We’ve been busy the last five months—keeping some big life-changing news on the downlow and also quietly, feverishly, excitedly planning for it.

Back in February, we found out it would no longer be just the two of us… I was knocked up!

I found out when I was just three weeks along. I actually waited an entire week to tell Sammy. I thought it’d be the perfect Valentine’s Day gift. (Plus, a woman should always have a few secrets; something she keeps close to the vest for her own private enjoyment. I love the mystery of that.)

So seven long days after seeing that little blue plus sign, I bought my hizzy a nice bottle of scotch and wrote the news on a card…

Sammy was shocked and in love with the idea that he was going to be a papa!

A few days after he learned the news, his feelings started to catch up to mine (because I had an entire week for my mind to race with worry). He was grateful and overjoyed… but filled with sheer terror!

How in the heck do you take care of a newborn? Neither of us are “kid” people, especially me.

Is it true that babies wake (and cry, demanding one thing or another) every two hours? I’m a solid 8-hour-a-night-slumber gal, and sleep disruption is not something I’ve ever taken well to.

Where will this baby sleep? We have a tiny high-rise condo with just one extra room that already serves as the dining-room-slash-guest room. Can the baby sleep in the murphy bed, to the left of our dining bistro?

Am I ready for the wild changes my body will undergo over the next 9-plus months?

Here’s a recap of the last five months…

I guess it’s normal to be excited, then panicked, excited, then worried, terrified, all while being deliriously happy.

Hormones, according to my trusty bible “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.”

As of now, we’re about 23 weeks pregnant (more than halfway to the finish line)!

I was tired in the first trimester, but eternally grateful that I didn’t experience a minute of morning sickness. This trimester I feel pretty good—my energy levels are back up and I’m used to the dietary restrictions, loss of sleep and other fun stuff that accompanies growing a baby inside your belly.

Here’s to hoping that the rest of the pregnancy is as easy as the last five months!

When we moved into our one-bedroom condo a little over a year ago, we weren’t quite sure what to do with our funky little sliver of space off the entryway. It was a doorless space that measured 6-feet-wide by 9-feet-long.

Because having guest space was important to us, we decided to turn the cubbyhole into a multi-purpose guest room.

Here’s how the “flex room” (as builders call it) looked a week after we moved in, after we added a ceiling fan to keep air moving in this tight space…

A few months later, we had California Closets come in and build us a custom murphy bed in the space, so that the nook could be a guest room some of the time and an open dining room/china cabinet/butler’s pantry the rest of the time.

After Christmas, we hung shiny damask wallpaper halfway up the walls, then a few months later (we dragged our feet on this!) crowned the walls with chair rails.

And here’s the finished space…

When the bed is up, we have a bistro table pulled alongside the chairs, but I keep going back and forth about whether I want our dining table in the cubbyhole (which gets no natural sunlight) or the adjacent family room (an already tight space… but has tons of natural light!).

This room still feels a tad wonky, mainly because I refuse to part with oversized furniture, which keeps the room crunched! I can’t help it—I love huge, cushioned pieces.

But now the space is cloaked in a gorgeous print and custom-made storage space that hides an oh-so-comfortable double bed.

I have to say, we’re pretty proud of the progress our cubbyhole has made!

@willsheloveparis

These ice cream profiteroles are exactly what I want right now…

We love throwing little parties.

Actually, it’s me who loves shindig-hosting. My hizzy is far more simple: He likes hanging with friends, eating good food, drinking good beer, and micromanaging a meat-stacked grill.

He likes these things so he happily agrees to host whatever, whenever… even if that means he has to help his fancy-loving, obsessive wife cork bottles of pretty prosecco, pick flowers for “necessary” centerpieces and scour the grocery store for hard-to-find ingredients (so that we can serve up a seriously cool appetizer torn from the latest issue of  Bon Appetit magazine). It may be more work than he envisioned for a simple get-together with friends, but he’s game!

Of course, Memorial Day is a must-celebrate holiday, so we had to commandeer our pool deck and have some pals over for cocktails and grilling.

I was excited to make sweet-and-salty Plum and Cherry Bruschetta. I’ve been eating tons of fruit lately (totally out of character for me, but not uncommon for most people). I managed to squeeze fruit into nearly every vessel and plate on the app table.

The burgers, chicken, hot dogs, scalloped potatoes and different types of salad were strewn about on a center island. They weren’t too gorgeous to look at, so I didn’t bother snapping pics of them. Here’s a glimpse of our chums and chaotic food island…

I try to act cool with messy, spontaneous food tables, but I was itching to scoop up trash, strip the table, lay down a tablecloth, and reorganize food platters—especially the condiments!

Ahhhh! Food and plates everywhere! Mayonnaise and hummus baking in the sun!

Alright, back to an organized food spread. It’s far more pleasing… 

This has to be one of my all-time favorite cookies.

Wedding cookies are sweet, but not too sweet, and have the softest, friendliest crunch when bitten into.

Lucky me: It just so happens that my mama makes the best wedding cookies around!

She house/Purnie-sat for us over the weekend, and when we got home late Sunday night these cookies were waiting for us on the kitchen counter.

Dreamy…

I’ve been eating them for breakfast with coffee, in the afternoon as a sugary treat, and even in the middle of the night when I wake up at 3 a.m. and can’t seem to get back to bed.

It makes a sleepless night not too bad at all.

A simple spring bouquet brightens and lightens a wooden bridge in California…

I wish I was spilled on cushions, listening to the claps and snaps of ocean water on a huge, glossy sun-drenched boat…

Perching peacefully on a sandy beach sounds parfait too.

With summer just weeks away, I do believe that boat excursions and beach picnics are on the horizon.

Yeeeessss.

For Derby Day, we boogied on over to an Austin field to watch a game of polo (croquet on horses, as I see it), sip mint juleps and watch the Kentucky Derby on a few big screens inside a big white tent.

(The next best thing to being at Churchill Downs, right?)

It was a festive, fluffy day…

Am utterly in love with these new Proenza Schouler wedges.

I don’t particularly like this next picture, and not just because you can see bug bites on my legs…

What I do like: The fact that it captures the hooves in motion and gentle curve of the wedge.

And wedges, by the way, are the best type of shoe for a tall person. The bulky foundation stops you from teetering and offers husky support.

You can’t say that about Manolos.

For our one-week getaway, we took a breezy drive through the shores of Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.

We ate, we drove, we ate, and we drove some more… until we reached Seaside, Florida, a pretty, all-American beach town on the Gulf of Mexico.

Seaside is about 12 hours from Austin, about the maximum I’d trek for a drive-to destination. Twelve hours isn’t that bad, actually, especially when you have slow, easy Gulf Shore towns to entertain you along the way.

Sought out this soda fountain in Foley, Alabama…

I had read the place serves an amazing key lime milkshake. Well, it definitely wasn’t “key” lime, as you can tell from the ghostbusters green color. But it was limey and seriously delicious.

On to Seaside…

The deck on the back of our beach home…

Filling our day with naps and strolls on the sand…

On our way back home, a quick stop in NOLA…

Can’t visit New Orleans without stuffing yourself with beignets at Cafe du Monde…

Last stop: This gut-busting sandwich shop on the edge of town…

The first non-seafood meal we had in 10 days!

Yes, it was a leisurely, fish-filled, water-lovin’ trip.