Christmas Dinner

We had a great Christmas dinner yesterday. Our first time hosting a real dinner...and in our new house. 

We had my wonderful parents over and Ryan and I made turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans. 

My parents brought a delish apple pie and homemade chocolate tort with vanilla ice cream. 

It was delish and so fun!

Christmas in San Diego

This is what our Christmas looks like. 70 and sunny. Ryan does miss his snowy white Montana Christmas but I mean, can you really beat this?

Last Christmas we went to Hawaii with Ryan's whole family and it felt just like home for me. Beautiful and relaxing. The 4 Christmases before we went back to Montana to experience my first snowfall, have a real snowball fight and freeze our fannies off.

Ry's mom sent us a package full of cheese and crackers to make here this year. Our favorite thing to do is eat tons of "meats and cheeses" when we go back to visit so we still get to enjoy it.

Merry Christmas from the Hennings!

Merry Christmas! What an amazing year we've had. A beautiful fairy-tale wedding, the thrilling news we're going to be parents and the purchase of our first home!

Ryan has been working extremely hard and dominating his job. After 3 great years working in corporate life everyday, I have been able to follow my dream of making my own business a full time gig and am looking forward to being a work-from-home mom.

Married life is fantastic. I wake up smiling everyday thinking about the amazing man I get to spend forever with. And now we get to create memories as a family and spoil our little girl with loads of love. 

Cheers to a great 2012! 

20 Weeks

We're half way there!!! It's been a great week! Of course finding out we're having a healthy baby girl was the highlight. And then my sweet husband brought home these cute stockings (I died when I saw the tiny one!!) We're going to be celebrating Christmas on Sunday with my brother, his wife and their 2 cuties at my parents' house. We usually go see Ryan's family in Montana for Christmas, but being pregnant this year we decided to stay home and be cozy. With our little fake tree. And no fireplace for Santa to come down :(

I just got back from having a great lunch with my best friend. She gave me a beautiful custom necklace with my little girl's name on it...Riley! She's the thoughtful supportive type and I'm so lucky to have her.

How far along? 20 Weeks

Total weight gain: Not much gain since last week. Still about 5 pounds.

Maternity clothes? Haven't bought anything...still wearing my regular clothes. Mostly sweatpants.

Stretch marks? Nope

Sleep: Sleeping well...getting up in the night to go to the bathroom and get water.

Best moment this week: Finding out we're having a GIRL!

Miss Anything? A cold glass of chardonnay

Movement: Starting to feel some tiny flutters, I think

Food cravings: Pizza

Anything making you queasy or sick: Brushing my teeth I have to focus on not gagging

Gender: GIRL

Labor Signs: No

Symptoms: Back pain and hurtburn

Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? On

Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy!

Looking forward to: Being half way to meet my little girl. 

It's a GIRL!!!!

Yesterday was a rainy day but the BEST day. Our 6 month anniversary and the day we finally found out we're having a beautiful, healthy little GIRL. I'll be honest, Ry and I both had little feelings we were having a boy, but when the ultrasound tech said girl, I was overcome by joy.

A little baby girl...OUR little baby girl. I can't stop smiling. 
And thinking about the adorable pink sweatpants we purchased at Target on our baby-high after the appointment.

Thinking about my 6'4" husband holding a tiny baby girl MELTS MY HEART. I'm so happy to have my him hold my hand through all of this. Wipe away my tears of joy...and complete stress meltdowns. Happy girl here.

I'll be 20 weeks tomorrow...half way to meet my sweet girl!! I've been lucky enough to have a relatively "easy" pregnancy so far, with terrifying thoughts of "is this baby still in there? Is it growing? Am I eating enough?" But there was such a huge sigh of relief after I saw her fingers and toes, brain, heart, organs growing properly.

There is nothing like seeing your baby bouncing around in your belly. 
It became all real to us when we realized she was really a real person in there. Ours. I already feel like a mom and Ryan is already protective of his little girl. (And probably having panic attacks about her future boyfriends already.)

There are so many things I want to tell her, show her, teach her. I want to comfort her in the middle of the night when she's restless and needs her mama. I want to show her what love is by having a happy marriage and home full of memories. I want to teach her...everything. To throw a ball, braid her hair and put on makeup...

I hope that when she's all grown up and starting her own family she thinks of me the way I think of my mom. My hero. Role mode. Inspiration. Best Friend.

If she can love me even half as much as I love my mom...I will have done something right. 

Free Holiday Printables

Check out these cute holiday printables I made over on my design blog.

You can download the PDF for free. 

Boy Or Girl?

Grandma and Grandpa got you your first outfits. 

[I've been carrying them around and cuddling with them thinking of you and your little body filling it out soon.]

Tomorrow Daddy and I will get to find out if you're a girl or boy and be able to start the nursery and getting more cozy clothes for you. 

19 Weeks

I found this blog on Pinterest and fell in love. She uses a cute way to document her pregnancy. I probably should have started doing this a while ago, but there hasn't been too much of a bump to report yet, so I'm thinking now is when things will be getting more interesting. The earlier months I didn't have much energy to shower, let alone blog.

...Pardon the no makeup super tired look. 

How far along? 19 Weeks

Total weight gain: About 5 lbs. I think it went to my boobs mostly.
Maternity clothes? Haven't bought anything...still wearing my regular clothes. Mostly sweatpants.
Stretch marks? Nope
Sleep: Sleeping well...getting up in the night to go to the bathroom and get water.
Best moment this week: Moving into our new home!
Miss Anything? Champagne. Especially for this.
Movement: Starting to feel some tiny flutters, I think
Food cravings: No Bake Cookies and goldfish crackers
Anything making you queasy or sick: I'm feeling pretty normal about food these days. Just gotta have crackers or some kind of snack every few hours.
Gender: Finding out TOMORROW!!!
Labor Signs: No
Symptoms: Tiredness, heartburn, queasiness if hungry
Belly Button in or out? In
Wedding rings on or off? On
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy. Finding more energy and getting so excited.
Looking forward to: Our ultrasound tomorrow!

ThatPregnantGirlAtTheBar

In my prepregnant days I dabbled in the bar scene quite a bit. That's what our friends did on the weekends. And sometimes Thursdays. Captain Diets flowed as I requested the latest Britney hit and danced with Ry.

Ryan and I have friends in all the different categories of love...married, dating, single. So when one of my best friends (single and fabulous) turned 26 this week she wanted to do a downtown day drinking thing.

...Cut to me being 5 months pregnant and not leaving the house for much other than the necessary errand running and grocery store outing.

I put on my jeans (still fit, yay!), some makeup that I dusted off and ventured downtown to be a good friend. It was a great time as I chugged waters and gushed about the baby and new house. I enjoyed feeling like myself again and catching up with my friends. Hearing that I looked skinny was a nice bonus. 

(birthday girl on the left, me on the right)

When I left, I told Ryan how much I loved being married to him. The dating and bar scene is messy and it made me feel extra lucky to have found such an amazing man to marry.

Home by 8. Asleep by 8:02. My new kinda Saturday night. 

......

Tomorrow is the big day! Gender reveal on our 6 month anniversary. Stay tuned :)

What.A.Week!

Tomorrow will mark a week since moving into our NEW HOME! eeeeee!!! It's fantastic. And brand new so we're scared to mess anything up. It's so clean and lovely. Pictures will be coming soon!

Moving while pregnant meant a lot of trying to help but ending up resting and pointing a lot.

But I haven't been sitting on my ass all week. Nope. 

I've been grocery shopping and running errands like crazy. And I've cooked my husband a home cooked (and delish) meal the past 3 nights. He's been working nonstop so I figured the least I could do to help was have some dinners on the table when he got home.

First we had this Chicken Parm which was really yummy and a chance to try out the new stove. It's fab.
Next I made a yummy salad with apples, turkey, pecans and cranberries with some leftovers of the chicken parm. And tonight we just finished up a homemade BBQ Chicken Pizza that was to die for. CPK watch out.

And I was craving these bad boys.

I need to remember to take more pictures of these beauties. But I'm pretty proud of how domestic I've been. At the apartment my cooking meant picking up Chipotle. The idea of cooking in our no-window-kitchen-with-a-stove-from-1942 didn't appeal to me most of the time. But my new whirlpool golds are calling my name now.

I'm 19 weeks preg now and feeling the best I've felt in a long time (as I sit with a heating pad on my back.) I've been sleeping great, with the help of our new cali king pillow top. Loving the energy this week has brought me with all the house stuff and hoping it stays!

We have our ultrasound appt on Monday morning to see if we're having a boy or girl!!!! We.cannot.WAIT!

Okay...off to Pinterest to search for more lovelies.

Update

Well, it's been almost a full year since I've updated this blog (and what a year it's been!!).

I got married and I'm pregnant. (in that order.) And we're moving into our new home next week.

Yeah...a pretty big year for the Hennings.

I find myself pinching myself / thanking my lucky stars / whatever other cheesy expressions you can think of, when I think of how lucky we are. Plus, I finally get to spend my days in my home office making pretty designs for fabulous clients. My amazing HUSBAND (no, I won't get sick of saying that) has an great job that has him working hard but feeling fulfilled and appreciated. I wish I could bottle this feeling up for the less than stellar days to be reminded of how grateful I am.

So now that I'm preggy, I felt it was more important than ever to keep notes of my thoughts and how I'm feeling.

My pregnancy has been wonderfully uncomplicated as I enter my 17th week. The beginning knocked me on my fanny for a while, but luckily I was able to rest and eat plenty of saltines in bed. I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel and am so happy to spend the days vertical, and working on my business.

My doctor's appointments have been full of good progress reports and we'll be finding out the sex of our sweet baby in a few weeks. Then it's nursery time baby! Ooo I can't wait. 

I'll work on being better at updating this as the Hennings continue their journey. :)