Showering Ellie with Love

So this past weekend was the baby shower thrown by my friends here in NYC (I have another one at my parents' house in NJ in a couple weeks). It was marvelous. Ash and Kristin did such an amazing job and I am so overly grateful for their hard work. Ash, of course, handled the food and was kind of enough to cater Paleo since about 60% of the guests are my Crossfit junkie friends. Kristin coordinated the decorating and Graig's mom helped her set everything up and then last minute decided no baby shower is complete without a huge bowl of fried chicken. It was divine. 

They also came up with this cute gift idea of having library check out cards and writing an age from months old to years old through age 18 and each person wrote down words of advice for that age or a favorite memory they had from that age. Then Ash collected them at the end and I will be getting one each year as Eliana grows up. It is such a thoughtful idea AND it guarantees me at least another 18 years of friendship with Ash - a win/win in my book.

I received such fabulous gifts and there was such a great turnout. I feel so incredibly blessed to have such wonderful and thoughtful friends in my life. Eliana will have a LOT of people to snuggle with by the time she gets here, which is wonderful. And at least 20 aunts, and one gay uncle to spoil her. I love it!

Christmas 2014

Oh hey, it's me. That girl that sometimes (ok...never) blogs. I have a feeling once the baby comes these posts that come 3 times a year...might dwindle to once. But, for now - Christmas 2014! 

My parents oh so generously decided to buy us all a vacay in the DR for the 6 days preceding Christmas this year. I was definitely ready to sit around and do nothing and read in Punta Cana for a couple days. Even though I looked like a giant beached whale at 7 months prego. Of course, the sitting around only happened during the twins' rest time from about 1-3:30pm each afternoon. Otherwise, I was "swimming" with them the whole time. Swimming of course means, walking around and around and around in the baby pool with them. It was a blast. Miya and I became besties and I realized how much I cannot even run to keep up with a toddler named Blake as he shoots off in any direction screaming "go go go!" Not sure how mom's with more than one kid handle that. And now? Pictures.

My bestie Miya-chan

We spent a lot of time coloring - or drawing cars and planes on top of the mermaids for Blake.

Miya would NOT stay in a tube, but when we figured out Blake would it was a game changer. He does not have the best balance and this way we didn't have to worry about him tipping over and going under. I think Miya went under the water at least twice every day but she loved the pool and asked to go "swimming, yes?" all the time. The last day we had to hide her in my room watching Curious George in Spanish because we didn't have enough time to spend at the pool before going to the airport.

Absolute diva.

My favorite selfie Blake and I have ever taken. Sooo glad I caught this magic moment on film.

 They are so weird...

The sibling shot.

The Behrmann 2014 Christmas card. Excuse the excessive amount of hot pink coming from my side of the photo. I swear those maxi dresses made me look VERY pregnant.

Despite loving the traveling to the DR and hitting up the beach and pool and getting some solid Vitamin D intake, I have to say - I like cold Christmas the best. Being cozy in my home with it decked out for the holidays. I will take a regular Christmas tree over a palm tree any year. Happy holidays everyone and best wishes for a happy new year!

The New Place & Life Updates

Why yes! I am still alive, even though I haven't had an update on here in about 6 months...

It has been quite possibly the craziest year of my life starting with getting fired, contracting scarlet fever (seriously?), going CrossFit crazy and topping it off with a surprise pregnancy! I guess they said 30 would be an interesting year. 

So - with no further ado, let me introduce Mr. Graig Springer, the father of my future daughter, who likes to steal my shirt and put it on, even though we are not the same size...I possibly had to help him take it off so he wouldn't tear it. Our daughter is sooo lucky. He also might kill me for posting this...please don't tell him!

And a normal picture of him as he looks every day - suit, tie, cuff links, and a sprinkling of swagger:

I am currently 24 weeks along and due February 28th. I am getting pretty excited as the date gets closer and I get more shoes and baby clothes! Why is it that shoes in small sizes are seriously the cutest things ever? We have decided to name her Eliana Springer - middle name to be determined but we are looking at some family names as options. I really love her name, it is Hebrew and means "God has answered" which I find extremely fitting for our particular situation. Also, I'm a little scared that she is already too much like me in the sense that she decided to come when it was not exactly convenient for me!

As part of all these life changes, I have officially moved from my first apartment here in the city after almost 6 years. It was definitely bittersweet but now that I am in the new place I am so excited about it! It is a lot nicer than my old apartment, bigger with more storage and most importantly a dishwasher!!! There is nothing better than having a dishwasher! And now - the before/during and after photos:

 The living room with all of the crap I own as we were painting from cream to gray.

 The kitchen. Please note the double door fridge! I was so excited on the size of the freezer!

 Looking in to the living room from the hallway.

 The bathroom - It was cream, I originally picked out sage green (shown here) but it sort of clashed with the marble tiles, so we repainted it a pewter gray which works a lot better. 

 The bookcases full of my books. This happened at 4am Saturday morning when I couldn't sleep after moving the previous day. Why? No clue, but at least it's done!

 The reading nook fully completed with the art up and the rugs down. I love the way it turned out. 

 Looking in to the living room from the reading nook. I need to get some tall bar stools and we still need to get my desk situation figured out for when I am working from home a couple days a week post maternity leave.

 A look in to the kitchen from the living room. We painted the walls a pretty stone color. It is lighter than I normally pick, but I do quite love the way it turned out!

 Looking down the hallway to the reading nook/living room. I love the color in the living room. Depending on the light it looks both gray and blue. It is a great color. 

Looking into my bedroom from the hallway. The crib will be going on the wall to the right with a black out canopy that can be pulled around the crib while she is napping and sleeping. 

The full view of the living room from the kitchen through the bar. I get so much natural light it is amazing (except for at 7am when the sun literally shines into my face).

So there we have it! My life up to this point. It has been full of dating a dream guy with a sprinkling of life altering surprises and changes happening. It is crazy stressful but exciting. 

Mayhem Madness

So there is a "not actually sanctioned by CrossFit but it really is a CrossFit competition" that they do in Giants Stadium. Since I only started CrossFit in December I wasn't feeling super confident about my abilities when the signups for Mayhem happened. So I decided I would go cheer people on and possibly volunteer & that is what happened! We had quite a few teams from my gym competing and since I was volunteering judging at one of the workouts I was able to cheer them on as they came through my station. It was a lot of fun. I am definitely inspired to get my butt into gear so I can do competitions with these people! They are so inspiring. And now, prepare yourself for a lot of neon green!

I spend almost my entire life with these people. Just kidding, but 1-2 hours daily! They are a crazy amazing crew!

No words...lol but just know that this super typical of Mike.

 

Literally my favorite!

Blondes and Barbells killing it! Love the team spirit Sean put in to being a blonde for a day!

Me and my girls. My fitness goal of life is to be able to keep up with the other blonde in this pic!

The calm before the storm. This is the workout I volunteered on. Boat carry, box jumps, 50 yard sprint and 50 yard overhead lunges. It was brutal. All with a 10 minute time cap!

Ry getting his box jumps on.

Sean in all his wigged glory getting those 95lb walking overhead lunges done.

Brad struggling down the field. I am so glad I didn't have to do this!

Can you see how happy Crista and Steph are to be almost done? Sprinting back with the boat was the end of the workout and they look absolutely elated!

Though she be but little she is fierce!

Picking up the boat for the final carry with Sean edging them on!

Emily getting in the last set of box jumps for her team.

It was a really fun day and I got perfectly sunkissed! First color of the season. Can't wait til next week at the Mudderella when I hopefully get a little more color!