3 months and counting...

I found out on May 7th that we are expecting! We had been trying for about a year and a half. I would say about half of that time wasn't technically "trying" but just more of not preventing it... which I guess is trying. But then after last summer we starting getting more impatient that it wasn't happening so easily. I started tracking my ovulation and all that good stuff. After a while, my doctor put me on Clomid (which is kind of like an ovulation helper). He was going to try that for 3 months, but it only took ONE month and BAM.... baby on board. I feel like I should name the babies middle name Clomid in thanks. No, bad idea. I wanted to wait until I was in my second trimester to announce it on my blog. I didn't want to jinx myself. We told everyone we knew right away though we wanted to share it with friends and family no matter what happened.

I am not one of those people who want to wait and find out if its a boy or a girl. If I could have known on day one I would have. I have a couple friends who think its terrible to find out and I should wait to be surprised. But the way I see it, it is STILL going to be a surprise when I have the ultra-sound, and THEN I get another day of joy when the baby gets here. Why lump it all in one day when you don't have to? Spread the love.

We have our gender determination appointment set for July 30th. The soonest they would let me. I will be a few days shy of 16 weeks. Hopefully we will be able to see the "down there" region of our little bundle of joy on that day. Thinking of names has been lots of fun. It was terrible in the beginning, I just kept thinking, "How can I make a decision when this is a lifetime label?" It was too much pressure. Then I started writing down any and all names I liked, even if I knew I'd never use them. We have narrowed that list down but a lot already. Now I just want to finalize a name so I can call my little seedling something.

I'm so happy to share our news with all of you... finally. Obviously, I haven't posted at all in the last 2 months and I feel terrible. I really haven't had any inspiration or ideas. Plus, I felt like I was lying to everyone by not telling you guys about the baby. I feel much better now that cyber space knows. I've been fatigued to where I could probably have slept all day every day. I've had no inspiration to be creative or even keep my house clean. But now that I've entered my second trimester I'm feeling much more energized, and the naps have decreased.

Our due date is January 16^th. I’m excited to be all huge and pregnant during Christmas. (I say that now, although I’ve never been huge and pregnant). I’ll keep you posted on all the baby news as it comes. Oh and I still need to write up the story about how I found out I was pregnant…

Thank you for being patient and not abandoning Rocky Bella while I’ve been M.I.A.

 I appreciate my readers so much and I’m glad you’re still out there.

A new Niece for Me!

Earth Day was a great day... I have a brand new niece named Evie Aurora Hearron. She was born at 3:45 (ish) and is 7lbs 8oz. and 19" long. She is so tiny and so cute. It was great holding such a brand new human in my arms. She kept making all of these little squeaking noises that were adorable, like a little kitten noise.
Here she is with Ryan... he is a great uncle.

And here she is with her Daddy (my bro. in law Brandon) and new big brother Mavrick. He was not excited about having someone else to share the attention with, UNTIL he saw her. Then he was in love. It was the cutest thing... he whispered to her, "I love you, awwww so cute." We all about died right there.

Get Your Face On Party

Because I'm feeling brave...

I'm joining the Party over at The Stories of A to Z. Its a Before & After party, but its not about furniture this time. Its my face. Ahhhhh. Wait... please don't run away.

She is bearing it all for the world of blogging, well her face at least. I had so much fun looking at everyone who linked up to the party. It would be unfare not to join and I love playing with makeup. I use to work at M.A.C. (well technically I'm still employed there, just "on-call") so I've had a lot of fun applying makeup on other people. This brought me back to those days. Not that those days were long ago at all. A year maybe...?
 I'm not a full face of makeup kinda gal, only sometimes. Most days, its concealer, eyebrow powder, tinted chapstick, and mascara. Anyways, here it goes. I'm feeling brave. (deep breath)

BEFORE. I got dressed, but thats about it. I haven't even brush my hair yet.
(p.s. I'm cameraless today, so these are all taken with my scotch taped iphone.)

Time to bust out the goods.

 

Can you see me in the mirror? I'm waving at you. 

I dont know if you can tell from this photo, but my eyes are done (without mascara yet), and I have little dabs of foundation on my forehead, nose, and chin. I'm almost there. 

 

I love the "mascara face". Does anybody not look goofy putting mascara on...? I doubt its possible. 

And if you're wondering what in the heck I am doing in the little picture on the bottom left... I'm bronzng my cleavage. Hey... every little bit helps. Its a little trick I use to do to my bridal clients. But dont put too much or it will make them look really far apart. ;)

 

And thats it folks... Much better I think. Now if only I did this every day. Nah, I'm too lazy.

 

I decided to wipe off the natural color lipgloss and go for some RED. Ohhh la la. Sometimes a girl just needs some RED lipstick. My favorite: Mac Red, by M.A.C. obviously.

  

 I have that song stuck in my head now...

"Red red wine you make me feel so fine
You keep me rocking all of the time". 

Maybe that means I need a drink. Yes, wine will be great right now. Off I go. 

 

Don't forget to go over and check out everyone else's Before & Afters too! It's really fun to see people without makeup on.

Hand Made Valentine, Roses & Dinner for 2

Tomorrow is Valentines day, but we are cheating and making a Valentines Weekend. Today is our day together, mushy stuff and all. Tomorrow we are heading out, about an hour away to a place called Kernville with some friends to celebrate "Wiskey Flats Days". Its always a lot of fun, wild west style. I might even bust out my cowboy boots. 

I decided to go the handmade route this V-day for Ryan. My friend Melissa sent me this cute idea (click to check it out). I'm lazy though, and decided I would improvise and make it a little easier on myself. But I kinda stole the general idea, just tweaked it A LOT. So when you are thinking... that doesn't resemble yours at all.... well I know- sorry for the build up.  

I bought a bunch of Valentines day scrapbooking paper, red glitter, and some red ribbon at JoAnnas Fabric and Craft store. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do with it all, but I knew I'd figure it out by the time I got home. I just started with cutting out a bunch of hearts, gluing them together, on top of each other, and adding lots of glitter.  The first heart says "I Love..." And then every other heart can finish that sentence.... like "how you buy me wine when I'm grumpy." Or "how you take out the trash without ever being asked." I didn't have a hole punch so I stuck a screw driver through the paper (ghetto version of a hole punch), strung the ribbon through, knotted it, then made a bow.  It was a lot of fun to make, I found myself thinking of him the whole time.

 

  

  

My favorite part was giving it to him. He LOVED it, and his smile got bigger and bigger with each heart he read. He wanted to hang it up in the house (like it was decoration). That made my heart flutter. =) He put it up on our china hutch for all to see how much I love him. He is wonderful.

And for me Flowers. A man can never go wrong with flowers I tell ya. This morning I received a delivery of white, red, and pink roses... they smell so good. 

 

There was baby's breath in them too, but I took that out because I love baby's breath all by itself. It doesn't do too much for me as a filler, but on its own its lovely. 

 So really, its like I got 2 bouquets in one! 

Plus the other night I also got this gorgeous bulb when he came home from the grocery store. I guess it was a pre-valentines day flower. Or maybe because I was just in a bad mood and he wanted me not to be. Either way, it worked.

 

For the rest of the day we are just going to lounge around with each other. I'm finishing re-doing my coffee table while he is Wii Boxing.

 Our plans for tonight are making a delicious dinner together out of my Williams Sonoma cookbook that his sitster got me for Christmas. 

Maybe Salmon...?  

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend filled with LOVE. 

New Family Member...

Don't get too excited... its another dog! Now that we have a house and a backyard we wanted to get a "big" dog. I had been going to the SPCA to search out for a Golden Retriever that needed rescuing. I didn't have any luck. After a few months of looking and finding no golden's,  I was walking out of the shelter and overheard a conversation. An elderly couple had found a dog on the highway, she was almost hit by a car so they snatched her up. They put an ad in the paper trying to find her home, or any home for that matter. After 3 days they brought her into the SPCA, but the lady at the front desk said the SPCA was full and they could not take any more dogs at this time. The couple seemed upset because they were unable to keep her or find her a home. They didn't want to put her down, so has soon as I heard "put down" I yelled out "I'll take her!" The SPCA worker seemed shocked and said "Wow, what great timing." So I took her home and she has become a great addition to our family. She is sooo sweet and just wants to cuddle all the time. However... we just got grass in our backyard after months of dealing with dirt, and shes a digger! I have giant holes all over my backyard. So if anyone knows how to handle that - I'd love some advice.  But she's so beautiful and sweet I can't part with her. We named her Maggie and its weird how you can tell that she is grateful to have a home. Dogs are so great, aren't they?

This rug you see... yeah- she chewed sections of the green part up! I think she still has some puppy in her.

 

So that is the story of how Maggie came to be a Hearron. =)

Family Pictures, check.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Mine was a good one, lots of food and family.

A couple of weeks ago my good friend Casey Hardy from Casey Hardy Photography took some family photos of us. She even got our three crazy dogs in the mix. Speaking of.... I have a new dog! I'll tell more about her later. Anyways, Casey is new to photography and doing a great job. It was exciting to see our professional family photos. The last time that happened was our wedding. Its still weird to see myself as a brunette for the first time in my life. Oh yeah... I died my hair a couple months ago. Its starting to grow out with some blonde roots and it looks like I"m graying. =)  Still much less upkeep than lightening it.
We went down to the dried out riverbed to shoot some photos. My sister Kelsey went along so she could manage the dogs while we took pictures without them. Poor thing, all three dogs were a handful in the riverbed.
Casey is coming up fast, she's going to be shooting my husbands family and us next weekend. Her first paying gig and shes only been doing this for a short time! GO Casey! You should check out her blog to see some more of her photograhpy here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trick or Treat 2009

I hope you all had a great Halloween weekend. My favorite part was passing out candy to trick-or-treater's for the first time in our first home. It was a homey feeling. As they were coming by, I was in the middle of getting ready for a Halloween party we were going to. By the end of it, I was all done up in my spider lady Ghost outfit. There was one little boy who wouldn't take candy from me because he was too scared. So sad. But it was a blast to see all the kids come up to the door in their costumes.

My husband dressed up as Jason and I was (like I said) a spider-lady ghost. It was the cheapest thing at the Halloween store that didn't show practically all of my skin. I really hate that, when did Halloween turn into girls wearing lingerie???

Later on, we stopped by a local bar with some friends and saw the C-R-A-Z-I-E-S-T thing ever! At about midnight, in walks this older lady in a black veil carrying a real live goat dressed in baby pajamas! Yes, you heard me right- A GOAT! Weird. I had to snap a picture with my iphone to share with you. How else would anyone believe that could happen.  Poor little goat needs a pasture not a bar.  She just sat there and drank her drink then walked out with her goat. I really don't want to know what the rest of her night was like. 

 

I hope you had a good, fun Halloween- no goats involved.

Thats what I call a Good Night

Sometimes I just have to give Ryan a shout out! Like the other day he brought me home flowers and made me my favorite little appetizer to go with some great wine he brought home, while I just blogged on the couch. Roma tomatoes, fresh basil from our backyard, and mozzarella cheese with cracked black pepper over all of it. Mmmm, I can't get enough. And the food was good too. ;)


Thank you Ryan, I love you.

Miss My Babies

My "summer school" job is over since the school year started. That means I'm back with High Schoolers, and done with K-6th. Booo. Little kids are so much more fun than teenagers. I didn't always think so, but after this summer I'm a believer.
It was so hard to say goodbye to my little students. It really made me want my own. The last day was a hard one. There were definitely tears involved. In our art class we had a "card making class" for them to make cards for their moms or dads or whoever. It ended up being a card party for their favorite teachers, so when I got some it felt great. I got a lot of cards and drawings that I will cherish.

I will miss my Babies! ...tear.

My cutest little girls...

Gone Camping... for real this time

I'm in Mammoth, California right now.
I am really excited as I write this post, looking forward to our trip. I just finished packing up my camping gear. I technically left two days ago, but since this is the wonderful world of the internet, I can write this in advance. I love technology, (reminds me of a Napoleon Dynamite song).

Every year the Hearron's make the 4 1/2 hr drive up to Mammoth Lakes for about a week. We are staying only 3-4 days because I have to go back to work. So I will be gone for the next couple days.

Here is the whoooole family just about (I'm in the back, fourth from the left in the blue shirt):
These pictures are from last years trip. I'll share some with you from this year as soon as I get back.
This picture is from the top of "devils post pile" towards the first part of our hike.

And this is a creek that soon runs off into "rainbow falls".

One of my favorite memories from last year was Ryan pulling grandma in the baby seat behind my sister-in-law Misty's bike...