Well I’m 13 weeks and 5 days along to be exact, so pretty much my second trimester. Believe me, it was SO hard to keep quiet about this. But with the exciting news of a baby came (mostly me) worrying about it’s health and if it was doing okay in my tummy. My husband has been an incredible support to me during that whole time and doing his best to encourage me to think positive instead of constantly asking “What if?” As I’m sure most of you mommies know, the first trimester is exciting, but there are so many unknowns.

To add on, this has been a very easy pregnancy so far with only some occasional nausea and no vomiting. Which believe me, I felt happy about..but at the same time, it made me worry too. I didn’t “feel” pregnant, I guess you could say. But after two ultrasounds I am definitely carrying a little one that is already hyper and kicking and flailing his or her arms (although I can’t feel it just yet)

And to answer the question some people have asked. Am I showing? Well, a little, but it’s still in that stage where I’m sure people can question “Is that a baby belly or did she just eat a big lunch?” It’s only visible when I wear tight t-shirts and it does look a bit bigger when I have had a large meal in me Here below is a picture of me at 8 weeks, (Which in this picture, I had just finished my lunch!) I haven’t taken one at 12/13 weeks yet but I’ll be doing that this weekend!

And lastly, I had someone ask me if I was scared. My answer is yes, in both good and bad ways. My mind has been constantly running with questions, concerns, and sometimes doubts unfortunately. Lately I try to make light of how little I know about pregnancy and babies and call myself a newb, which I definitely am. Or laughing at myself when I’m in the baby aisle at Target and a friend asks, “So what kind of bottles do you want to get the baby?” with my response being “Umm…the regular kind?” (True story, folks.) And well, there’s times when it’s also really discouraging and I question what Jimmy and I will do when he/she comes. But I just want to put this here right now to even remind myself when I’m feeling inadequate or not prepared in the future that God is giving us this baby and He doesn’t give us what we can’t handle. I am so thankful for this gift He’s given us and I know there is more struggling to come in the future, but the truth is, we are so ready to learn. We are so ready to try. And we are so ready to love on our little one and become mama and daddy.

If you want to see the photos with our news, simply click the link below

Our winter photoshoot

Oh, what the hey. I’m sure I already gave it away anyway….

Yay!
*Although, if you do want to see how we revealed the pregnancy, you should click the link

Remembering the reason for the season today and the birth of our Savior and all that He’s done for us. God, you are so good!

(Oh and you better believe I’ll be posting the outtakes of these photos…hilarious.)

Love,

Jimmy and Jen

Happy Day Before Christmas Eve Eve! Hope everyone is having a lovely time with your families. Jimmy and I are currently in California (we surprised his family, other than his mom who flew down us to surprise everyone else) and are having the time of our lives. For that, I’m making this post short and sweet and posting an outfit that I took a few days before we left. These were taken in our front yard just outside the door. Obviously we are very on top of shoveling our driveways and walkways…hah.

beanie: gap
sweater: thrifted
jeans: thrifted
legwarmers: target
boots: reflection

Merry Christmas!

Our day after Thanksgiving plans included getting our first tree and ornaments. Although we’ve been married for 2 and a half years, this is our first Christmas on our own, in our own home. So we wanted this to be special! Throughout the months here, I had been slowly accumulating Christmas decor from thrift stores and that combined with bringing out the crafty side within me gave us some affordable holiday decor! And some black Friday deals helped. After setting up the tree and decorating (while listening to Christmas music, of course), Jimmy, Layla and I cuddled on the couch and watched Christmas Vacation accompanied by hot cocoa and popcorn. Although I WILL say that Layla ate one too many fake pine needles and threw up in six different spots in the house. Poor thing. But gosh, I love Christmas time.

Our second tiny tree on the entry table with paper flowers.

And of course, how could I end this post without some Christmas baking?

Hope you all are having a lovely Holiday so far!

It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL outside. But it’s also freezing. In the negatives, to be exact. I don’t know how we do it to be honest..how we live here. Haha. It’s sort of funny how when it reaches up to 20 degrees we get excited about it. But I will gladly take that over -7! Anyway, enough about the weather. The snow is so high (past my knees) that I haven’t been motivated to take any outfit photos lately, so here I will leave you with the last one I took before the snow came. It’s also been hard to wear anything other than jeggings/leggings or jeans, but I’m comitted to not letting the weather bring me to the point where I don’t feel like getting dressed up! So here’s to toughing it out and braving the snow. I’ve been doing it every weekend for photographing my clients…why should this be any harder?

In other unrelated news, today it has officially been a year since Jimmy joined the Air Force. I can’t believe how fast time has flown by! One year ago today I was saying goodbye to him and seeing him off to BMT. Crazy. But good crazy. There have been some frustrating times for sure, but I wouldn’t trade our life for anything and I’m thankful to the Air Force for putting a roof over our head, medical insurance, and so much more! And I’m also thankful for my husband, of course. Words can’t express how proud I am of my handsome man and how grateful I am for his service! He is an amazing Airman and I can tell he is going to do great things and go very far in his career

I am a tad behind on blogging my sessions but here is my attempt at stepping it up! Danielle and Tony were some of my first clients that I got to “practice” with. We went to a beautiful creek and had so much fun taking these. I must have tripped about 30 times jumping from rock to rock but hey, I will do almost anything for the sake of good photos. Almost. Danielle has been a huge encouragement to me while I’ve been in the process of starting up my business and I’m thankful for all her kind words and helping spread the word about me!

Happy Monday!

You know, now that I’ve gotten busier with Jen Hammer Photography (and don’t get me wrong, I am loving it!) I haven’t made the time to take many outfit photos, or photos of my family, so as busy as I get, I’m trying my hardest to keep up and still take the time to keep documenting my life in photos, for me. I really miss taking outfit photos and right before we welcomed snow, I took a couple. Here is the first. The rest of our household goods came and with them came my chucks. And oh, how I have missed my chucks. For a small period of time I’ve been going through this phase of wearing Jimmy’s plaid tee’s. This one I picked out for him at the thrift store on base. I’m pretty sure I wear it more than him, though. And I can’t help but be on a flare kick…still. The jeans were also picked up at the thrift shop and are AE brand! Love them. I know this outfit is similar to the last, but I couldn’t help myself. I am sort of really into plaid at the moment. Anyway, it’s good to be back!

I didn’t really care about super hero movies, or anything related to super heroes, for that matter. Then as we got to know one another more, he asked me to sit down and watch some with him. He had to beg a little, I’m not gonna lie. But I did and now years later, I’m just as addicted and I’m right there next to him in the theater waiting to see the next movie coming out with just as much excitement. He’s always got his little things he loves and sometimes it’s hard for me to enjoy them, but once I get past my stubborn-ness and give in, I find myself just as obsessed. It’s safe to say Jimmy is a “nerd”. But I love that he likes to include me in his nerdy hobbies and although sometimes I would much rather blog than play LOTR online, if gaming with him means spending more time with him, then why should I pass on that? Of course I’m not perfect, and I don’t always agree to play. But I just think that’s a little taste of marriage for you. Learning to love the things my husband does because I love him, even if it doesn’t sound the least bit appealing at first. And it makes me smile when I see him doing the same, like agreeing to watch Tangled with me for the MILLIONTH time and singing all the songs by heart, just as I do.

So tonight he’s working and what am I going to do until he comes home? Have myself a little X-men movie marathon.