He's Here!!!

Baby Timothy has arrived!

June 12, 2010
5:12 a.m.
6lbs 8oz
19 inches

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In the Home Stretch

So here I am...a few days shy of 30 weeks pregnant and with a little over two months to go before we add another little person to the house. It's hard to believe we're approaching the end already. At the beginning, nine months seems like such a long time, but it passes so quickly.

I'm feeling great right now. The second trimester was a breeze compared to the constant icky stomach and fatigue of the first. In the last few weeks, I feel like I really popped, and I'm definitely feeling pregnant. I get tired a lot faster (especially at the end of the day), and I've had to slow down at the gym a bit, but nothing too bad. Really, the worst thing right now is heartburn. I'm lucky that I never experienced heartburn until I was pregnant with Lily. And once she was born, it thankfully went away. But in the last week or so, it's come back. But I guess if that's my biggest complaint, I'm doing pretty well.


As we come closer and closer to the 35-week mark when pre-eclampsia presented last time, I find myself constantly looking for little indicators and trying to remember when things started last time. My blood pressure seems to be ok if a little odd (133/60 at my last appointment, which seems like the oddest number in the history of blood pressure), but that was really the last indicator last time anyway. I am optimistic, however, that I'm still currently wearing my wedding ring and I haven't had to buy new shoes. I don't remember exactly when I needed to buy a temporary ring or the shoes that I can no longer wear because they fall off my feet (an extra size and width were needed), but I don't have any swelling yet. I'm sure as the days warm up, particularly near the end, this might change, but for me, no swelling is a great sign. At my last appointment, the exact words from my doctor were "ridiculously normal." Even though my last pregnancy was the same until that fateful 35-week appointment, I'm taking that as a good sign and trying not to think about possible problems.

Since we moved Lily into her new room, I've been working on sorting her old clothes for any gender neutral items that could be reused and getting the nursery redone. I also finally did some baby shopping for a few more outfits, and of course, I made kimonos.

The second attempt was actually a disaster. Don't ask me how the second time doing something can have a result worse than the first try, but I managed it. But the third and fourth attempts turned out great. (I actually have enough of each fabric to make one more of each if anyone is interested.)

The nursery is all but finished. The main wall is painted and so are the drawers and knobs for the dressers. When I painted for Lily, I did stripes in three colors. Since we used the good paint that covers awesomely, I decided we didn't need a primer. I almost second-guessed myself after I did the first coat since it was definitely still striped. You couldn't see the colors underneath, but it looked like sateen bedding. As it dried completely, the stripes went away, so I think it was just how it was drying on the different types of paint. If the sateen stripes had stayed, it would have been a semi-cool effect, but I was glad they disappeared in the end. I still have a couple crafty things to do for the other walls, but final decisions haven't been made yet, so they'll have to wait a little while. But I wanted to let ya'll see how the painting turned out now or McBean may be 6 months old before I get around to posting it. (Hey, I can admit my shortcomings...) I'm super happy with how it turned out, despite the little trauma we had cutting the board in the middle to the right lengths. Let's just say we had to buy a second board and leave it at that.

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Sewing Adventure

This weekend, while Erik was enjoying some guy time in Jackson Hole at the Snowmobile Hill Climbs, Lily and I headed down to Springville to spend some time with Nana and Grandpa Len and sew some baby kimonos. Lily spent most of the day with Grandpa watching Dora. I think he realized his mistake in introducing the Dora videos around the second hour, but he'll know better next time. But it must have worn her out. She fell asleep on the way home and was pretty groggy when I put her in her bed. This was the conversation we had as I tucked her in:

Lily: I want to read two stories.

Me: I'll go get your blankie and I'll be right back to read them.

Lily: Ok. But I'll fall asleep any minute, Mommy. So you better hurry.

She was asleep before I came back with the blanket. But don't think I got out of reading that story. I was woken up at 4 a.m. to read a story, put her jammies on, and get her two drinks of water.

While Lily was home with Grandpa, my mom and I headed to Joann's to pick out fabric and made a stop at Babies R Us to see about some monkey accessories for the nursery. Then it was back home to start the sewing. The pattern was from the Martha Stewart website, and looking at the picture, it couldn't be too difficult, right?


Oh, boy...was I wrong. The directions were pretty confusing and the visuals weren't much help. We had trouble with the very first step while trying to get our loop turner to turn the bias tape ties right side out. Then there were references to dots on the pattern that were nonexistent and some measurements were wrong. But about 8 hours after we arrived, I finally left with ONE completed kimono. I'd bought enough supplies for four. And of course, like most do-it-yourself projects, the cost of supplies for the project was probably far greater than if I had just bought four kimonos while we were at Babies R Us.

But looking at my cute little baby kimono shirt, there's a definite sense of accomplishment. It will probably be a little while before I decide to tackle the other three, but now that I know what I'm doing, it shouldn't be too bad. I hope.

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Life...

My blogging frequency has recently gone down the tubes, and I apologize. It looks like I'm lucky if I get two or three posts a month lately. It's not that nothing's going on, really. I feel like we're super busy, but most of our activities are those run-of-the-mill life activities - nothing too exciting.

But in case you care about those run-of-the-mill activities, I thought I'd give a little update. Plus, it may be the only reason I find for posting something in March. :)

Of course most of my thoughts lately have been on our McBean (my nickname for now) due to arrive in four measly months. Yes that's right: we've passed the half-way mark of this pregnancy. The first couple months were not all that enjoyable for me, I'll admit. With Lillian, I only got a little queasy if I didn't get dinner on time. This time around, I was queasy pretty much all day. Eating would make me feel better, but then I was eating ALL the time, which is probably why I found myself giving in to maternity pants way sooner than last time. And the mood swings!?! I think I spent an entire month snapping at Lily and Erik both, but hopefully they've forgiven me. I'm feeling great now, and the doctor says everything looks fabulous. I'm getting antsy to get started on the nursery, but Lily's room has to be done first.


As you can clearly see from my previous post, we recently found out we're having a boy. It's been so helpful for me to be able to call the baby "he" rather than "it." We aren't anywhere close to a name choice yet...in fact, we've barely talked about it. I suppose we'll have to before too long. Or we could just let Lily have her way and call him Boots. Lily went to the ultrasound with us and behaved remarkably well. She kept asking why I was up on that big chair, so we'd remind her to look at the big tv on the wall. "Oh yeah..." was her response. It took some convincing since she was sure she was going to have a little sister, but now she's "so excited to have a baby brother!!!" Her words, not mine. We'll see how she feels once he's here. :)

I've been feeling McBean move for a while now, but in the last couple weeks, he's really stepped up his game. Mostly focusing on perfecting his trampoline skills on my bladder. He was so active last night, I actually attempted to let Erik have a feel. But of course, all activity ceased as soon as Erik's hand headed my direction.

As far as Lily's life, she still finds some way to surprise me everyday. She picks up on everything, and the stuff that comes out of her month seems way too old for a three-year-old. We've been working on getting her new room situated. The furniture has now arrived although it's still haphazardly placed in the room. After much debate between Erik and me, bedding was chosen. Lily was involved in the choice a little since we let her choose the actual color - she went for blue. We also picked up a couple storage shelves/bins in an effort to keep the clutter at bay (HA!). Last night, we picked up the paint, so once I get that done, we can get everything in place and move her in. She is WAY excited to sleep in her new big bed...which was quite obvious when I was woken the other night at 2 am to be told she wanted to be tucked back into her new bed rather than her current bed. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that actually sleeping in the new bed is as appealing as she thinks it is now.

After a break, she's started gymnastics again and is absolutely loving it. The kid has way too much energy, so it's nice to give her a productive way to release some of it while snow is still covering our park. I'm thrilled it's starting to melt so we can start doing some outdoor activities. I think she'll finally be able to reach the pedals on her tricycle, and we need to get some time in on the Plasma Car.

Erik is still plugging away on overnights. We thought he would move to days April 1, but it looks like that will be pushed back to the middle of May. We were looking forward to having that change and were even counting the days, so to hear it will be another 6 weeks was disappointing. But at least we can still see the light at the end of the tunnel. He hasn't been able to do nearly the amount of snowmobiling he wanted this year although I don't think any amount would have been enough.

I'm also just doing my thing at work. My job changed a little around October...nothing really drastic, but it's been different, so it's been kind of nice. I was able to take a trip to Phoenix for a staff meeting and meet up with Dad, Elizabeth, and Cassandra for a few hours. Not to mention enjoy some glorious sun.

But that's really about it. See why I haven't blogged? Not much going on, and this sounds remarkably like a Christmas newsletter...sorry. Hopefully items of interest will pick up soon. At least I know I'll have two posts showing kid rooms once they're all done. And I do have a post about redoing our floors. Problem is I have yet to take a good after picture. I'll get right on that since it's actually a pretty entertaining story.

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It's a...

BOY!!!

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Baby Pool

Some of you have already made your guesses, but for those who haven't...

The last time I was pregnant, I set up a baby pool. Lillian ended up being so early that even though a winner was declared, everyone's guesses were so far off you couldn't really call it a winner. So I've also set up one for Baby #2, and hopefully a true winner can be announced this time around. I wouldn't be against providing a prize if anyone has any (reasonable) suggestions.

Our ultrasound will be on February 22, so get your gender guesses in now by clicking on the Baby Pool image on the right. Even you sneaky blog stalkers...

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The OFFICIAL announcement

Now that I think most of our family and friends have heard the news (and OH! The controversy that ensued!!! You know who you are. :-D), I will finally do an official blog post about our baby news.

So yes...I'm pregnant and due July 3, 2010. And I'm totally thrilled, but at the same time, there's this nagging trepidation. I think my biggest cause of anxiety comes from the complications we had last time. I had my first prenatal appointment just before Thanksgiving, and the first question I asked was if there was anything I could do to prevent preeclampsia this time around. And the answer was a big NO. No one knows what causes it, and there's no way to know it's coming. And the only real cure is to deliver the baby, which is what happened last time. While everything turned out OK with Lillian, I would really rather not have another baby in the NICU for a couple weeks. So for the next 7 months, I've got that looming over my head, wondering if my "healthy" pregnancy will turn out to be not quite so much.

The rest of my trepidation comes from things that, logically, I know will all work out, but they pop into my thoughts now and again. For instance, when I was pregnant with Lillian, I was anxious because I didn't know what to expect. I'd never been pregnant before, never had a baby, never been the main care giver for a small human, and on and on. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Now, I DO KNOW what to expect, and that's almost just as bad! :) There are some days, when Lillian is acting especially two, that I wonder what in the world we were thinking. We really want to go through this again? Of course there are also times when I realize she's growing up so fast, and I miss the times when she was small and not so independent (defiant). Then I'm optimistic again.

Not to mention that in about 7 months, Lillian's life will be changing as she knows it. As a first born, I have to trust that this won't scar her too badly. I only vaguely remember when Garrik joined the family and really, I can't remember life before him anyway. Since Lillian and Baby #2 will be about the same age difference, I assume it will eventually be the same for her. But let's forget 20+ years from now for just a minute. It's those first couple months I'm thinking about mostly. She loves babies, granted, but usually when I'm not holding them. This could be an issue...

Again, I know everything will work itself out, but I'm a worrier by nature and I'm off to a good start.

On the physical side of things, I'm doing pretty well. I've been sicker than I ever was with Lillian. Constant queasiness 24/7. (Possible sign of a boy to come???) A remedy that works one day has no effect the next, but it seems to be easing up a little and will hopefully be gone completely in the next couple weeks.

And I hate to admit it, but it seems my pants have gotten tighter a lot sooner than last time. Hopefully this isn't an indication of things to come. But I will admit: I'm kind of excited about the prospect of being able to go back to elastic-waisted pants!! :) After sorting through my maternity clothes from last time, I realized I need to go shopping. You have to find that silver lining somewhere when you're looking at the prospect of having to neglect your current wardrobe for the better part of a year, and since Lily was a winter baby, my current maternity stock pile is just plain unsuitable now. If anyone has the scoop on cute maternity clothes that won't break the bank, please share.

Of course the shopping isn't just for me in my time of fashion need. I find myself checking out what's new in the baby world. Not much has changed, I guess, since I was shopping for Lily, but it's fun all the same. It's also fun to see what new things have come out and, being an "experienced" mom, I can just roll my eyes. Last time, all the fun gadgets just sounded so helpful and convenient. Now I know that most of the time, those fun gadgets are more hassle than they're worth.

Thanks to everyone for their congratulations, and we'll keep you updated on how things are going. And I'm hoping to revive my blogging desire here soon. :)

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November moments

Yes...I admit it; I'm truly a blog slacker. The motivation just hasn't been there. But I wanted to make sure you knew we weren't just sitting on our duffs for the last month. Well...we probably were judging by the state of my house for the last couple of weeks, but there were moments of activity in there somewhere.

First, there was Halloween.


Who else but Lillian could make such a dirty face look so adorable!?! Even though we didn't do any real trick-or-treating (we just went to the trusty Wal*mart), she was perfectly content with her pile of candy and had such a good time.



Next, there was Disney on Ice.


What a great excuse to go see all the Princesses skate. Last year, she had fun, But this year, I think she finally caught the whole experience. She had a great time with Uncle Lars and Addison on the ride to Salt Lake and back and actually watched most of the show this year. She could name all the princesses and was just THRILLED when Tinkerbell came out. Despite the break down during intermission and half way into the second half, it was well worth the trip.

We also spent an afternoon getting our annual family pictures done. Meg always delivers.


I don't know if the next set of pictures qualifies as not sitting on our duffs since we were at home, but really, how could I not share? Since I do a fair share of my Christmas shopping online, Lillian decided to try a recent box on for size. How much do you think postage would be??? For Erik of course...not Lillian. :)


And one last picture, just for fun...

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