Lately I have been acutely aware of how much my little girl is growing up. Maybe it is the fact that we are about to have a newborn around again (weird!) but I keep realizing that Reese is getting older and smarter every day and I feel like it is all going so fast. She is terribly excited to be a “big stister” and talks every day about “baby stister” and how she wants to give her a “baba milk” and that she is going to go over to grandma’s house when “baby stister” is born. She often puts her hands on my belly and asks in whispers if the baby is sleeping. I am not as afraid anymore about having a toddler and a newborn because Reese is so much easier these days. I just know she will be a good helper.

For all those who did not hear, I do not have to have a C-section. My placenta finally moved enough by my 36-week appointment that I have been cleared at this point for a normal delivery. I had mixed feelings when I got this news. Part of me was glad to not have the recovery and scars that come with C-sections. The other part of me was a bit disappointed that it will not all be as easy as scheduling a date for the baby to be born and waltzing into the hospital for a quick and relatively easy delivery. However, we would have had the c-section this week if that had been the case, and I am grateful that I still have another 11 days to accomplish a few things considering I am still training my replacement at SmugMug AND designing a wedding album that needs to be ordered before baby girl comes into my life and makes me a sleepless zombie.

Mark has been cracking me up lately with his nervousness about another labor and delivery. He brought up the need for us to pack our hospital bags when I was only 33 weeks along. He also suggested that if I go into labor in the middle of the night, even if It’s not time to go to the hospital, we should wake up Reese and all go over to his parent’’s house because they live so close to the hospital. Hello! We only live 15 minutes from the hospital ourselves and last time I was in labor for 63 hours. I am pretty sure we can make it to the hospital from our house when the time comes, with more than enough time to spare. I love that he is so worried though. It makes me feel cared for and safe.

I am still nervous about giving birth again and the only thing that makes it worth it at this point is to get rid of this discomfort. The only thing that makes giving birth a little more appealing at this point is the knowledge that I won’t have to be pregnant anymore. I am uncomfortable about 90% of the time and the other 10% I am probably asleep and still uncomfortable but don’t know it. Man I can’t wait to not be pregnant anymore!

So in honor of the soon to be “Big Stister” of the house, I have a little photo comparison for you since I seem to be much better at taking photos of my child around this time of year for some reason…

Reese with the bunnies at the pumpkin patch her first Halloween:

Reese at the pumpkin patch with the bunnies last year:

Reese at the pumpkin patch with the chickies (the bunnies were all caged) this year:

Reese on the tractor last year:

Reese on the tractor this year:

Reese with her buddy Luke at the pumpkin patch last year:

Reese with her buddy Luke this year at the pumpkin patch:

Reese at the orchard with Luke last year:

Reese with Luke at the orchard this year:

Can you believe the hair growth on this little one?

I like to call our costume idea “Just like Daddy.”

See them bigger here.

So even though we generally use OS X at SmugMug, we still game on Windows boxes and have to test/develop on them as well. So when our copies of Windows 7 arrived, 7 of us went down to In N Out and took on 7×7’s (7 patties and 7 cheese slices).

I generally eat much healthier now than I used to, but sometimes I make exceptions.

Well, lately my life has been a perfect illustration of the saying “when it rains, it pours”. How ironic that the last week has been rainy and wet. Reese seems to enjoy the rain though, it gives her a reason to wear her kitty raincoat and boots and stomp around in the puddles. I, on the other hand, have been using the rain as an excuse to hibernate and drink obscene amounts of hot chocolate. Can you believe Mark took Reese shopping last spring while I was out of town on one of my many business trips and bought her this cute rain get-up? He is such a super-dad!

Last weekend we had not one, not two, but four house guests all at the same time. Mark’s roommate from college who works for SmugMug remotely from Utah now comes out and stays with us for work about once a month. It just happened that this month his visit coincided with the visit of my sister and her husband who came to visit for the weekend before heading to Disneyland. We also had an additional unexpected visitor-Mark’s old mission companion drove out for a wedding and needed a place to stay. It was quite the party at the MacAskill abode, that’s for sure.

To top off the chaos, Mark took advantage of having some men around to help and enlisted our house guests for our big room swap in which we moved all the entertainment equipment into the den in preparation for Mark’s “Man Cave” transformation. I have a big post in the works about the crazy results of my nesting this pregnancy, so I will leave the details for that post, but let’s just summarize by saying that Mark and I recently decided that his entertainment equipment and my throw pillows and decorative knick-knacks could not happily coexist in the same room any longer. Our house guests were very understanding and helpful with our project but I have a feeling they left thinking we have gone absolutely mad as the weekend included mounting our TV on the wall above the fireplace, me successfully convincing Mark and Dustin to pick up a computer armoire I found on craigslist for only $40, cleaning out the garage, and me finding a perfect chair for my new computer armoire at a garage sale around the corner from our house as we were driving home and immediately walking over to buy it for only $10. Maybe we are crazy, or maybe I’m the one that’s gone crazy and Mark’s just along for the ride because he knows better than to argue with his crazy pregnant nesting wife. Who cares? If being crazy means my house will be cute and in order for the arrival of this baby, I’ll take it. I have already painted the armoire red and started planning where to put things in my stylin’ family room.

The Saturday we were hosting this random group of people also happened to be the day of my baby shower. I am incredibly blessed and lucky to have some amazing friends and family who put together a beautiful and fun shower for me even though I am expecting for the second time and with another girl no less. It was so nice to see so many of my friends together at the same time. I am also really glad my sister Kellee got to attend and meet so many of my close friends. The food was delicious, and the company was divine. Thanks so much for putting on such a great party Kim, Jen, and Tiffanie! I feel so special and loved. Your friendship means so much to me and I’m so lucky to have you girls in my life! (And a special thanks to Jen for thinking to take pictures. I love having the reminders of this special day.)

Left to right: My pregnant self, Tiffanie, Kim, and Jen- the hostesses of this rockin’ party.

My good friend Elena who drove all the way from Walnut Creek to come to the party.

Left to right: Whitney, Lindsey, and Kim- all of whom recently had babies of their own who will probably be fun playmates for our little one.

left to right: Julianne and Mikila

Can you believe Tiffanie made this beautiful diaper cake? Um, yeah- amazing! I have very talented friends. You should see the quilt Jen is making for baby girl, it’s going to be stunning.

How fun is that? My sister-in-law Kim and my sister Kellee having a good laugh together. Love it.

As soon as the last out-of-towner had left there was no time to rest and recharge my batteries, I was scheduled to host my friends for our monthly Bunco night and being the perfectionist I have become lately, I had to get it just right. I made all my favorite holiday foods, bought prizes that were perfect for getting into the Fall spirit, and cleaned my house within an inch of it’s life. The day of Bunco I realized 15 minutes before people started to arrive that I had not sat down or eaten since first thing in the morning. This is just one example of the many ways I have become OCD lately. I become obsessed with a project until it’s complete and it’s hard to see past the blinders. Luckily Bunco was a success and I won’t be hosting again for a year, at which point I hope to be normal again.

I am still editing the last of my photo shoots. I am looking forward to the long sabbatical I will be taking from shooting anything other than my own little girls. I am a bit burnt out to be honest and I hope that when I start shooting again it will be fresh and new and I will have my creative juices flowing again. It’s very exciting to me to think about only having to worry about being a mom for a short while and there may be days that I will get bored, but at least I will feel like I am not stretching myself too thin.

I have one more ultrasound in a week that will determine whether or not I still have placenta previa and need a c-section. As of my 34-week ultrasound my placenta still has not moved enough. Apparently, your placenta must be 3 cm away from your cervix to be cleared for normal delivery. Mine is 1.8 cm away from my cervix. Yeah. That’s right. I might have to have a c-section because of a lousy 1.2 cm. Bummer.

Baby X is still active and healthy. I am 35 weeks along. I’m large, uncomfortable and pretty much ready to not be pregnant any more. On the flip side though-I am not ready to have a newborn yet. When Mark and I walked out of our ultrasound on Monday realizing that we may have a c-section at 38 weeks, I asked Mark how he felt about having a baby in just 4 weeks instead of 6 weeks. His response? ” Sure, bring it on!”. My response? “NO! No, no no. I’m not ready yet. I have a list of things to accomplish before this baby arrives and I need those extra two weeks. This baby is not allowed to come until then. She will just have to wait.”

The rain has actually been a blessing in disguise. I loved all the chaos but now that it’s over, I am using the weather as a reason to stay home and check things off of my to do list. Besides, hanging out in my sweats all day is the only way I’m even remotely comfortable anyways. So if you are wondering why I haven’t been around lately, I’m being a slug. Sorry to disappoint. I’m sure I will come out of my shell a few more times before the baby arrives. Until then, let it pour!

…and not because I necessarily want to remember what it’s like to put on 20 lbs.

Some of you may remember this post when my dear friend Jackie took photos of me and I had only two weeks to go until Reese was born.

Yeah, sad that I am as big now as I was then and I still have 9 weeks to go. Yay for second babies!!!!

In all seriousness though, I didn’t want to have my photo taken all that much this time around, but I thought that baby #2 would feel snubbed if she didn’t have even one good photo of me while I was pregnant with her. So baby girl, this one is for you. It didn’t hurt that Jackie insisted and she has amazing skillz with a camera! I mean really– who else could make me look like this after a full day at Gilroy Gardens with 20lbs of extra weight to lug around in the 90 degree weather?! Yeah. SKILLZ.

Reese’s friend Luke took her out on the town Saturday. This was the result:

Video.

Photos.

To say that life has been crazy lately would be a big understatement. There have been days that I dread, and few that I have looked forward to. I thought it was time for a nitty-gritty update, and sadly I have neither the time nor the creativity at the moment to write a flowery or poetic post. This makes me sad. I have always loved blogging. It makes me feel like I have returned a bit to my high school days when I used to keep notebooks full of my thoughts and writing. I love coming up with witty phrases, interesting titles, and epic ending lines. Somehow that has been lost to me in the last few months (possibly because this baby insists on sucking every ounce of creative energy out of me). So boring me will be updating you all today in a scattered-sort of way.  Welcome to my brain these days!

June

*The majority of this month was spent searching for a new place to live and preparing to move. The week of our move was really hard for me mostly because I felt so useless and unable to motivate myself to get the things done that needed to be done. Mark was a lifesaver. He practically did everything and did it with a smile. I have always seen moving as an opportunity to move on to something better before. Not this time. This time I was sad and cranky and wanted nothing to do with the changes the move would bring.

*In June I also photographed my first wedding of the season and if I’m being honest– my first real professional wedding. It went better than I could have hoped and I ended up having a great second shooter who has since shot with me on another wedding this summer. I realized how much having a second shooter can make a difference in my confidence, my energy, and the overall photos from the wedding day. I am really happy with my work and I feel like I learned a lot. I can already see improvements between that wedding and the ones I have done since then. It’s more a matter of confidence and experience than technique, so I’m hoping with each wedding that I continue to learn and grow as a photographer. This wedding has also opened many doors for me professionally and I am so grateful that Jessica & Jordan invited me to share in their special day and capture it for them.

July

*The beginning of July saw our arrival at our new rental house. Seeing the stark contrast between our new house and our old house during the move made me realize how nice our new house is and how much better it will be for our family. It’s bigger and the space is used more practically. It feels like a real “grown up” house and I love it here. I am afraid to get attached to it because I really got attached to our last house and look what happened there…

*We had many house guests stay with us in July. Two of Mark’s college roommates and their families crashed with us and let us show them around San Francisco. It stressed me out beforehand because the house was still in a state of half-packed and I still didn’t know where all these people were going to sleep. But just when things seemed hopeless I got that second trimester burst of energy I have been waiting for and managed to get our house mostly unpacked in time. Also, my friend Tiffanie was getting rid of a really nice full size bed that we gladly took. It will be our guestroom bed for the next few months and then will be Reese’s bed when we move her out of the crib for the baby. It felt so nice to have places for people to sleep and also have two bathrooms instead of one to share.

*I was up to my ears in photo editing this month. I had some serous backlog that happened during the whole move/house guest craziness and it took me awhile to catch up. I had many break-downs and many moments when Mark had to coax me down off the ledge, but I made it through somehow and I feel like I did some of my best work ever this summer.

*To add to the stress of house guests right after moving, the Monday before our guests arrived, I received a phone call from a friend of my sister’s who lives in LA. She was calling with a desperate plea that I fly down to LA that weekend and shoot another friend’s wedding because the Pro Photographer backed out at the last minute. “Well, that’s just crazy”, I thought. I am backlogged already, we have house guests this weekend, and I don’t even know this person. Not a chance. But in my heart I was already thinking about how great it would be, how nice it was to be asked, how I could use the experience. Mark must have seen the look in my eye, because he insisted I go.

It was a whirlwind trip as I flew in Friday night and flew back to San Jose on Sunday morning. I arrived tired, stressed out, nervous, and totally uninspired. The night before the wedding I pleaded with my Heavenly Father that he give me the strength and energy I needed to make beautiful photos for this sweet couple. I knew I couldn’t do it alone. The next morning I was ready for anything and the day went as smoothly as I could have hoped for. My bride and groom were so in love and willing to do anything I asked. They never once got sick of taking photos and we got some amazing shots. On top of everything, I have never met so many sweet, genuine, friendly people in my life as as the people I met at this wedding. It says a lot to me about a person when they keep such great company. I felt so honored to have been sought out to capture this beautiful day and wonderful couple.

*Totally old news to most of you, but since I haven’t blogged about it you may not know. We found out in June that we are having another baby girl! Mark and I are both thrilled, it’s just what we wanted. I am so excited for Reese to have a baby sister. I am the second of four sisters and I always loved having sisters to play with. I wanted that for Reese and I am very pleased that my wish came true. Mark is psyched to have another little girl to wrap him around her little finger, and thrilled that we don’t have to buy new baby stuff like we would have if it had been a boy!

*With the joyous news of the gender of our baby came some concerning discoveries as well. While the baby was perfectly fine and healthy, I have Placenta Previa and the ultrasound showed low to normal levels of amniotic fluid. The Placenta Pervia is something many women are diagnosed with and it usually corrects itself. Basically it means that my placenta has attached itself low in my uterus and is partially covering my cervix at present. If it does not move by the time I am 38 weeks I will have to have a C-section to deliver the baby. This is not something I want at all, so I’m really hoping it will move.

The low/normal levels of amniotic fluid is not as common. It may be caused by maternal dehydration which wouldn’t surprise me since it was summer and I am not very good about drinking a lot of water. It can also be caused by the placenta previa since my placenta is implanted further from the blood supply in my uterus and therefore may be producing less fluid than normal. Luckily, there was something I can do to help this get better. Unluckily, it’s something I did not like. My doctor has prescribed that I “take it easy”. Funny right? If there is someone totally incapable of taking it easy, it would be me. She said that I need to cut back on work and not work out much until I saw her again at 25 weeks, then she would do another ultrasound to see if my fluid levels are up and things are better. As you can imagine, I drank water like crazy, but couldn’t really cut back on work. So instead I cut back in the work-outs and stopped going to the gym. It was not easy and it had a serious effect on my mood swings and self-esteem. I also missed hanging out with my gym buddy, Jen!

Luckily, since then my amniotic fluid levels have gone up and my doctor is not at all concerned about that anymore. My placenta has also moved some, though we are still not in the clear for a normal delivery. Everything else about my pregnancy is normal and I seem to be healthy as can be if you don’t count the insane hormonal mood swings.

*This is the month that I started to “pop” if you will. Right around 21 weeks I really started to show (that is to say I actually looked pregnant instead of just pudgy) and I’ve been growing quickly ever since. I wish I had done weekly photos with Reese and now with this baby so I could compare the difference. I swear I was not this big this soon last time!

August

*I started getting majorly homesick for my family who I hadn’t seen since Christmas. Reese has grown so much and with the fast approach of our second baby I knew if I didn’t fly out for a visit soon I wouldn’t be able to do so for a long time. So despite the fact that now we have to pay for Reese to have her own seat when we fly, which doubles the cost of travel now, we took the plunge and flew to Utah at the beginning of this month. My hope was that we would just get to spend all our time visiting with family and relaxing. For the most part that happened, although I still had to find time to work each day while I was there.

We had a blast! Reese was giddy with all the toys at “Marmee’s” house including a little playroom my parents built into their new house under the stairs. Reese loved playing with play dough in there every morning and using cookie cutters to make pretend cookies in the toy kitchen. She and her cousin Rhianna had their first “slumber party” which means they both kept each other awake until hours after their bedtime so we had to move them to separate rooms until they fell asleep, but Reese had a ball! Besides, her bedtime was mostly out the window for the entire trip anyways.

(Uncle Jace took all these photos with my camera, he is getting quite interested in photography and he has a good eye too!)

I finally got the chance on this trip to do something I have been meaning to do for a long time. You see, my mother is an AMAZINGLY gifted homemaker with all kinds of talents including sewing, quilting, and knitting. It’s embarrassing but I can hardly sew in a straight line. I used to sew much better when I was a kid because my mother put me in sewing lessons, but I haven’t used that knowledge in so long that I think it’s gone. So I made it my mission on this trip to have my mother show me how to sew from a pattern again, and teach me how to knit. She seemed excited to take on the task of whipping me into a competent homemaker so the first day I was there we headed off to the fabric store in search of an easy dress pattern and cute fabric to make a dress for Reese. I ended up coming home with not one, but two dresses for Reese. One that my mom and I made together, and one she whipped up in only four hours on my last day. It was fun to have a project like this and it reminded me how much I like to sew. Therefore, I plan on making some of my Christmas gifts for people this year. There, you have been warned :).

I also learned how to knit! Not well mind you, but enough to make a scarf! I’m glad I finally took advantage of my mom’s amazing talents and had her share them with me. It just feels so wrong to have someone in my life who is so good at these things and I have never asked her to teach me before. What a waste!

*While in Utah I also had the great pleasure of photographing the wedding of a very close friend, Cheryl. We have known each other since we were 13 years old and I felt so lucky to be able to make beautiful photos of her and Chet and the love that they share. I also got what I think may be one of my favorite bride shots ever that I can’t stop looking at. Could Cheryl be any more beautiful? Seriously.

*I came home from Utah tired, tired, and more tired. I think I take for granted how much having Mark help with Reese really keeps me going. Just the fact that he takes care of her every morning when she wakes up before 8am and lets me sleep another hour or so while he entertains her and feeds her breakfast really makes such a difference. He also reads her a story and puts her to bed almost every night. I love that he is so involved and Reese will have so many great memories of her daddy reading to her before bed. I am so lucky to have a husband that doesn’t shy away from helping out with our daughter!

September

*At the beginning of this month we attended the first ever MacAskill family vacation. We could call it a “reunion” except the only ones in Mark’s family who do not live within 10 miles of us are his sister Anne and her husband and daughter. The rest of us see each other on a fairly regular basis, so this was more of a family trip, and we have never vacationed like this together before.

We went to Tahoe which is a fairly painless distance of 4 hours by car from us. Reese was an absolute angel in the car on the way there and to my surprise, that angelic streak continued during our entire trip with only a few melt-down moments. She was so enthralled by being around so many other kids to play with every day that she hardly whined and cried the entire trip. I finally got a break from being her constant entertainment committee which was such a relief! I know it will be awhile before her and Baby #2 can play together, but oh how I long for that day! Reese is such a better-behaved child when she has someone to play with or something to do. When we are at home she clings to my side and whines all day. Not to mention that she is in that phase where she repeats things a million times until you acknowledge. Example:

Reese- “It’s Reesey’s car? It’s Reesey’s car? It’s Reesey’s car? It’s Reesey’s car? It’s Reesey’s car?”

Me- “Yes, that is our car”

Reese- “Yeah. Go? Go? Go? Go? Go? Go? Go? Go? Go? Go? Go? Go? Go? Go?”

Me (with a tinge of annoyance)- “Yes, we are going to go in the car now.”

Reese- “Yeah.”

I know this is a very developmental phase, but this combined with my low tolerance for annoyances during pregnancy makes me a very cranky woman some days.

Tahoe was loads of fun. Some of the highlights: The amazing houses we stayed at (probably the nicest place I have ever stayed at in my life). King’s Beach, which was so perfect for our brood of kiddos who are all under the age of four. The water was really shallow even if you waded out far and there was no nasty current at the water’s edge so our kiddos could wade and play to their hearts content without having to hold a grown-ups hand. The resort we went to one day that had a great kid’s splash area and a lovely pool with a water slide. Our kids thought they had died and gone to heaven. The Gondolas which we rode all the way up the mountain. We then hiked briefly at the top and rode back down with plans to come back later in the day and ride again. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it back, but it was a ton of fun and Reese still talks about riding the gondola. S’mores, which we made almost every night over the fire pits on the patios of the houses. We usually are a pretty strictly healthy diet kind-of family but who can resist s’mores?

And that brings us up to the present. I am currently 30 1/2 weeks pregnant. Today I began my “every two weeks” OB appointments until that last month when it goes down to every week. I am nesting like CRAZY. Last time I was pregnant my nesting instinct manifested itself in the form of cleaning and organization. This time I still feel the need to madly clean my house, but I also desperate to decorate as well. There are things that I have been meaning to do for awhile to decorate, like hang shelves and photos and buy a bookshelf. Now all of the sudden these things, in addition to other decorating needs, have taken over my life. I can’t function or sleep because it is all I can think about. I surf craigslist embarrassing amounts of time in the day. I peruse decorating catalogs with scary amounts of enthusiasm. I am obsessed. It’s not something I’m proud of. Especially since it’s driving both me and Mark crazy. I just can’t wait until this pregnancy is over and hopefully I can go back to being the person who can let it go instead of wasting so much time on finding the perfect used bookcase.

I am however, enjoying that this has brought back my love of projects. I have a bunch of home projects underway as part of my decorating craze, including reupholstering a little rocking chair I found for Reese 2 years ago for $5 at a garage sale. It is currently upholstered in a hideous brown corduroy but it is a darling chair and as soon as I find the perfect fabric I am planning on taking a stab at reupholstering it myself. If anyone has any insight into re-upholstery, please let me know! I also refinished some bookcases I found on Craigslist and my next project is to refinish a dresser for Reese’s room that I also found on Craigslist. I am having fun and keeping busy and I really think that it has made the last month of this pregnancy fly by. I am in no hurry to have this baby yet though. She can come when she is due and not before and that would be perfectly fine. I am not ready yet to have a newborn yet but every day that passes makes me more excited and less afraid.

In Baby #2 News:

Everything at this point looks healthy and normal. My placenta is still lying a bit low and I have to have an ultrasound at 34 weeks to check it again. If it hasn’t moved out of the way by 36 weeks, my Doctor wants to schedule a c-section for 38 weeks so there is no chance I will go into labor with my placenta in the way. I have mixed feelings about this. A part of me still wants to avoid a c-section at all costs. The other part of me thinks it would be really nice to avoid any chance of the labor I had last time totaling 63 hours and 3 hours of pushing. Not to mention that it would be really nice to have the whole thing scheduled since now I have a toddler to plan for and the baby is due so close to the holidays. I guess I won’t really have a choice in the matter so all I can really do is wait.

If the level of activity in utero is any indication of the baby’s personality after birth, I am in major trouble. This baby moves ALL DAY LONG! Reese was a pretty mild mover in utero. This baby doesn’t just wait for me to sit or lie down before she moves, her movement happens anywhere and everywhere. She also seems much stronger at 30 weeks than I remember Reese being. I think I’m in for a feisty ball of energy, and here I was hoping for an easy baby this time around…

Mark and I have tentatively picked a name at this point. I worry that it is becoming a bit too common for my taste, but the more I think about it the more I can’t imagine naming this baby anything else. Of course we are keeping it under wraps until the baby is here since it’s a fun surprise. We are also still throwing around other names just in case we see her and realize the name is all wrong.

In Reese news:

Reese is a growing sponge of a 2-year-old. She retains and regurgitates amazing amounts of information that surprises me daily. She has a talent for parroting not only what I say but the way in which I say it. She is a talkative little one who is always pointing out things and calling them by their name. She is also very into letters, numbers and colors right now. She loves it when we count things and talk about what letter words start with. She can tell you what sound is made by the letters ‘B’, ‘D’, ‘R’, ‘S’, ‘M’, ‘O’, and ‘T’. Don’t ask me why she remembers those particular letters and not other letters because I have no idea! I also can’t take credit at all for her knowledge in this department since she learned it from this DVD Mark bought for her that she has only watched a handful of times. I don’t usually condone TV as a method to teach my child, but in this case it is working so well, why knock it?

This summer Reese and I took a Mommy & Me dance class. I was apprehensive about it since Reese is only 2 and getting her to focus for 45 minutes seemed like it would be impossible. Not to mention that 2-year-olds are not exactly coordinated. I couldn’t have been more wrong though. The teacher was fabulous and handed out props during the course of each class that kept the little ones interested, such as wands and hula hoops and maracas. We danced and skipped and twirled every Wednesday for 6 weeks and Reese asked about “dance class?” every other day of the week. I wish I had photos or video of this experience but alas, I was too lazy to document. I guess we will have to enroll in another class just to capture it. It was also a very eye-opening experience for me since the teacher would ask the kids to do something and then demonstrate and I often found myself inwardly doubting that Reese was capable of doing it, only to have her perform the exact same move moments later perfectly. I realized that I need to have much more faith and positivity when it comes to my children and what I think they are capable of. I never want to be the Mom that doubts my children’s abilities. I want to be the person in my children life that always believes in them and encourages them that anything is possible!

Mark and Reese had a special Daddy-Daughter date in August while I was away all day photographing a wedding. Mark decided it was high time Reese had a special stuffed animal since she does not have any. She has never really shown any interest in playing with dolls or stuffed animals so we have never bothered to buy her one. Mark thought it might help if she was personally invested in the stuffed friend, so he took her to Build-A-Bear. Apparently she had the time of her life creating her bear which she and Mark named “Buddy Bear”. Curiously enough, Buddy is wearing a very girlie outfit including pink suede boots and a pink frilly shirt, so the gender of the bear is still undetermined. Mark insists that Reese chose the outfit all by herself, but I have my doubts since it matches so well. Reese loves her bear and pushes him/her around the house in her stroller daily. She refuses to let it sleep in her crib though, insisting that we perch him/her on the side of the crib propped up against the wall so he/she can watch her sleep. Her other favorite thing to the dress and undress him/her multiple times a day, which requires help from either Mark or I. It gets old. Fast.

Reese has become quite the little helper. She loves to “Keen-Up” and I hardly have to ask her to pick up her toys before she jumps at the opportunity. She enjoys helping me unload the dishwasher and she has the special job of putting away the silverware as I hand it to her. She takes special care to put each piece in the correct compartment of the drawer and I love watching her focus on where to put things. She also gets very excited when I let her help me cook. She runs and gets her apron out of the drawer and asks me to put it on her and then pulls a chair over to stand on. Sometimes she can be more trouble than help but I love that she gets so excited about helping me.

That concludes my insanely long update. I hope that most of you are still awake at this point! I really hope now that things are slowing down I will have more time to blog and especially more time to take photos of Reese. I feel like she gets the short end of the stick when it comes to photos and I really need to take her out on a shoot soon. I have just 9 1/2 weeks before I will probably drop off the radar again for awhile, so I had better make them count! And now I will leave you with one last photos of Reese, my little motorcycle mama. Until next time!