Rollie Pollie Maternity Shoot

By Golden Photography

Hi family & friends, we hope you are all doing great this holiday season. We did a maternity shoot a few days ago. I am super round, everywhere, hence the name "Rollie Pollie". We hope you like the pictures! I must warn you, in the end of the slideshow there is pictures of my bare belly, so for those that have a problem with that, TOO BAD! There is no better time to show off one's beautiful naked belly.

Exciting Updates!

• I'm done with school for this fall semester!! WoooHOO! 18 credits while working 30 hrs a week, doing an internship and being pregnant sure did a number on me!
  

• I'm now in my third trimester!! 11 weeks and counting til Gabriel joins us! I keep having dreams of what he looks like, and I can't wait to have him and just hold him!

• We bought a new car for me!! My lovely VW Beetle just didn't cut it with a baby on the way. I will surely miss my little muscle car (that's what I call it). BUT i'm so in love with my new car! These are pictures of me on thanksgiving ( a day after we bought it).

• David's mom came to visit us!! She flew in from Utah and we got to spend a few days with her before her conference in D.C. It was so much fun to have her. We got to do some baby shopping, bought/decorated our first Christmas tree, and just had some good quality time with her. Thanks Judy for everything and for coming to visit (Make sure Kimo comes next time)! It was great and we can't wait to have everyone visit us out here!
  

My car is a beauty! Immaculate. I'm so excited and just love it. :-D



David and Judy in D.C. when we dropped her off.

Decorating our first Christmas tree!
Don't mind me and my belly hanging out!!! Haha.
The bigger my belly gets, the easier it is for my shirt and garments to ride up!

Thanksgiving 2008

Our first thanksgiving as a married couple was fabulous! We went up to my parent's house and just had a great weekend of delicious food, dancing and relaxation.

Here I am eating sweet potatoe pie & carmelized squash! Delicious! David enjoyed his turkey, rice, mash potatoes, green beans, salad and roll!

After dinner we played some Thanksgiving Bingo (We both won a few times, hence the dollar prize), a musical chairs type game, and then danced until we were wiped out!

My Gratitude

6 Months-Gabriel is 13.5 inches long!

I have now approached the 25th week of pregnancy! I'm just over 6 months now! Time has flown by and it is both a fun and sad occurrence. In just 14 more weeks we will hopefully have our little bundle of joy! Also in 14 weeks, our baby will not be in the safe haven that is my womb. Through out these last six months I have been consumed in thoughts about life, pregnancy, our new family, and everything in between. Those that know me well, know that I'm a thinker, quite philosophical about a lot of things in life. The analysis and objectivity I find in mostly everything comes second nature to me, from the time I was a little girl. As normal for a lot of expecting women, pregnancy brings new sentiments on life and the complexities therein.

Specifically, in my case, part of my thoughts have been focused on ceasing our first pregnancy to the best that I can cease it. Unfortunately, my lifestyle has been too busy and I can't say I have noticed every little thing about this pregnancy or even that I will remember every little thing I have thus experienced. However, I can say that carrying a little angel inside is the most miraculous thing I have experienced, besides love. I have been feeling him move since 17 weeks and my favorite thing is when he stretches. I just love feeling him stretch completely from my upper ribs down to my bladder. It's so fun. He consistently kicks and moves every 2 hours, and I love that I know when he will be moving. Every time he stretches to his maximum or kicks really hard, I always stop whatever I'm doing and just smile in complete amazement and appreciation for the little angel I have inside, that is eager to enter this world and have both of us as parents. Which takes me to my next compilation of thoughts, parenthood.

I feel so blessed and privileged that our son, Gabriel picked David and I as parents for him. More importantly, that he picked us to be his parents this year, during this time. David and I always said that we wanted to leave our first little one up to chance, and we wanted him to come whenever he wanted to join our little family. To our surprise, he was eager to be in our presence! They say that you are never fully prepared to be a parent. It's a funny thought, because I have always felt prepared, until it actually happened. Since then, I have tried to make sure that David and I take our life up to par with the realities that parenthood will bring and responsibilities we will have. In my mind, I have devised all sorts of ways to make sure I provide the best home for our child and future children; a home I always yearned for as a child myself, based out of love, respect, and peace. Even though in my mind I have devised such plans and methods for parenthood, I know that it will be difficult at times to learn and grow as a parent. The important thing is to not give into the fears that all these hormones and i'm sure the adversary are bringing about!

I received a blessing some years ago (before I met David) from our wonderful branch President, in which he said that my children would not only represent my husband and I, but also a spirit of love like within the walls of the temple. He went on to say that the home we build will be sturdy like the temple, with an appreciation for the scriptures, and love of the Lord, and like myself it will be emboldening to have the stature of the temple. It was an amazing blessing of comfort, and I can only say that those beautiful things promised in my blessing are true and that I will try my hardest to ensure their fruitfulness. The love that is felt within the walls of the temple is truly a unique and indescribable love, and if our home can have that same love, then I will accomplish part of the things that Gabriel and the rest of our children came to this world to experience. I feel so humbled to try to achieve such things for Gabriel, David, and I. In order to obtain that sturdiness and love, a lot is required, and it runs parallel with the kind of secular, religious, and cultural education I want to provide for our kids. I'm so excited to show them the world, as it really is.

The beginning of this chapter has also brought upon some uneasiness with the closure of past chapters. I have realized that what is most important in this time is that i'm surrounded by true friends, and family. I have felt so disheartened that some of my closest friends have not felt the same excitement and happiness for me that I would feel for them if they were in this new chapter. I have always thought that getting engaged, being newly married, and expecting your first child, are the most important moments in someone's life and I'm so excited for some of my friends to be there one day, so that I can be part of such a beautiful season. I felt a lot of overwhelming support and excitement from other friends and family that I would've never imagined. Yet, it has been sad for me to not experience that same support and exitement from other really special friends. It has been a difficult thing to deal with, but a close friend of mine helped me to realize that I just need to focus on the friends that have truly been happy for me, from the time we got engaged, to now that we are expecting our first baby. Her advise, has been a huge strength to me, and I have been much happier to be invested in those relationships that have proven stronger than others. I'm so fortunate to have so many wonderful people in my life and to share such a special part of my life with them. Moving on...

Next to being in the state of pregnancy, is the state of giving birth...ohh I won't get started on this one right now! This will be a separate blog entry probably. All I can say is that I have gone from being strictly decided on receiving an epidural to undecided about how this whole giving birth business will go. However, I do know that it will be amazing no matter what, and that women have been giving birth for thousands of years, and that in the end, this is not rocket science. I can do it! I can, not only do it, but I can do it with strength and with as much peace and tranquility that the pain will allow! ;-)

I apologize for how long this entry has been, and for the boredom you may have felt. However, writing and expressing these thoughts helps me to put things into perspective. All in all, I feel so much gratitude for the life that I have, for the amazing husband I have by my side, and the little angel kicking right now. ♥

Mountains & Halloween!

We celebrated our six month anniversary on October 25th. Being the celebratory person that I am, I made David and I take a trip to the mountains in celebration of being married for 6 months, that's half a year folks! It was a really rainy and cloudy day, but it was still a lot of fun! The leaves weren't as colorful as we thought they would be, so we're going again in another week! We love the mountains, and the peace and tranquility they bring. It's always fun to drive up Skyline Drive and take in all the beauty around us. The Shenandoah Mountains are so beautiful and vast, and one day we may just retire there!
We're also planning a nice, hefty hike after the baby comes! We're so excited for it!

Halloween 2008
Hallowen 2008 proved to be a fun time. Our friend's from the branch threw a party at their house, and David and I dressed up as "Trailor Trash". David had a nice little outfit going on, and I was his knocked up wife. It was a last minute costume that we threw together. We have been so busy that we didn't even have a chance to carve pumpkins or shop for halloween costumes. However, we already have our costumes planned for next year! It's going to be so much fun to have the three of us dressed up!

I flat ironed the bottom half of David's hair, and teased the upper part like crazy! He had a nice little mullet going on. I overdid my make-up and teased the back like crazy.

Here is a group picture of those that attended the party. Thanks Rachel & Dave for having such a fun party at your place!

Other Halloween Events

We went up to my parents house a couple of weeks ago and while we were there, I made some witch cupcakes with my mom and sister! My sister is quite the bake and she baked them, and my mom sped the process along by adding the eyeballs on the cupcakes and I added the artistic touch of making the witch faces. I'm not the baking type, but it was so much fun to be creative with the cupcakes!

You can double click on each picture to view it bigger.

These two pictures were outside of my parents house, my sister decorated it!

We're Having A......

On October 9th we found out what we were having, as it was my 20 wk appointment, and scheduled ultrasound. We decided to shoot a quick video of what we thought "it" would be. Some of us were wrong!! I apologize, It seems like I have a "lisp", I have no idea why!

And the final verdict is...

We are so excited. I personally get more happy and excited with each passing day.

Oh...David's a little jealous that i'm updating everyone on my 5 month belly, so below is a picture of David at 5 months pregos. Ha ha.

A Recap of the Pregnancy

I'm sorry we haven't posted in forever. But here's a pregnancy update! I'm 5 months along now and everything is going great with the pregnancy. Below are some pictures of the progress:

This is the day I surprised David with the news we were expecting! We went on a nice picnic and short hike to Pochantas State Park, here in Richmond. It was a lovely day.

That's my sweet husband with the card I got him. As we were having our picnic I told him I had bought him a cool card. Inside it said "Together We're Unstoppable"and I went on to tell him about the great news. He was so surprised and happy!

It was such a special moment.

Me with my excited face! I was so relieved I didn't have to "hide"

all my pregnancy symptoms anymore!

The Progression of My Tummy

I was about 5-6 weeks here. As you can see I didn't have much of a tummy at the beginning.

I poked out at 8 weeks. At that time my tummy felt huge!

At nine weeks.

17 weeks. Maid of Honor at Alba's wedding.

At 19 weeks. Fishing on my parents boat in the James River.

It has been fun to have my belly grow! But I sure do admit, growing can be a painful process!

Beautiful & BUSY

Life Post-Wedding
Life is beautiful, and BUSY. Since we've been married life has picked up so fast that we haven't had time to do so many important things. Soon after we got married I was working 2 jobs, an internship and taking summer classes, while David worked his usual job. Weekends and most evenings were dedicated to painting our house or putting things away. Every few weeks we'd go see my parents up North and there went our weekend of getting things done! One of those things we still need to get done is send thank you notes from our wedding! Can you believe we still have not sent them? We want to send a thank you photograph post card and for that we needed our pictures from the photographer. Part of the fault in taking so long was because our photographer gave us our pictures in Mid-July (We got married in April)! But it's now September! So the rest is our faults. I am so embarrassed and I hope everyone that bought us such beautiful gifts don't hate us! We really have been so grateful for all the wonderful gifts we received.

The fact that I got pregnant only a month or so after we were married did not make it easier for me to get things done. I suffered from intense tiredness. Tiredness I have never felt in my life! Every day for the first couple of months, my head felt like it weighed so much that I couldn't hold it up! All of this sounds like excuses, but I promise it was so hard to stay on top of things! Luckily the tiredness is not as bad these days. David is also such a great helper and support for me. In the next week our thank you post cards WILL be done!

Life Now In Days

I realized I was just too busy and decided to quit one of my jobs. So now, I only work one job and my internship. However, I've added a pretty big load to substitute the other job. I'm taking 18 credits! All of which are hard classes, except for one. However, can I just say that I love my schedule! I get to walk so much because of parking and getting to classes. I feel like that is when I get my exercise! It's great! Haha. I also enjoy my classes. Besides school, work, and my internship, I spend my time doing my calling in the relief society. I dedicate the rest of my time to David, my family, and our new found friendships with other couples. It's so fun to be able to do things with other couples! Also i'm really enjoying staying away from smoky areas and drinking places (where a lot of my other friends hang out) now that I'm pregnant. I can use the pregnancy as a definite excuse for not wanting to inhale smoke! :-D Now when I hang out with my other friends I feel like we are doing more wholesome things, which is what i've always wanted.

David is still working at the Massey Cancer Center but has undertaken a new calling at church! It's so good to see him go to his little meetings in the middle of the week. He got called to be a branch missionary and I'm so proud that he is doing his calling. He goes out on visits with the missionaries and also to his weekly meetings. It makes me so happy to see him so involved. Also, now he gets a tiny taste of how busier life can get with just one more responsibility! ;-) He's also been doing such a great job of doing everything I can't, like cooking, and the dishes. I get SO nautious (and pukey) around any part of the kitchen so I try to stay out of it as much I can. He picks up my slack, what a great husband!

More Updates
-I cut 10 inches off my hair a month after we got married. I love it! Also, a week ago, I went dark! My hair color is really dark with a subtle reddish tone. I LOVE IT!
-Since we've been married we have adopted fishing as a new hobby
-I out-fish David every time!! It's SOO fun!
-David built us a boat so we can go fishing further inside the James River
-My belly is growing and growing!

That's it for now.....i'm sorry this post was so long and boring. I promise I'm going to post some fun pictures very soon!

Welcome to The Durrant Family Blog!

Hi friends and family! We've gone ahead and started our own blog so all of you can keep in better touch with us. Hopefully, we'll find the time to update this regularly.

Here are a few updates on us:

April 25, 2008

We were sealed in the the Washington D.C. Temple. The most beautiful LDS Temple in the world! It was a wonderful and special ceremony, where we were able to be sealed for all eternity. It's so exciting to know that David and I will always be together here on Earth and also in the life to come. I'm sure that marriage will be a fun, exhausting, and happy journey.
Below is a couple of pictures from our wedding day.

We went on a honeymoon to the beautiful island of Jamaica. It was very well needed and we had the best time. Our resort was absolutely the best. We hope to go back soon.

We also bought a super cute house in our beloved Richmond. We are in love with the neighborhood and our cute home. I can't wait until I can paint some paintings to hang on our walls. Owning a home has been quite the responsibility and we are learning the
tricks of the trade!

June 21, 2008-We're having a baby!
I found out I was 4 weeks pregnant! I totally surprised David with the news. He was so happy and excited. I started showing really early, at 8 weeks. There was no confusion I totally had a little pregnant belly. I'm 13 weeks along now. The 1st trimester has not been too fun but i'm excited to get over the the sickness and tiredness.