Just a tad past 34 weeks...

We are under 6 weeks until Reed's arrival and I can say we aren't ready!  We keep feeling like we are so behind and we are compared to where we were at this point with Camdyn, though when we were pregnant with her we didn't have a little one that kept us busy on its own.  The nursery has at least been started with painting.  We have Camdyn's new furniture in but can't move it in her room and her current furniture out to Reed's room until the painting is all done.  We still have some stuff to get for him as ready that we will need, but I suppose it will all come together.  We are hoping we can get a little further this weekend, but we will see :)  We went to our 34 week appointment today.  Everything looks good normal and on schedule.  My swelling is fairly bad and causing some additional discomfort but everything is showing that we are in the normal part of gestational edema.  He wants me to lay out every afternoon with my feet above my head for a couple hours to try and help reduce it daily, so not sure how that will happen yet but I am sure we will try and figure out something :)  

Good news is that I have had a very busy May with my photography.  I can't even say enough how much I enjoy it and have been loving doing it. So while I have been able to start building up my portfolio I need to figure out my marketing plan so after I have had my maternity leave time with Reed I can easily get back out there and back to shooting pictures. 

Camdyn had her first hair cut last week. She did great and we had a great time-  feel free to visit the photography blog for pictures :)  

Well that is about all going on here right now.  Hope to post pictures soon of Reed's room.  We hope that everyone is doing well and will talk soon.

Love,

Ben, Gabrielle, Camdyn, and Reed

Now Showing...Reed Rivera

Well after much trying and waiting on a sleeping boy we finally were able to get a few face shots in of Reed.  He was pretty comfortable and sound asleep when we arrived and for the most of the afternoon today making getting a lot of pictures and video almost impossible due to his position and lack of willingness to change.  Looks like we may have another slightly stubborn one...strong gene between Ben and myself :)

We got another confirmation that he is definitely still all boy- likes showing that off if nothing else and looks like he has a decent amount of hair on his head so far.

We had a wonderful time though today and so glad that both grandparents and Aunt Danielle were able to all make it today.  Here are some of the pictures from today's ultrasound:

Shows Reed's Hair

His face

Face

Arms up near face

Hope that everyone is having a wonderful weekend so far! I know that we have definitely enjoyed ours! Till next time-

Love,

Gabrielle

Then and Now...

I thought it would be kind of fun to try and do some comparisons with pictures between the pregnancy with Camdyn and now this one.  I don't have pictures from all of the exact points in time but some that are close enough.

Camdyn at 16 weeks, 2 days (in yellow); 16 weeks Baby Boy (in black)

 
Camdyn 20 weeks in pink below; Baby Boy 20 weeks 4 days in red below

26 weeks 6 days with Camdyn in green; 25 weeks 3 days with Baby boy in red

  

And then one of my most recent ones from this pregnancy taken when I was 28 weeks 3 days (today I am 29 weeks 1 day)

Kind of funny to see!!  

I should also mention that we do have a name picked out for Baby Boy but I haven't posted it quite yet....I am sure we will pretty soon, maybe after we get the pictures from the ultrasound on Saturday! :)

Hope everyone is doing well.

Love, Gabrielle

29 weeks!

Hard to believe that our baby boy is 29 weeks along today!  This pregnancy has absolutely flown by, which I guess one would expect running around with a 18 month old child.  Camdyn can definitely keep you busy but man is she just a blast to have.  We are going to do another 3D ultrasound with this pregnancy like we did with Camdyn and are actually going on Saturday.  Can't wait to see our little guy again- it has been about 10-12 weeks since we last saw him so it will be a nice surprise to see how he is growing and get an idea for what he is going to look like.  Both families are going to come so it should be a really special treat- we can't wait!  We are still rather behind in getting things together.  We at least finally bought the paint for the nursery and know what we are going to do but still need to get started on it...and the furniture- as of right now he has none....but hey there is plenty of time :)  We plan on starting the room this weekend and then will start to order some furniture soon after.  The past several weeks have been really crazy and it looks like the next several are still pretty crazy and full....which is only making the time go by even faster.  I must admit that this pregnancy continues to be a lot rougher than Camdyn's ever was-makes me wonder how these next 11 weeks are going to be.  I am definitely a lot more uncomfortable and bigger- I swear this kid is already 7 pounds :)

So that is a brief update of what is going on here.  Will be posting pictures soon of the little guy!

Till then,
Love, Gabrielle

Row Row Row Your Boat....

Camdyn loves doing Row Row Row Your Boat..we were sitting at home and played it on You Tube and she got all ready to show her moves...here is some footage :)

Busy as usual

So I am not doing as well as I had hoped with updating this blog.  Camdyn has been keeping us pretty busy so by the time she is in bed, I am usually not too far behind her these days, but I am trying.  While a handful she is truly a joy that I am so thankful for.  It is so hard to believe that in just less than 3 months we will have another one bringing us even more joy.  I can never say enough how blessed we feel.

Camdyn is growing fast and becoming such an independent little person.  She is quite the helper around the house and even when we are out and about.  She loves walking places and still enjoys being outside.  While I know she still loves me, I am definitely seeing her turn into a daddy's girl.  It is actually quite precious and I know that Ben just eats it up.  She will call for him a lot now and when she wants to be held it is usually from him (which has actually been a huge help as my belly continues to enlarge ha).  I used to be able to put her to bed alone if needed but no she has to make sure that if I am there daddy (or as she calls him da-da) is there too.  I think she is also just taking after him a lot physically as well.  I will look at her at times and it is like I am looking right at a min-Ben.  Camdyn's vocabulary has also really grown-it seems like there is so much she can say now and has picked up pretty quickly on repeating words that you try and teach her.  It is so awesome to just watch her learn something EVERY day.

Tomorrow is our 3rd wedding anniversary.  Lots has happened in that three years and I have loved every minute of it all with him :)  As part of our celebration this year, we decided to get away for the weekend for our anniversary and also a little getaway before Baby Boy arrives.  My parents watched Camdyn for us and we headed up to Amelia Island.  While short it was a well needed getaway....and then we both took the day off from work today to try and get some stuff done (as most people know is a non-ending battle).  We feel like we have so much to do right now, our weekends are booked through early May and then soon enough our boy will be here so time is running out so it seems.  We know what we are doing with the nursery but haven't even started that yet and we still need to order furniture and just get him some stuff that he is going to need.  Ahh- I don't even want to think about right now :)

So I am trying to work on the photography business as well on the side and have some stuff coming up lined up to hopefully help build up my portfolio some. I am keeping a lot more pictures through the website and blog there so please if you don't mind check out the stuff there:  http://gabrielleelysephotography.com/ and http://gefamilyphotography.blogspot.com but you can get to the blog from the website as well.  I just posted on the blog there some pictures from our trip- Hope you all enjoy them!

Well I think that sums things up for now.  I hope that this finds everyone well and that you all enjoyed your Easter and Holiday with your families.

Talk soon!

Love always-
Gabrielle

It's a ...

BOY! So we actually found out about 2-3 weeks ago, but as you can tell I haven't been doing an excellent job keeping up with the family blog. At anyrate, we are absolutely thrilled with the news. He looks great and healthy and is growing wonderfully. We truly feel blessed. We have a number 1 name contender in mind, but haven't fully released it yet as we haven't committed to it 100% yet, though I am ready to. Soon enough though and we will post it when it is finalized :) I know that they say that every pregnancy is different and he has definitely been no exception to Camdyn's From the crazy morning sickness all throughout first trimester to now where I have already started getting heartburn (NEVER had any with Camdyn) to just feeling heavy (hard to explain :) ), it is totally different. And this pregnancy has also gone by so much faster than when I was pregnant with Camdyn. I guess that is easy to do though when you have a toddler taking up most of your time and attention. We are already more than half way through (at 21w2d). As we seem to do do during busy times we are about to get into a house project. After we had that flooding some odd months ago, we definitely have to fix the floors in the office and in Baby Boy's room (we just finished fixing the main problem). So we just picked out the flooring for the office, Baby Boy, and Camdyn's room and have the installation scheduled. Can't wait! It was something that we wanted to do anyway, we just had to escalate the time a little bit. We at least put a hold on our room for a bit and will take care of doing that probably sometime later on this calendar year. But it will be nice to have the flooring we want in those rooms! Once the flooring is down we can start working on the nursery in which we haven't decided on how we are going to do it yet. Lots to still discuss. Well I hope that this finds everyone well. Talk to you soon. Love always, Ben, Gabrielle, Camdyn, and Baby Boy