Updates and Pictures!

            I feel like I am behind on blogging right now, with so much fun baby stuff going on right now!  Of course you all saw that we had our ultrasound last week where we found out we are having a boy!  We couldn’t be more excited.  I really thought up until the moment we found out that I wanted a girl but honestly the minute the tech told us boy, I had tears in my eyes and was so happy I thought I’d just explode from the joy.  It just feels so right.  And all along we’ve felt really strongly about the name Jude and kept changing our minds about our girl names.  Here are some of the ultrasound pictures for you. 

First one, the junk shot proving his boy-ness:

I think that in this one he looks like he is flashing gang signs and is getting ready to party:

 

Face shot.  We couldn’t get any profile shots because of how he was laying.  The tech poked S quite a bit trying to get him to move into another position, but he didn’t want to.

And look at that perfect spine and head!

All in all, the tech didn’t find any problems what so ever and he is progressing along nicely.  Of course, the bigger Jude gets, the bigger S’s belly gets!  Here is her 20th week bump shot. 

Now that we know it’s a boy, it feels like we really have the go ahead to start putting this nursery together.  S and I put together the crib the other day.  It was much harder than I thought it would be, and easier than S thought it would be.  Either way it was time consuming, it took us about 1 ½ hours to put together.  I think it was the attached changing table that really made it take forever.  We got a sheet for it and I’m going to be making a crib skirt soon.  We’ve decided against crib bumpers for the safety reasons, plus no point in registering for a big expensive crib bedding set when all we really need is the sheets.  I think it looks pretty cute so far.  Here is it:

I also made curtains for the room.  The pattern is different colored dinosaurs if you couldn’t tell from the picture.  I think I’m going to use the same material to make the crib skirt so it all matches some.  Here is a shot of the curtains:

It’s all coming together and it’s looking so cute that I can’t help but go in there at least once a day to look around and smile.  It’s a really happy, peaceful room so far I think. 

Next up on the agenda is getting registered.  We are going to be doing that next week once we get back from a little mini vacation to the coast.  I asked on Facebook and got a lot of great information, so I’ll ask you folks as well, any advise on what to register for?  Specifically, if you already have kiddos, anything you ended up really loving or anything you got and hated and never used?  

-Liz

One BIG Crib

Our crib is here!  Now that we have the crib, things are starting to feel real.  It struck me last night when I was picking it up, hey, we are actually going to have a baby to stick in that thing, and pretty soon at that.  Wow, still blows my mind.   

Picking up the crib yesterday was quite the ordeal.  We ordered it from Walmart and did the ship to store thing so that we wouldn’t have to pay for shipping.  Yesterday I got the email that everything was in and so I went after work to get it.  S was working till 11 last night so I couldn’t really wait for her.  I got there and the crib was in two really big boxes.  They had to call someone to help me out with them because they were on this big dolly and I obviously wasn’t going to be able to put them in my car by myself.   

Fast forward to twenty minutes later (Walmart is always so slow) and we were loading them into my car.  I drive a small, compact car with a hatchback, and figured with the seats down, surely the boxes would fit.  Wrong.  One of the two boxes was about 2 inches too long to fit into my car and close the hatch no matter how I moved the seats around.  At this time, it’s 9:00 on a Monday night and S was still at work and I couldn’t get a hold of my BFF, and I just couldn’t come up with any solutions other than to just wedge the boxes in as best I could and drive really slowly home (I tried to tie them up with a zebra scarf I had in the car, but that didn’t work).

Luckily we live about 1-2 miles away from Walmart, so it wasn’t a long drive.  But I was freaking out that the boxes would slide out of my car, not only messing up the crib but also causing a car accident.  I put my hazard lights on and drove slowly home.  Somehow, I made it home with both boxes intact and inside of my car.   

Once I got home, I realized that I had to figure out a way to get these out of my car.  Because I couldn’t close the hatch, I couldn’t just leave them where anyone could steal them, plus it would have killed my battery to leave the hatch open for three hours while I waited for S to get home.  So I got crazy and slid the boxes out of my car on my own, which was no easy feat, as they are like I said, big boxes that weighed at least 40-50 lbs each.  And then I somehow carried them to the front porch where I left them so that S could help me move them the rest of the way when she got home.   

An hour later, I started thinking, these are too heavy for her to move and I don’t want her to strain herself moving them, so I gathered up my strength again and somehow by the grace of God, moved them into the nursery.  Now they await being put together, which I will hopefully do tonight.     

Yesterday we also got a package from our dear old roomie who is now living in the UK.  She sent us the cutest onesie, which we realized is the first piece of baby clothing we have gotten.  One of S’s coworkers also got us this really cute monkey toy to clip onto the side of the crib, which I will do once it is put together.   It’s what is on top of the boxes to give you some perspective of the size of the boxes.
-Liz 

Doctor's Appointment and Updates

S had a doctor’s appointment yesterday.  Everything looks good.  She is gaining the right amount of weight, isn’t having any problems, and is doing great!  She is still having a few bad days here and there being nauseous, but hasn’t thrown up since we were in Mexico.  We also got to hear the baby’s heart beat (strong and in the 150s).  When they were looking for the heartbeat they found S’s heart beat first and we were both worried, thinking oh no! Why is the heart beat so slow!  But, nothing to fear.  And everyday she is looking more and more pregnant.  We’ll post a belly shot tomorrow I think.

We have been so jealous of all of the other January 2012 baby mommas finding out the sex of their baby already that we seriously looked into going to a 3D ultra sound yesterday.  But the one we liked the best said that they could start doing the gender stuff at 17 weeks, and S is just a day or two shy of that.  But I’m glad we didn’t do it, because we asked at our appointment how many ultrasounds we had after the anatomy scan on the 25^th and they said, to our surprise, none!  So unless there is some sort of problem/complication with S before delivery, they won’t do another one the entire rest of her pregnancy!  I could have cried I was so sad to hear that we wouldn’t get to see the baby for almost 4 full months.  That means that I’m really glad we didn’t run out and pay for an ultrasound yesterday because we will for sure want to do that in a month or two to check on the little bambino/a!  But it is killing me, not knowing.  I’m starting to think that the baby is a boy right now.  I don’t really know why, but that is what I have been feeling, though S still thinks girl.  Hopefully we will find out either way on August 25^th!

In other news, we ordered our crib!  I’m so excited for it.  In the end, even though we liked the Ikea cribs and my brother even offered to build us a crib (he worked as a carpenter/furniture builder for a few years), we went with the Graco Lauren crib.  We ended up getting the one that had the changing table attached.  I was originally going to use a dresser that I am painting for the nursery as a changing table but a few people have commented that the dresser is pretty low, so in order to save our backs, we went with the changing table.  It should be here by the 24^th, so that week is going to be really baby filled!  Now all we need to do before the crib gets here is steam clean the carpet and hopefully paint the trim.  I can’t wait for it all to come together.  I started a new painting last night to hang in the nursery, I think it’s going to be really pretty once it’d done.

Happy Friday!

-Liz

The Crib Conundrum

We are ready to buy a crib for our sweet little gray nursery, but alas, are having a hard time with it.  The problem is that we are cheap.  If we were willing to spend $400-$500 on a crib, well we would be set.  But we don’t want to spend a ton of money on a crib, so that limits things. 

I’ve been looking online at pretty much every store available and reading reviews and what not and just can’t decide what is best.  My MIL had the suggestion of looking on Craig’s List, which I really hadn’t considered because of changing safety regulations, but she didn’t think that having the most up to date crib was that important and somehow convinced me.  So I found a few things that I liked and even emailed a guy about a pretty white crib.  But it turned out to have drop sides.  The guy was an idiot and told me that the sides aren’t drop sides, but one side can be dropped down lower to pick the baby up and such.  Well buddy, hate to break it to you, but that is a drop side.  

So after looking into it more and reading up on what exactly has changed with crib safety and why, I definitely disagree with her on getting a used crib and want to buy a new one.  I don’t mind getting a used changing table or a used glider or any of the rest of it, but the crib is the one place that I should be confidant that my baby will be totally safe, especially seeing as how I won’t be watching the baby sleep every second of the night.  

I think now we have the crib we want pretty much narrowed down to the Graco Lauren Crib, which is what the picture here is.  But we are going to make a trip down to Ikea next week once we get back from Mexico to look at their cribs before we fully decide.  It makes me crazy though that you can’t look at their cribs online at their website.  How silly, everything else at Ikea is on their website.  Erg. 

So my questions for you all: anything you really love/hate about your current crib?  Anything suggestions on cribs in general for people looking to spend less than $200?

-Liz

15th Week Belly Shot!

I’m in love with S’s beautiful baby belly, which is totally not shrinking by the way, that is all in her head.  It’s getting bigger everyday and I can’t wait until she is just popping out of her clothes, though I’m sure she isn’t looking forward to that with the same zest that I am.  Here is her 15^th week belly.  I couldn’t decide which picture I liked best, so you get both today J.  

Later this week I think that we are going to buy a crib!  It looks like unless you buy an expensive crib that you can’t really just go out and buy one, all of the stores around here seem to just sell them online and ship to the store or your house.  And it also looks like at least on the lower end, which is what we are looking for, Target, Walmart, and Babies-R-Us all carry about the same stuff for about the same price.  So I guess we are going to go to Babies-R-Us to look them over and then compare prices at home and pick one out.  I’m really excited for this!  Having a crib in the room is going to make this all seem very real.  I’ve been looking at bedding and have a few things picked out that I like, but I don’t think that we are going to buy really much of anything else (other than the crib) until after the baby showers and after all of the hand me downs come in from friends and family.  It’s really hard to resist though, it’s all so dang cute!

Next week is Mexico time, and it just can’t come soon enough.  I want to be sitting on the beach or in the water, sipping a tropical drink while the sunsets over head.  It’s going to be wonderful.  And I’m really looking forward to spending some quality time with both S and my darling family.  We leave Saturday morning, at the crack of dawn, literally, and then are in Mexico till Wednesday night.  Yay!

-Liz