Introducing Blake Robert Bingham

Todd and I checked into the hospital the night of July 5th for an induction. By 3:00 pm on July 6th there was still no baby. There wasn't even any progress to indicate the possibility of a baby coming soon. Realizing that the little guy wasn't budging and we were already overdue, we decided to do a c-section. That could easily be the best decision we ever made...

Todd and I welcomed Blake Robert Bingham into the world at 4:25pm weighing 10 lbs, 2 oz and measuring 21.5 inches! Our big guy was perfectly healthy and adorable. We couldn't have been happier.





He was greeted by a sea of family members and friends the night he was born and in the following days. We are so blessed to have such wonderful people in Blake's life! He even had some of his own "buddies" come visit at the hospital.



For the past month we have had a wonderful time getting to know eachother. He has the sweetest disposition and is happiest snuggling someone's arms or riding in the car. At our 2 week appointment we found out that Blake is in the 95th percentile for his head and height (he is already 23.5 inches!) and the 75th percentile for his weight.

I am very lucky because I have 2 dear friends that are fantastic photographers so Blake has become quite the model. He was very sweet for both sessions and actually slept through a lot of being curled up and put in funny positions.

Melissa Zihlman- www.melissazihlman.com






Brandi Luig






The past month has been a whirlwind. He is already changing so much... I can't wait to see what the future brings!

6 weeks!

I have 6 weeks left and I WOULD feel great about that... except my cousin who was due only a week before me had her baby on Saturday! That made everything way too close and way too real for me. So now I am in stress out mode. I am trying to figure out what I am forgetting. What do I pack in the bag for the hospital? What are the essentials for a diaper bag? Who the heck is going to change the dirty diapers?
All the things I need to do to get ready coupled with the sheer terror of what is about to happen to me is making my days go by too quickly. I have a lot to do! Words of wisdom are welcomed!

I won't do blue...

Since I found out that we were having a boy, I had absolutely no clue how I was going to decorate the nursery. The only thing I was certain of was that I was NOT going to do blue.
Determined to find something that no one else had, I searched the internet for my perfect nursery bedding with brown walls in mind. I couldn't find anything that I liked! (Maybe some of the struggle could be attributed to my Mom saying that the baby was going to think he was a gopher.) Finally Mom, Jenny, Aunt Kathy and I went to Canton and I found a bedding set that I fell in love with.

The baby isn't even here yet and I have already done something that I said I would never do. How many more times is that going to happen?
So now I have a good start for the nursery. There is a lot more to go, but I wanted to show everyone that I am still alive and I am actually doing things! Just three more months until the little guy is here! Hopefully he won't be too over-stimulated by the bright BLUE walls and lime green diamonds!

20 Weeks

I can't believe I am already halfway there! 20 weeks came very quickly. I haven't started working on the nursery. I don't even know which room it will be in! I keep looking for ideas, but nothing is set in stone yet. Jenny and I searched for fabric on Saturday and found some great ideas! The only problem is that we talked ourselves out of them on the drive home from Dallas. Too many decisions!

Also- Baby Center said that the baby is able to hear us now. I really need to find more intelligent things to talk about than American Idol. I also should probably quit listening to KISS FM. Dang.

It's a...

Sweet faced


Big footed


Precious little


We have a lot of preparing to do!!! We are so excited!

Sneaky

My Mom will be the first to tell you... but I will admit it. I am sneaky. Always have been, always will be. The latest case in point is our last trip to the baby doctor. It was supposed to be a routine check in which my doc had previously told us we definitely would NOT find out the sex of the baby. He is a very cruel man. His reasoning was that he has been in the business for way too long and has been "burned" way too many times.
He put the heart monitor on my stomach and listened to the baby's heartbeat. He said everything sounded good and then he asked if everything was ok with me. I was quick to say no. I told him my cyst had REALLY been hurting me and that I would get sudden sharp pains in my left side. Which wasn't ALL a lie. My cyst had hurt. Or at least something had hurt in my left side. Once. This concerned the doctor because my cyst was large. He decided a sonogram would be necessary now to check on the cyst!! Todd and I stared as hard as we could at the screen. He showed us the spine, head and all that uneventful stuff. Then he asked if we wanted his "guess" on what the baby was. DUH! So he told us a guess... but I won't bother you with the guess for now. The level 2 sonogram is Tuesday so we should have a definitive answer by then.
The funniest part is that he looked for the cyst and it was COMPLETELY gone! Which is wonderful news except for the fact that it proved what a liar I really am!

Playing along

After reading Jenny's "I've been tagged" post I wanted to see what picture I would have to post if I were to accept the challenge. My picture folder is organized by years so the fourth folder is 2005 and the fourth folder within that is my engagement/bridal pictures.
P.S. I swear I am not lying. I did not go and try to find a picture of me in "my prime". I am playing the game legitimately!
There was no good story for that picture... we are so happy and so in love. Boring. I decided that I would cheat a tiny bit (for the sake of the blog)and post another picture from the same folder with a MUCH better story.
This is the very LAST picture in the folder because it is the very last picture of my bridal session. It had been a very long day fueled more by Red Bull than food. That paired with fake smiling for 2-3 hours in a tight dress made me feel a little sick. You can tell in this picture that my smile is more of a grimace/snarl because I knew at that point in the shoot I could not go on any longer. I felt like I was going to either pass out or throw up so immediately following this photo I jetted to the building my regular clothes were in. My entourage (photographer Mike, Mom, Dad and sister Brooke) followed closely behind. I got to the building only to find that the door was locked. My mom ran to the other side of the building to see if the front door was unlocked.The rest of the story all happened within 20 seconds but felt like 10 minutes. I was feeling horrible and turned to Brooke and said I am going to be sick. I leaned over the wood railing to try to make it into the bushes instead of all over my wedding dress. Instead of throwing up, I passed out. Brooke saw me starting to go down so she caught me as I scraped my dress down the wood railing and sat me on the ground. When I snapped out of it my first groggy thought was I can't breathe and the only remedy to that would be to get out of that tight dress. I was so out of it that I reached back and unzipped my dress. Now you realize, in a dress like that you don't really need to wear an appropriate undergarment... nor will it fit. The dress fell off of my body letting everyone at Grapevine Botanical Gardens see what God gave me. My Dad and Mike quickly held up the sheet I had been standing on for photos to give me some privacy. However the sheet only blocked one side of me so a poor unsuspecting garden patron got an unexpected treat that day. I have never seen someone do a 180 dead in their tracks so quickly. Luckily at that moment my Mom came through the building and unlocked the door to rescue me. That day will forever be known as
"The day Grapevine Botanical Gardens saw my goodies."