progress.

let's go all the way back to week 5 (so pretty much right after we found out the exciting news):

 

Needless to say, my stomach does not look like THAT anymore. Move right along to 17 weeks, then 18 weeks (tonight actually). The in between pics are not terribly exciting. It seemed like around 11 weeks she started to grow quite a bit and now I feel like I'm getting bigger by the second.

 

i always thought erin was crazy when she said she felt HUGE when she obviously wasn't, but i get it now. and my stomach itches like whoa. TMI? i think not, i'm just being honest. apparently my skin is not used to stretching like this. awesome.

bgh.

as if you haven't heard already....we're having a GIRL!!!!!!!!!!! i know either way we'd be this excited, but i can not wait to meet this little girl. b and i were both thinking girl (although i didn't really come to my decision until we were literally walking into the doctor's). not sure why i picked girl, but maybe i did have some sort of "feeling." people kept asking me if i had a "feeling" and i just thought i was broken. i had no idea what they were talking about. there really is nothing like seeing your baby. i knew seeing her was going to be incredible, but there really is nothing like it. the first time we saw her at 7 weeks, she looked like this:

and now she looks like this!!

i mean really. it's amazing.


we're a little over 16 weeks and i think i look like i'm pregnant, but i can't count on one hand how many times i've heard "are you sure you're pregnant? haha" insert their smile here. i, however, don't find it that humorous. good friends and family can tell i have a little bump. she's in there. :)

i told my kiddos the other day after one kid straight up asked me if i was having a baby. see? even a 6 year-old can tell. i digress. they were REALLY excited and had some interesting ideas for names. such as: spirits, skittles and stellaluna (we'd just read that book). we don't have a name yet, but i'm pretty sure we wont be going with any of their suggestions.

so if you were reading this blog just to keep up with my shopping, i'm sorry to tell you that's not really high priority any more. it's all about baby girl hawkins (bgh) now. :)

lucky13.

turns out friday the 13th isn't so unlucky after all. yesterday b and i found out we're going to be adding to the family in late april!!!!!! i bet many of you are thinking "congrats" first, but THEN "how can you go without buying clothes now?!" and its kinda funny because several girlfriends of mine asked me what i was gonna do if i ended up being pregnant during this and i just said "yea right!" well i guess now we've taken on a new challenge. a bigger, better, more exciting, more life changing challenge. and erin must have amazing sisterly instinct because she totally called it and was the ONLY one we told the day of. and she thinks i'm crazy because i took 4 tests (make that 5). don't judge...i wanted to make sure!

new challenge--accepted. :) (that's the biggest i could make that smiley face)

**i wrote this on Aug. 14th

karma.

I know I've been uber-slacker with this lately so I'm going to try to catch up a bit today. Let's start with spendings in June, shall we?

The above is what I had written before I went to check my bank account. I can't go back more than a year so that means I can't look up June. Ick. That's what I get for not keeping up with this. That also means I can't look up July. Double ick. I know the anticipation was killing you, but at the end I'll either guess or average what I was spending a month and put it in for these 2 months. My not-terribly-accurate way of tracking my savings has gotten even worse. Eh, oh well.

This allows me to write about something else. WEDDINGS! I was the girl who would buy a new dress for  just about every "special" occasion. And trust me...I have a very broad meaning of "special." Going to the theater? Need a new dress for that. Going to a graduation in the middle of nowhere in NY? Need a dress for that. Going to dinner on the 3rd Tuesday of the month? Need a dress for that. (well now I feel like apple-- ya know, "there's an app for that".) Needless to say we've been to like 6 weddings so far this year. Normally I would probably buy new dresses. Maybe not 6 dresses, but definitely at least a couple. I don't want to be the girl in the same dress in pictures. I know, there are much bigger problems in the world, it's just a thing with me. I certainly did not need to worry about that. at. all. I have about 20 dresses that can be deemed wedding appropriate. Yes, 20. I just ran upstairs to count them. That's not even counting skirts and casual dresses. Of those, 10 of them are little black dresses. Is 10 LBDs too many? I honestly don't know how to answer that. They're so terribly handy. I told you I was checking my shame in at the door and being honest here. Maybe that IS normal for girls, but I do feel kinda guilty about it.  But it must be important if it's in wikipedia.

right?

birfday.

Mom and Erin gave me birthday money so i had $250 to spend! I went into it super excited and ransacked the racks of forever 21. I forgot how miserable it is to try on clothes. I'm not going to get on my soap box about how frustrating it is to be (literally) kid-size, however, erin and mom had to keep my spirits up. I got a couple things from forever 21, marshalls, macys, target, and j crew. i officially spent my last birthday money today. i knew i couldn't spread it all out to last the rest of my challenge time so it's all gone now. it was almost stressful b/c i wanted to make sure i didn't buy things i wouldn't really wear. i had to be uber picky and buy practical things.

domino.

The other day I was terribly bored (I know, I know. No one wants to hear about the teacher being bored in the summer), so I thought to myself "this is normally when I would go shopping." But I couldn't. So then I thought maybe I'll go to the mall and get some stuff for Brandon! Then it would be like shopping for me, but not really. But, I talked myself out of it mainly b/c I didn't want to be in the Garden of Eden, if you will. When Brandon got home that evening I explained this internal conversation with him and he realized that he too hadn't been shopping in the past 6-ish months. We realized he would usually just be dragged to the mall with me and we'd stop in places and grab stuff for him too. So this really is having a domino effect. And a positive one at that.

We did go to the mall tonight and while we were there we stopped in Fossil to get B some new shirts and we were actually feeling cheaper than normal and almost didn't get him anything. We ended up with 2 awesome sale shirts.

It wasn't bad to be in the mall tonight since I get to have my birthday present tomorrow (a little late, but still JUST as awesome if not more so). Mom and Erin got me money to get some clothes so we'll do that tomorrow. I'm. Stoked. I do have to make very smart choices with what I get since this has to last me about 6 more months.

About half way through!

may.

I feel like this is where a lot of the shopping comes in. It was getting close to the wedding and summer was starting. Here goes:

zappos-- $30
marshalls-- $100
nordstrom-- $23
target-- $46


Oh wait, I just realized I was adding up June instead of May. I'm gonna stop here, but let's just say that's a preview of what's to come in June. There was a bit more though. So, let's try again, this time May:

target-- $78
etsy-- $108 (this was my reception dress. does this count?)
target-- $69
saks-- $55

grand total of $310. Can't wait for my birthday presents! Sangeeta already sent me a couple dresses that are adorable. Thank goodness.