Well… we’re now down to under four weeks until due date!  Amazing.  I’m wrestling with giving in to my nesting urges vs. staying practical.  On one hand, I feel I have to buy everything in creation in order to be uber prepared.  On the other hand I’m thinking… “that’s stupid, control yourself Nell.  It’s a baby – he doesn’t need all that much and you already have a closet full of baby stuff!”  The funny thing is… when I was about three months pregnant I was like, “I’m going to be minimalistic and not buy tons of stuff…”.  Ha.  That tune has changed a bit as I keep getting closer.

Meanwhile, this basketball belly is now more of a beach ball and is getting bigger and bigger!  Here are some recent photos Adam shot of me:

Me at 36 weeks! Photo by Adam Reid

I made these ones in black and white to try to make them a bit artsier…

Me at 36 weeks! Photo by Adam Reid

Me at 36 weeks! - Photo by Adam Reid

Oh yeah… I’m getting up there!

Anyway – I was very excited this weekend because I was bitten by the photography bug once again.  It’s actually been a little while since I’ve been super inspired to pull out the camera and go to town.  It started with these tulips I got over the weekend.  They are those peachy ones that have a bit of yellow – they’re my favorites.  Anyway, as I was sitting over breakfast, I was staring off into space – transfixed by the gorgeous tulip sitting on my kitchen table.  It was opened up pretty wide and the inside was just magical looking.  I instantly grabbed my macro lens and thus began a little twenty-minute photo shoot in my kitchen.  I just started snapping away with the macro lens… enjoying all the different colors and textures in my kitchen.  Here are some of my favorites:

"Inner Tulip" - 100mm Macro

"Pair of Tulips" - 100mm macro

"Tulip in Window Light" - 100mm macro

"Green Glass Jug in Window" - 100mm macro

"Red Rose in Window" - 100mm macro

"Window Woman Giggling" - 100mm macro

Aren’t those tulips delicious?  They were so inspiring to me.  I must say – I love taking pictures of flowers.  They are so intricately designed – with such gorgeous colors and textures – and they’re all natural?!  It’s amazing.  Plus – I don’t get nervous when I take photos of flowers (vs. people)… flowers don’t care if I take a long time and I find I can really get in a zone.

I also really love that green class jug photo – the texture in the glass is so cool.  It’s almost fluid-like – like an impressionist painting.

This weekend I’ve signed up for a free photography workshop all about photographing newborns and babies! I thought that might come in handy.  The workshop is through a site called creativeLIVE.  They offer a bunch of different photo workshops – and you can take them for free in the live version… which basically means, I’ll have access to it live through the internet over the course of three days.  You can also opt to pay for it and watch it at your leisure… but this is my first, so I figured I’d try out the free version.  It feels good to be feeding my photography brain once again after a little break.

Finally – since September, I’ve been meeting with a group of pregnant gals from the neighborhood once a month.  We found each other through a local list serve and it’s been great gaining a community of women going through their pregnancies (the first for all of us I believe) at the same time as me.  The best part – is once all our babies are born, we’ll now have a local network of new moms to hang out with!   So, Sunday we hosted the February get together at our place.  This time we invited husbands/partners along so they’d have a chance to meet as well.  Adam was the amazing pizza chef (he cooked up nine pizzas over the course of the evening – with the help of a few of the other guys) and we all had an awesome time.  So here is our group photo.  I think by the end of March, all our babies will be born (half the group already had their little ones).

The Preggy Gals (and Jessica, who now has an actual live baby)

The Preggy Gals With Hubbies

Adam’s obviously behind the camera.

So to my fellow preggy mamas reading this… it’s going to be a big month for all of us!  Good luck my new friends!

That’s all for today.  Hope everyone is having a lovely Tuesday.

xoxo