Pregnancy Pictures

Clint and I were so blessed to have one of our good friends, Joe Smith, come all the way from North Carolina to take some pregnancy pictures of us.

I really wanted some couple pictures of us when I was showing enough for the pictures to be cute.... but I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg to do it. It just so happened that I saw some pictures that Joe took of his family vacation and commented that I wish he were closer so that he could come take some pictures of us. Thanks to his fantastic parents who had frequent flier miles, Joe was able to fly down for the (very hot) weekend and snap about 1000 pics of us. From there, we weeded out the bad ones and he edited them and Joe recently told us that we have about 600 great pictures of us. (I am still trying to think of a great thank you gift for him..... Still thinking)

Here are just a few that I have received from him.

Our first stop was to my parent's house. My Niece, Ryleigh, was in town for the week and I really wanted to get some pictures with her. She is just too cute!

Here is a great picture of me and my dad.... a "Fly By" picture. For most of the pictures, we took multiple ones to make sure we captured a great shot. Well, my dad was in fly by mode and we took only one picture of the two of us. I think that it turned out great!

Joe and I returned to the house on Monday morning to take a few more pictures. I really love my parent's back yard. It was such a great place to take pictures.

I am so excited that I live so close to my parents. I know they are already Nana and Papa, but I am excited to see them be grandparents to MY children!

(In reality, this bow is really red. The power of digital photography!)

If you know me at all, you know that I LOVE children's books. In fact, Blake's nursery is decorated with children's books and I had a fantastic Book Themed shower. I love this picture because the book I am holding is my dad's original Cat in the Hat book published in 1957. His name is written in the front in his handwriting from back then. Such a cool book to add to our collection! 

From my parents house we headed to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. It looks wonderful in the pictures on the website. But remember, we are in a drought here in Texas, that didn't stop us!

He is so tall... This was a hard picture to get. My body doesn't turn the way it used to!

Classic Shannon Look! 

On Sunday, we went up to Ellis Elementary (where I teach) and took some great pictures on the playground!

Here are a few "Belly" Pictures--

I think this one makes me look really pregnant! 

I know that it is a long post... But I am really proud of these pictures! I had to share as many as I could! 

What's in a Name???

Ok, so one of the hardest things that I have had to do over the last few months is choose a name for the baby! Before we knew the sex, I had so many girl names on my list and only a few boy names... Well no surprises in the Lowe family,  but we are having a baby boy! What in the world are we going to name him??? To me this decision was even harder than deciding to have a baby! Clint and I looked through 387 pages of boy names and only agreed upon 3 names (I had many more on my list than he had on his list. Who knew he could be picky about ANYTHING!). After a few weeks of debating between 2 names we made a decision a few months ago.

Now it is time to reveal the name to the world.

The newest addition to the Lowe (and Harmon) Family will be named:

Blake

Patrick

Lowe

We have had a few things made with his name on it as well as taken some cute pictures. Blake is just a name that we both liked. It was on the top of both of our lists. Patrick is Clint's middle name. I have always liked the idea of naming my children after family members and I am very excited that our first born will have his daddy's middle name.

Here are a few of the "Name" Pictures:

Thinks for the Nursery-

Nana made this quilt for Blake and Deborah Lane Quilting Quilted his name in the boarder. 

(More Quilt Pictures will come!)

Nana also made this pillow to go in the rocker in the nursery.

Aunt Shelby got Blake this Alphabet chart with his name on it from Etsy. 

I also have FANTASTIC Letters made by my best friend Ladonna but I can not seem to get a great picture of them. I will work on that soon and update this post later. 

Our good friend from North Carolina, Joe Smith, flew in this weekend to take pregnancy pictures of us. I wanted some with Blake's name so here are just a few that he took. 

Playing around on the computer...

Just Playing around with MS Word today....

... I am wondering if I am skilled enough to make something like this....

After a little bit more playing.... I think I might be able to do it! (Not ready to reveal the name to the world so I used a friend's darling daughter to try it out!)