BUMPDATE 17/42

i don't think i was very good at doing 'bumpdates' with cedar or taking regular pictures of my growing belly & i'm still not doing so hot with it, but i'm trying my best (also, these pictures have made me realize i realllllllly need to stop doing iphone only pictures & use my camera. i've been so lazy)! there is an onion-sized baby in that belly of mine, at least that's what my app says haha & i may not look like i've got a lot of bump going on, but from my angle when i look down at my belly i can totally see it.. but the pictures are oddly deceiving! it's growing though, that is for sure. 

how far along are you? as of tuesday i am officially 17 weeks, aka 4 months & 1 week, haha. CRAZY! the time is really flying by.... hopefully it keeps flying.

sleep? honestly depends on the night, but i'm not so sure if that's from being pregnant or the not so comfortable mattress we have here in spain.. haha

movement? i am pretttttty sure i have been feeling the baby kick for the last couple of days. it's slightly confusing though because the first day i felt it i was pretty sick... so i wasn't totally positive that i was feeling the baby or just, being sick.. ha BUT! i've felt it consistently since then, so i'm gonna say it was the baby :) p.s. being sick, like not pregnancy-related sickness, while pregnant is the worst. the last time i was sick like this was when i was pregnant with cedar & it was caused from dehydration & i was terrified on when i woke up that it was happening again, luckily it wasn't that bad. people shouldn't be able to get sick while pregnant.

symptoms? luckily i have finished the constantly feeling sick phase of pregnancy, but i am still always tired so i try to take a nap everyday while cedar naps, it's actually pretty nice. i should have implemented this into my life far before i got pregnant haha. i've also had a little more acne which i think is to blame on the pregnancy, hopefully that ends sometime soon! oh! & definitely increased sense of smell. i've also been having a lot of crazy, vivid dreams which is sometimes cool & other times i could really do without. the dreams are one of the weirder side affects to pregnancy i think.

cravings? i haven't had any i-need-this-right-this-second type cravings, but certain things to sound more appealing.. mostly just salty things.. salt & vinegar chips, french fries.. all those unhealthy type of things. i've always had a thing for salt but it's a little more heightened now. i also have been really liking bubbly water, which is something i absolutely used to hate. but anytime my stomach is a little iffy feeling this stuff makes it feel 100% so i have been drinking it a lot.

looking forward to ? our next dr. appointment! our last dr. appointment we got our first printout of the ultra sound which i was really excited for, haha & they gave us SO many different views. it was pretty exciting! our next appointment is genetic testing where they basically test anything & everything. it's a test they offer in the states but we chose not to do it with cedar, but here in spain it's mandatory. it'll be interesting to see what they do & what they learn from the test since it's something i've never done before.

TOLEDO, SPAIN

you may remember from this post that way back in april austins parents came to visit us here in madrid. while they were here we took a day trip to toledo & i completely forgot to ever write about it! so here i am, a few months later catching up a bit. ha!

45 minutes south of madrid is toledo, a small walled city that is perfect for a quick get-away from the city. toledo is pretty small but is packed full with history, plus it's a UNESCO world heritage site, which we all know i love! it's also known for it's metal-work, so if you need a good knife you should go here. toledo is really cool because it has influences from christian, muslim & jewish cultures, which is a lot of culture for such a small place! we spent our time there wandering around the whole town, visiting the cathedral of toledo, the synagogue of el transito, the muslim & jewish quarters & eating a lot of gelato.

 it's amazing to be living in a place with so much history surrounding it. we definitely have taken for granted the fact that all of these amazing towns are just right next to us, but i'm hoping we will stay exploring more of spain in the next few months!

ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE..

everyday i walk by this tiny flower shop, admire the flowers & sometimes i buy one of the ladies bouquets. the other day as i walked by the little shop it made me miss the summer when i worked with a floral company, so i decided to buy a few different bundles & see what i could make from them. i miss working with my hands, doing something creative & this seemed like the perfect outlet for me, seeing as i don't really have any crafting supplies & didn't feel like buying some!
from the three bundles i bought i was able to make one bouquet & three smaller centerpiece types to spread throughout our little home. having fresh flowers around instantly makes me happier & makes wherever you live look happier too. aaanyway, i thought i'd do a little d.i.y. on how to make a floral arrangement! before my experience with the floral company i had no idea how they made their arrangements, but it's really simple, i promise!

we don't have a whole lot on the vase front here, so instead i used a pitcher & a few jars i've kept from jam, pasta sauce & who knows what. i'm a jar collector & in times like these, it really comes in handy :) i like using different jars though that vary in size & height (even if only slightly!) so there isn't a total uniform look happening.

you can use whatever flowers you want, easy as that! i like different texture & color & i like having some greenery, hence the eucalyptus, plus i adore the smell of it. 

1.  start with one handful of flowers (since these flowers have multiple buds on one stem it made it easy, but i'd start with 3 or 4 if they are singles).

2. add some more! 

3. take your second flower & put some in between the first two handful of flowers & try to disperse them throughout so that it doesn't look like complete bundles.

 4. add your greenery & then go wild. look at your bouquet & find any holes or patches that look like they need to be broken up & add more to fill them up as you go.

i like my flowers to have a sort of wild look to it so i don't trim the stems all to one length, keeping different heights to add a little texture & what not & there you go, a lovely bouquet. it's pretty simple. you just need to mess around with the flowers a little to get the look that you're wanting :)

these are the little jars i made with the leftover flowers i had. the first is basically a replica of the bigger bouquet, the second is straight eucalyptus with a few little yellow buds to add some color & the third is eucalyptus with some daisies. they're all simple & straightforward. creating things with the leftovers is half of the fun i think.

SURPRISE!

there's a tiny baby growing in my stomach & we couldn't be more pumped! as of today i am 15 weeks along, which seems pretty far to me. i mean, next week i will have been pregnant for four whole months already. that was such a milestone when i was pregnant with cedar! this pregnancy has been a whole lot different so far & a lot faster which i am pretty grateful for.

can i just say going through the process of deciding to have a baby is weirdly intimidating? it's no secret that cedar was a surprise baby, so austin & i had never gone through the "should we? are we ready?" phase of having a baby, we just had one. this time around, actually thinking, planning & talking about it was all so exciting! it's such a big decision & then there's the waiting to find out if you're pregnant & literally everyday i would wonder when i would get pregnant.. & then i did & i just knew it.

i knew almost immediately with this little babe that i was pregnant, where as with cedar i had no inkling of being pregnant until i was already 7 weeks along, so that in itself is a huge difference! since i knew so early on this time around, i was terrified that this pregnancy would draaaaaag on, but like i said, it's gone pretty quickly. i think it has something to do with the fact that soon after i found out we went on vacation for 6 weeks & i have cedar to take care of & occupy my time! the first 12 weeks were pretty rough for me pregnancy wise. i was incredibly lucky with cedars pregnancy in the fact that while i had nausea most of the days, it wasn't too horrible & i could still do a lot of things. this time around the nausea was far worse & a lot of time, especially at nights, made it so i just wanted to stay curled up in a ball. it was not a party, that's for sure! thankfully when the worst of it hit i was with my mom in california so she was able to help me out with cedar which was super helpful! i haven't been able to decide if i've been having pregnancy cravings or i-want-everything-i-cant-get-in-spain cravings.. cause i have been wanting a lot of foods but they are all things from back home, so i can't decide whether its pregnancy or homesickness, haha. but i didn't have any cravings the first time around, so that's a noticeable difference.

just yesterday had my first doctors appointment, which was so exciting! i loved finally being able to see this tiny baby in my stomach doing a million flips & hearing the little heartbeat, it made everything seem so much more real! we told cedar he was going to be a brother as soon as we found out & i wish i could say he was super pumped & excited, but being a 2 year old he could have cared less. but we did teach him that there's a baby in my stomach & i think it is the most adorable thing when he pats my belly & says "baby! baby!" i think he's gonna be a great big brother to this little one!

THE BUSY BURRO

after a lot of waiting (& some slight procrastination on my part) i have finally launched my online shop that i had mentioned a few months ago. i am so excited to actually have it up & running! i actually opened the shop back in july but then i went on a 6 week vacation & sort of dropped the ball on promoting it, getting the word out there & i totally spaced blogging about it, oooooops!

the shop is named The Busy Burro & is full of one-of-a-kind moroccan wedding blankets. my dream & goal is to be able to sell actual moroccan rugs & to branch into textiles from other countries as well, but for now morocco is our primary focus. i got the idea to sell moroccan wedding blankets while we were in morocco last december, they are so beautiful & were totally unlike anything i had seen before. after our trip i had multiple people ask me about if i knew of any shops that sold authentic moroccan wedding blankets online & i got to researching it & realized that for most authentic, handmade wedding blankets stores were charging far more than most people i know were willing to buy. that's when i decided i wanted to create a shop to sell one-of-a-kind, authentic goods for a more reasonable price.

austin, cedar & i went back to morocco for just two days in may to buy the goods that we are selling & we handpicked each & every one. i tried to get a variety in size & pattern & ones that were still in good condition, however since they are vintage they aren't perfect! but a fun fact about moroccan wedding blankets is that they are actually more valuable the older they are! you can easily buy brand new blankets that look perfect & are lovely, but they do not have the history behind them & they are not always handmade. each item that we have in our store is aged at least 15 years & older. every blanket has it's own unique story.

check out The Busy Burro to see more photos of the blankets & check out the F.A.Q. page to learn more about moroccan wedding blankets!

HELLO AGAIN!

i have to admit, i'm pretty surprised i haven't blogged since july. SO MUCH HAS BEEN GOING ON! i normally would have blogged about all of it, but i just didn't this time around & after some thinking i've decided it all started with the crash of my computer that i mentioned it sometime before i stopped blogging. having my computer crashed pretty much just ended my using computer all together, not that i didn't have access to another computer or that was a conscious decision, i just sort of stopped. i guess all i can say is i like working from my on computer with my own programs & my own stuff, you know what i mean? anyways, sometime after my computer crashed cedar & i trekked across the world to sunny california to get away from the awful madrid heat while austin was in the middle of finals & from that point on i can honestly say i did not touch a computer or even look at blogs. from mid july-now, i have not done any blog stalking whatsoever, which is sort of an accomplishment cause i used to look at them religiously, but it's also not an accomplishment because i do actually miss it & am looking forward to getting back into the habit, haha. so yeah, that's where i've been i guess.. computer-less & on vacation, so i guess not toooo much has been going on, but now i have my computer back & i am not on vacation so i'll be back on here again. hurray!

now that we've got that extremely long & dumb excuse out of the way, here's a bit of a two month recap in a nutshell: california >> utah >> mexico >> utah >> california! 

sidenote: while i didn't use my computer, i also apparently didn't use my camera that i took for the trip, & didn't really even take pictures on my phone. i guess i was just really into a technology free summer (unintentionally).

june & july were insanely hot here in madrid & to be completely honest it was totally miserable. austin & i had been planning to go back to the states for the last week of july, so i decided to go back a week earlier to end my heat-induced misery! & to see my family, of course. cedar & i went to california for 10 days & had so much fun! we went to the beach with our friends & family, got caught in a freak thunderstorm at the beach which doesn't really happen in july in southern california, had all the foods i had been missing, & just lounged about. it was really relaxing & just what i had been hoping for. 

from california we went to utah where we excitedly met up with austin & got to see his family & our friends that are up there. visiting somewhere you used to live is hard & busy work! there were so many people we wanted to see, things we wanted to do, places we wanted to eat & not enough time, but we did our best to fit it all in & i'd say we did pretty good! austin's family had a big family bbq one our first days we were there & it was sooo good, austin & i had both been craving bbq food & it really hit the spot. while we were in utah we went fishing, austin managed to squeeze a trip to montana to visit his brother into the week, i had a cousins yoga night, we saw lots of friends & lots of family. it was really so much fun. also, cedar got a haircut which is pretty big news. now when i look back at photos with his long hair i wonder why i didn't cut it earlier. 

the next leg of our trip was to puerto vallarta, mexico, we went for 10 days with my whole side of the family! it was really cool being able to be there with everyone because we don't get to be all together a whole lot since we're all strewn about the world right now. i love getting to see & spend time with everyone especially my nieces & nephews because they grow & change so much in just a year, it's crazy! everyone spent their days lounging at the pools & beaches & eating a ton of food, naturally (can you tell a huge part of our trip was eating?! i gained a fair amount of weight while we were back.. worth it). 

after mexico austin, cedar, my mom & i went back to utah & pretty much did an exact repeat of the first stop in utah, haha. austin, cedar & i were supposed to leave from to go back to madrid but we had a last minute change of plans & ended up extending through the month of august! we originally had planned to go back to spain & finish out the rest of austins time off on a roadtrip in spain, but it turned out that austin ended up getting some meetings set up for potential jobs in l.a. the last week of august so we decided it would be worth staying for. 

so from utah we went back to l.a. & austin had meetings just about every day which was really awesome & will be even more awesome if something comes from any of the meetings. fingers crossed! while he was at meetings cedar & i hungout with my mom & sister-in-law & her little boy, russie & my friend ashley & her kids a lot. it's so much fun watching cedar with all of my friends kids who are similar ages, i love watching how they all interact with each other. i'm such a mom sometimes! but i can't help it, ha. austin & i also got a chance to see my grandparents while we were home which was really nice, my grandpa has so many amazing stories about his life, i love listening to whatever story it is he comes up with to share. 

after being with our friends & family for so long it was pretty hard to say goodbye, i even teared up a bit on the airplane. we are really lucky that we were able to go back home & see everyone, i really didn't think that we would be going back until austin finishes school in december. now almost every day cedar asks for russie & johnny, which is so cute but also a little heartbreaking. anyways! now we are back in madrid & summer is officially overrrrr, mostly just because austin started school. this term will be great though because he will be home more often which i am pumped about! & next week cedar is going to start going to a little class a couple times a week which i'm really excited about, both for him & for me :) there's our life update.