities with our first pregnancy. I hope you enjoy if you decide to follow along on this life changing journey.

There I was again sitting on the floor in the closet waiting for the results to pop up on that screen, Anthony was in the kitchen with Sophia. When pregnant popped up, I couldn't believe my eyes. Here we already have a beautiful 11 month old daughter and the Lord would gift us with another life growing inside of me and we didn't have to wait years like with Sophia. 

I have written this post many times in my head and I guess it's time I finally put it into actual writing (typing?). I guess I just have been holding on and not wanting to do a yearly update because then I'd have to admit my baby is a one year old. To be exact she is now 14 months old and has grown so much in the two months since turning one. 

This post was created in partnership with Milestone World but all thoughts and opinions are of my own.

Hey guys! It's been a while since we last chatted. Let me explain my absence a bit. If you remember from this post I gave extra income ideas as I was playing with ways to make money since our family was downsizing to one income. Obviously when Sophia was born that happened. 

At the beginning of this year, I started babysitting at home and it has been a challenge as I'm use to Sophia's independence and when I finally have a breather I just want to curl up on the couch with a good book which is what I have been doing (many book reviews to come). However this has gotten me behind on my monthly updates of Sophia.

This post is sponsored by HelloFresh but all thoughts, opinions, and adorable baby are of my own.

Imagine me loading up a 91 year old woman and a 9 month old baby to take a trip to the grocery store because that is what literally happens every other week. Sometimes I make a list, sometimes I don't, it is what it is. One of two things happen, I either forget an ingredient and I absolutely will not reload everyone back up for just one or two items, or I overbuy because why don't they sell fresh cilantro in sticks?? Like I do not need the whole thing, I need maybe a handful of leaves but that is it and I am done. I have even tried growing my own cilantro (remember my garden box? Yeah nothing survived).

This post was created in partnership with DockATot but all thoughts, opinions and night sleeping are of my own.

Once upon a time, there was a baby who did not like her mother to sleep. She needed to be near her mother and felt the need to wake up every one to two hours to ensure her mother was near. This little baby was my daughter, Sophia.

There was a time when she did sleep and only woke up twice to nurse in the middle of the night but after our vacation, time change, sickness and a new tooth, Sophia decided to act like a newborn again. When she was a new born I coveted the DockATot but I honestly didn't feel comfortable spending the money not knowing if it really worked or not.

However, this momma was desperate for sleep when Sophia's sleep regression stepped in. DockATot did provide me with my DockATot Grand but I am really kicking myself for not using all those Visa gift cards in the beginning to start off with the DockATot Deluxe. I think it would have saved me many nights of sleep lost.


For the past month, we have been doing the same nighttime routine almost every night and Sophia sleeps approximately five hours before waking for her first nighttime feeding.

Side Note: I have always purposely not followed our routine at least once a week because I do not want Sophia to become too dependent on routine to the point that she cannot fall asleep otherwise so we shake up the routine at least once a week.


After dinner, Anthony usually has one on one playtime with Sophia in her room and once we notice she is getting sleepy (rubbing eyes, overly whining, etc), we know it is time to start our bedtime routine. We do not have specific times or an amount of time we do any one thing, we follow Sophia's cues to know when to start or stop something within our routine. This is something we have found that works best for us and our daughter.

Bathtime 

Anthony and I take turns on who will bathe her. Whoever is not doing bathtime, is preparing the rooms for bedtime such as turning lights off, turning on lullaby music, setting up humidifier, undoing bed, getting out pjs, etc.

The one who is bathing her allows her to play in the tub after washing (we only wash her hair once a week due to cradle cap and this has helped tremendously).

We try to always take her out on a good note as we had a bathtime regression for a few weeks where she hated baths and mommy had to bathe with her so now we sing and play and watch her carefully to be sure to take her out before she is fussy.

Pajamas

The same person who bathes her also dries her off, puts on a fresh diaper and her pajamas. If the house still isn't ready, she is distracted for a bit.

Devotional

Anthony and I take turns reading a daily devotional to her from my childhood devotional book. Sometimes I nurse Sophia during our devotional and sometimes I do not, it just depends on how tired or fussy she is. For the most part, we can do this without nursing.

Nursing and Lullabies

Anthony turns off the light in the nursery while I rock Sophia in our rocking chair and I nurse her to sleep. FYI, I know there is controversy over nursing to sleep but this is what works for my family at the moment and we are perfectly okay with that.

I use to check my social media, catch up on blog stuff, etc. while I nursed her but I noticed the light would distract her from falling asleep no matter how dim I have it so now I put my headphones on and tune in to a podcast (I am currently listening to Read-Aloud Revival and A Delectable Education).

DockATot

Sophia is typically asleep by time I finish a podcast episode so I will text Anthony to come help me move from the nursery to our room. I take the headphones off and leave my phone on the end table in the nursery and Anthony grabs the iPad that is playing the lullaby music and follows behind me to our room.

The DockATot is in the middle of our bed and I lay Sophia down in it as Anthony puts the iPad on our nightstand. Every once in awhile, she will wake up during the transition so one of us will try to get her back to sleep.


We started this whole routine in November (and we actually use to follow this routine before our vacation expect Sophia would put herself to sleep) and received our DockATot in December. It wasn't until we started using the DockATot that we saw real progress for how she use to sleep before the regression. The first night in it, Sophia slept six, S-I-X, hours and the next day she napped for a whole hour and a half in it (nap regression is a whole other story).


Now I seriously cannot imagine life without our DockATot and I am really wishing we would have gotten it sooner. Thank you DockATot for giving this momma and daddy more sleep!

Have you tried the DockATot? What does your bedtime routine look like?

I have been a customer and window shopper/lover of Freshly Picked since I became pregnant with Sophia last year. I was so excited when we purchased her first pair earlier this year (we chose the newborn ivory pair) as they were super easy to put on and stay on.

Technically, Sophia has been out of my belly for almost 41 weeks and she was only in my tummy for 37 weeks but no need to be technical. Let's just say I was pregnant for about 9 months and Sophia is now 9 months old. She has been out in the world for almost as long as she was cooking in my belly, when she was being knitted together.


To celebrate this, I wanted to share comparison photos of what Sophia looked like 9 months in the womb and 9 months out the womb, as well as share 9 things I have learned since becoming a mom.

So guys, I normally have all my Christmas shopping done and presents wrapped but not this year. I am so behind mostly due to budget but also to timing. And I suck at gifting Anthony because I always give it away. I gave him his Father's Day present early. I was suppose to surprise him with a date night for his birthday but told him at lunch that we were going out baby-free that evening. So, its kinda good that I haven't gone shopping for him yet so I don't ruin it, haha.

Without my gift ruining, I am at a lost of what to give him as we don't have much money to spend and whatever I do spend, I don't want it to be something that is just eh, you know? I have been peeping other's gift guides for him but why does every one else have gifts that are super expensive or that are so fancy like cuff links, like my guy likes video games, music and I need ideas along those lines.

After doing my first mommy and me mini session (see here), it inspired me to do more mini sessions (see more here). Particularly ones that go with the changing seasons or holidays; I did a Back to School Mini Session (see here) back in August and again while on a play date at a Pumpkin Patch, I was able to capture some shots of Blessing and her beautiful daughter.