from my camera / weekend in the city

for andie's 17th birthday she had this pipe dream of going to chicago. she has watched the vow one too many times! we convinced her that san diego was just as cool of a city as chi-town, so she, audrey and my mom came and stayed with us for the weekend and we explored sd. of course the girls wanted it to be a photoshoot pretty much the whole time. we did practice senior photos for andie (she wants to do the real ones once she gets her braces off).

on saturday we shopped for hours...

then that evening we met up with the boys for dinner on coronado island. we had to take advantage of the best light of the day...

seriously, how gorgeous is she? she has won the best hair award in our family by far, sorry jarman!

then they wanted their best bud to be in the pictures with them...

he has learned a thing or two about modeling after being in a family with 4 girls.

i look like an oompa loompa next to my tiny, young, gorgeous, non-prego sisters.

we walked around the hotel del coronado for a bit before dinner...

and for some reason they decided to take a picture like this:

then we drove around down town at night because andie wanted to see the city all lit up...

sunday morning we took everyone to our favorite spot- sunset cliffs.

then we went over to seaport village (and left shortly after walking a bit and not being able to find parking!)

then we walked around down town some more...

and made one final stop at balboa park.

mom had to hop in show the girls how it's done.

it was such a fun weekend getting to know this city better. i don't think we will ever leave.

ps. let me know if you need, or know someone who needs, senior portraits done!

from my camera / summer

hi! i'm finally back from a nice summer break and trying to adjust to real life again. we moved away from temecula to our own place in san diego and have been loving it. living at home has it's perks, but we are so happy to be on our own again. be ready for lots of home posts because decorating my house is all i can think about lately. and cooking/eating, it is so much fun to have my own kitchen again.

jarman started law school last week and absolutely loves it so far. i've been kind of jealous that he gets to go to school still- i miss it! i'm trying to find ways to enrich myself and keep busy with important things (rather than just shopping). most days i feel like such a housewife - i clean, cook, do laundry, work from home, and wait patiently for jarman to get home from school to hang out with me.

today marks 100 days until baby's due date! every day i still can't believe how crazy it is that we are actually having a baby. i try to grasp how much it will change our day to day lives. overall i'm just so amazed that it's really happening. sometimes it feels like it hasn't hit me yet- like this pregnancy is just another part of life. but i love feeling him move and kick, it makes it seem so much more real. i keep having dreams where i'm looking at my belly and watching him bump around in there, and then all of a sudden i can see him through my belly. one time he was actually halfway out and we were playing with him. another time i could see whole imprints of his feet and toes because he was kicking so hard. pregnancy dreams never stop and get weirder every day. i'm pretty sure jarman thinks i'm insane every morning when i tell them to him.

anyways, i wanted to share some photos of what we have been up to the past month! at the end of july jarman's younger brother got home from serving a mission in colorado. we loved picking him up from the airport and finally having his whole family together again!

after lots of jarman family time, we went to a beach house with all of my mom's sister's families. it was so much fun- we stayed in oceanside right on the water crammed in two apartments complete with spa, fire pit, and putting green. we swam and ate and watched beautiful sunsets every night.

my cousin made the cutest video of the beach house, watch it here:

sweeping declaration

obviously this post is kind of unnecessary, because it is basically just a post telling you that i'm not going to post for a couple more weeks. it's more for my conscience, and to let you know that this blog has not fallen off the face of the planet (ok, maybe it temporarily has). what started as a decrease in posts caused by constant morning sickness, has shifted into a complete lack of posts caused by finally feeling better and wanting to enjoy every moment of summer that i have. and that is exactly what i have been doing.

i could pretend i have been busy with really important things (work, finding an apartment, shopping for a little boy who might just be the cutest dresser ever)- but really those are just excuses for what i have really been spending my sweet time on. i pretty much live to be in the sun right now. if i'm not at the beach i'm laying out at the pool reading a good book. and that's really how summer should be right? somehow i'm 24 and pregnant and still summering exactly like i did when i was 16 (just add in some swelling feet and ankles and a few too many extra pounds to stuff in to my swim suits). so yes- my blog has gotten really lame lately and it's not for lack of inspiration or content (i have lots of things that i could post, and will post eventually), it's because i am partying too hard (or being too lazy- whichever way you want to see it). but i am giving myself a deadline. this has to come to an end at some point and i still do love blogging and want this site to continue to grow.

so. considering that i have family in town for the next two weeks and will be spending even more time at the beach, and that the next week we are packing up everything in temecula and moving in to our apartment in san diego, and the week after that will be full of unpacking and organizing, i'm going to give myself a generous 4 more weeks of vacation until i relaunch r&r. yes, i do like to spoil myself quite a bit. but, come august 25th plan on a complete 180 with posts 4-5 times a week (like i used to), and a total reboot of all my old columns.

yay! it feels so good to get this off my chest and to not have posts on my to do list that never get crosses off (i'm sure you're laughing at my having a to-do list considering what you just read- but sometimes i do pretend to be a little bit responsible.) in the meantime i will be prepping for my fresh start. and spending more time at the beach. 

oh, and yes, i am crazy enough to post a picture of myself pregnant in a bathing suit. i'm not sure if this is a moment of confidence or total insanity. see you next month!

ps. follow me on instagram to see my day-to-day activities- @realityandretrospect

we're having a baby!

if you follow me on instagram or are friends with me on facebook you may have seen my recent announcement that we are having a little baby boy this december! we are beyond excited! jarman literally tells me every day how excited he is for baby. in case you were wondering why my posts have been so few and far between- it's because this first trimester has been kicking my butt! i have been pretty sick since week 6. even though i pretty much lay around all day, for some reason spending time on the computer sounds really hard. hopefully things will be picking back up soon- i'm counting on this sickness going away now that i have made it to the second trimester!

this was originally going to be our announcement, and i planned to do it much sooner. but i have gotten lazy and i didn't think the picture was perfect enough. these are all of the things i have gotten for baby's nursery so far, but the pink chair may just have to go somewhere else in the house! and yes, those are baby king's booties that jarman bought.

for some reason, whenever anyone gets pregnant i have a million inappropriate questions that i generally don't ask because i don't want to seem weird. so i'm just going to answer those questions for you to keep you from wondering.

1. was the baby planned? (why is this the first thing that comes to mind, i don't know!). yes our baby was definitely planned and tried for. even though it seems like terrible timing- we are due right in the middle of jarman's first semester of law school finals- we knew we wouldn't be able to plan things perfectly so we just tried until it worked. it took us a few months of casually trying, and then one month of seriously trying, for me to get pregnant. we got seriously lucky.

2. have you been sick? like i said before, i have been pretty sick. but, i know a lot of people who have been sicker so i feel like i can't complain too much. i feel nauseous almost all day and throw up usually once a day. any of you who know me well probably know that throw up is my number one fear. my mom told me over and over that i needed to get pregnant to get over it (she was super sick too so she knew what i had to look forward to). it's not really working though. i can now throw up and go on with my day- but i would still definitely count it as my greatest fear. i am taking zofran, unisom and b6 for the morning sickness, but i never know if they really help or not. maybe i would be much worse if i weren't?

my whole schedule has been completely thrown off as well. i am generally a night owl, but have gone to bed by 9 since the beginning of april (once i went to bed at 6:30!). i wake up in the middle of the night to eat of a bowl of cereal that jarman so kindly gets for me, and then again between 5:30 and 7:30 to eat again. i don't even know myself anymore- sleeping in used to be my favorite thing in the whole world and now i can't do it for the life of me.

luckily i have the most helpful and understanding husband in the world. he takes care of me constantly, and has taken on all of the cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc. i couldn't imagine doing this without him.

3. what is the first thing you purchased for baby? we found out i am pregnant just a few days before my birthday, so lots of my birthday shopping centered on baby. i started buying clothes that would work with a belly, and found lots of gender neutral clothes that are freaking adorable. i also got an elephant head for baby's room. since then i keep finding more and more things that i have to have. i eventually got sick of buying gender neutral clothes and started buying clothes for boys and girls (of course i had wayyyy more girl things). but when we found out baby is a boy i got to go a on a little spree with all of my credit and actually found some really cute things.

4. what gender did you want? your husband? i obviously wanted a girl. i have wanted to have all girls since i can remember. i just don't know what to do with boys! but ever since i found out it was a boy i am totally excited! i am not disappointed in the least, and am just so happy to be having  a baby at all. jarman apparently wanted a boy the whole time, but never told me that until after we found out. in fact, the whole time he told me he thought we were having a girl to hide it. 

if you have any other intrusive questions- feel free to ask! 

purse essentials / 12 things every woman should have

have you ever dug through your purse and realized how much random crap you have in it? this happens to me way too often. sometimes my purses are so big i don't realize how many things i actually do not need to carry around. i consistently have to clear my purse of the extra watches/jewelry i take off and shove in there, the many receipts, the camera parts, the water bottles, candy and food. once all of the excess has been trimmed, i usually end up with these twelve things. for the most part, i never leave the house without any of them.

1. sunglasses:

these are an obvious must. i have discovered that the nicer the sunglasses, the longer they last. maybe it's just me, but i don't take care of my $12 sunglasses as well as the $150 ones. i usually have them in the case with a cleaning pouch (though somehow they never seem clean enough).

2. lipstick pouch:

i have to have a small lipstick pouch or all hell would break lose. i tend to carry at least 5 or 6 lipsticks at all times, and having something to gather them in is key. this is usually where i keep a little medicine (advil, sleeping pills, etc).

3. headphones:

for those times when you are on the bus and you don't want to listen to people cough around you. this would be considered an emergency situation in my book.

4. keys:

it helps if you have a cute keychain with silhouettes of you and your husband (a lady made this for me for my bridal shower! obsessed).

5. pen:

my pens are almost always pink. and they always come in handy, though sometimes bank tellers make fun of your for signing your checks in pink.

6. mints:

these are my family's mints of choice- ice breakers wintergreen. we aren't gum chewers, but we are big fans of fresh breath.

7. face wipes:

i have a terribly greasy face (just one of the many facets of my horrible skin). halfway through the day i freshen up with these palladio face wipes. they have a little bit of powder on them and take off the grease. i get mine from sally beauty supply.

8. glasses:

my eyesight isn't terrible, but i do need glasses every now and again. i keep them with me for movies, museums, and class (though i don't go to classes often now that i'm graduated).

9. chapstick:

i am crazy over chapstick. this is actually the only thing that would kill me to leave the house without. the shaka laka brand coconut chapstick is by far the best chapstick in the world. i can only find it at select gas stations in utah, and have created a small stockpile at my house.

10. lipgloss:

ok, i realize this is like the third lip-related item. but for real, my lips always have to be covered in something. this classic Nars Lipgloss always gives the best color for any occasion. 

11. phone:

i used to carry around a calendar and notebook, but all of that has been replaced by my iphone (which i'm not sure if i should celebrate or not).

12. wallet:

i got this steve madden wallet for $20 at the rack a few years ago and can't part with it. finding a wallet that is the perfect style and size is harder than finding a good pair of jeans. but when you do, keep it till you wear it out.