Hey folks.

I often hear from friends and family that we put so much stuff online that it’s confusing to find it all.

There’s ZackRiesland.com and TheRieslands.com… photos on picasa and photos on flickr. Videos on youtube… then there’s twitter…

…hard to explain twitter…

So, in the interest of consolidation, I wrote a new blog to try to put everything together.

I’m still working out the kinks, but from now on, ZackRiesland.com and TheRieslands.com will both get you there, and while you’re at it, I’d love our feedback!

So if you have any bookmarks or RSS feeds laying around that point to zackriesland.wordpress.com or therieslands.wordpress.com, please update them accordingly!

Oh, and if you happen to be a blogger and you have a link to us on your blogroll, would you double-check it?

Thanks!

Check out the sweet watch that Steph bought me for my birthday!

I love the intricate detail of the faceplate, and can you believe the shape of the hands?

It’s all about the details…

Steph and I put on our photographer hats on for a couple of hours this past Saturday. Here are a couple of the shots we got (You can check out the rest on our flickr feed here):

Go ‘head. Have your fun :0)

There are some new photos up at http://photos.therieslands.com

Every time I write on this blog, it seems that the amount of time between postings from me gets longer and longer. But, Zack put up the last batch of pics from the shower and I thought I would fill you in on all of the fun we had. The shower was at our house and Zack and I spent the night at Teresa’s house (my other mom :0)) while the girls set up for the next day. I was so excited about everything I had little sleep that night (plus I forgot my body pillow).

On Saturday Aug. 2 we arrived at our house and were greeted by all of our hosts and I walked into a mountain of presents and I was thinking our lil “peanut” is already spoiled. It was incredible to see the amount of outpouring from friends and family. Zack and I were truly blessed to be apart of such a family of love and generosity. The guests poured in and we ended up just talking and fellowshipping for the first hour and then proceeded to pray and then eat. There was an array of fruit and veggies and some quiche and other goodies to go along with it. After eating we played some fun games. The first was a word scramble that had to do with babies/baby items/things for mom. I did absolutely horrible at it because I was running on little sleep. The other games we had was put the diaper on the baby and then the candy bar game (which I enjoyed the best). In 8 separate diapers the girls put a type of candy bar and melted it in the microwave. Our job…to figure out by smelling what the type of candy bar it was. It looked worse than anything else.

It was fun memories for me because I got to see some friends I hadn’t seen since we got married and others it had been almost a year. So now our nursery has some furniture a ton of clothes and the floor is covered with gifts. Praise the Lord for all of His blessings.

I (finally) have all the baby shower photos cleaned up and posted.

I split them into two albums so that folks with a slow internet connection won’t get all bogged down.

Just direct your browser to http://photos.therieslands.com

Here are a few of my favorites:

How about you? What are your favorites?

Steph and I had a great camping trip this past weekend. Hopefully she’ll find some time to tell you all about it, but in the meantime, here are some photos we took.

I have not written on this blog in ages, and my sister let me know that I need to put more “belly pictures up”. So here is me starting my 22nd week. How the time has flown by! It’s hard to believe almost a month ago we went for our last ultrasound where you saw our son sucking his thumb and hiding from the camera. It has been such a roller coaster of excitement, hormones, cravings, and new discoveries being pregnant. Our little “peanut” has begun to kick more and more and seems to be active in the morning and at night. I can no longer see my toes unless I act as if I’m going to bend over, I’m more emotional and hormonal..just ask Zack, and my temperature has drastically changed. I’m no longer cold at night, but throwing off all of the blankets and sleeping with a sheet :0). I also don’t take steaming hot showers like I used to before I got pregnant and my eating has definitely increased. I’m more hungry now, but I always say I’m growing a person in here. I go for another appointment this week, where I’ll pee in a cup for them to check my protein levels/iron/blood pressure and then who knows. I’m sure they’ll measure my stomach. One of my friends reminded me I’m “popping out” and you can see it in this lovely picture.

I have to tell this cute story though before I sign off. I was hanging out with some friends of mine and their kids and all of the girls and I were sitting on the couch (they are all around the age of 8 or 9). Well this one girl was grilling me with the usual questions: when are you due, have you picked out any names? I told her I had lots of time because the baby wasn’t coming until November, to which she replied really? You don’t look it. I thought you were going to have the baby a lot sooner because your tummy looks really big. She continued with “my mom’s friends stomach is a lot smaller”. If I was having one of my pregnant emotional days I would have burst into tears and been really upset, but I got a kick out of it and it made me giggle. Out of the mouths of babes.