Fa la la la Lovely Baby Shower #2

Dear Sweet Baby Kay,

You now weigh about 4 3/4 pounds, like an average canalope, and are almost 18 inches long. Your fat layers which will help regulate your body temperature once you're born are filling you out, making you rounder. Your skin is also smoother than ever. Your central nervous system is maturing and your lungs are continuing to mature as well.  This week, fatigue has really set in again.  I have been more tired this week than I have been the whole pregnancy.   It is hard work growing a little human!  Watermelon and fresh fruit is still about the only thing I am really craving which is a good healthy craving for your growth and development.

It seems as if you have "dropped" meaning you have started to settle down further in the birth canal.  I noticed you seemed a little lower this weekend and several other friends and family noticed it as well.  You may end up being a mid-October baby if you have dropped this soon!  Everything was great at your 32 week (at 33 weeks) appointment.  You were facing head down, which is a good thing.  I have gained 4 pounds since the last appointment and my face is starting to round out/swell which happens to a lot of pregnant women.  The Braxton Hicks contractions are nothing to be concerned about.  You measured right at 33 weeks which is exactly where you should have been measuring.  My blood pressure 100/72 which is excellent and your heart rate is in the 140’s which is normal.  The heartbeat range they look for is 120-160’s so you are right in the middle.  While we were there, we set up the rest of my appointments for the pregnancy.  I will not go next week, but starting the week of 9/25, I will begin to go weekly.  Only five more trips to the doctor before your due date!

 

My doctor's office does not like for pregnancies to go past 41 weeks, so we are looking at a birth window of 10/29 - 11/5. 

 

This week we also had our second baby shower.  This one was hosted by two ladies in the church choir, so all the ladies of the choir and immediate family were invited.  Your grandmothers, Aunt and cousin drove in from out of town to be a part of your celebration.

 

Lots of pink decorated the home.  We enjoyed a delicious fruit party punch, bakery fresh cheese straws, petit fours, green grapes, nuts and jordan almonds.

 

 

The petit fours had an orange glaze in the middle which I had not had before.  They were delicious!

 

 

What a lovely group of ladies!  They are all so thrilled about you and are over the moon excited to meet you, love on you and to help you to learn to sing like us!  Fa la la la la!  They too have prayed many prayers for you over the years and have a hand (or prayer) in bring you to us.

 

Your Nana, Aunt Elizabeth and Cousin Seslie came from out of town to join us. 

 

... and so did your Grandma, my Mom.

Ms. Kathie was one of the gracious hostesses of this get together.  Would you believe that she too went to Auburn like me, and we actually lived in the exact same dorm!  It is a very small world baby girl, so always be kind and never burn a bridge because you never know when you will need that bridge to cross.

 

It was a beautiful afternoon with fa la la la lovely ladies from the chuch choir who can't wait to meet you.

 

Singing our joy for you all over the church!

 

With all my love,

Mom

Sleep Baby, Sleep

Dear Sweet Baby Kay,

This week you weigh a little over 4 pounds, about as much as a pineapple and have passed the 17-inch mark. You are rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and your skeleton is hardening. The bones in your skull aren't fused together, which will allow them to move and slightly overlap, thus making it easier for you to fit through the birth canal. These bones don't entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as your brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood.

As you fill out even more of my belly, lots of things are starting to change: a little waddling has started, and bumping into chairs, grocery carts and counters is par for the course.  It is getting harder to roll over in the bed at night when I am shifting positions too.

One of the biggest things I have noticed is I have been super sleepy!  I get plenty of sleep at night, I am not having and trouble sleeping, and I only wake up 2-3 times at night to use the restroom.  You must be growing so rapidly that you are just taking a lot of my energy away from me.  That is ok by me if it is helping you to be healthy and strong!  All I want to do is sleep baby, sleep!

We have finished another piece of your nursery with from help from Ms. Misty and Mr. Justin.  I had an old dresser that was the baby dresser your Uncle Brad and I used when we were born.  I also used the dresser in graduate school. 

It received some bumps and bruises along the way and some of the drawers did not even close all the way.

Lucky for you, Mr. Justin has some pretty amazing wood working skills.  He fixed the drawers and applied a fresh coat of paint to the wood and handles.  Just look at how beautiful it turned out!

(Bo loves to make cameo appearances in your nursery room pictures).

The top of the dresser we will use as your changing table.

And the top drawer is where we will hold your diapers, creams and wipes.  Ms. Misty added a nice surprise to your drawers and lined them for us!

Your mobile from Pottery Barn Kids also came in the mail this week.  It fits perfectly in your bay window and completes the room exactly like I envisioned.

The way the butterflies dance with the movement of the air is truly magical.  We wanted a peaceful decoration for you to look at while feeding and being rocked to sleep.  This is just the perfect addition to your very unique shabby chic nursery.

I will have my 32 week appointment to check on you this coming week.  We are excited to see what kind of progress we have made together.  We also have another shower to look forward to hosted by the ladies in the church choir.  They already love you to pieces too.

33 weeks, 7 to go.  We are getting so close, baby girl!  We love you can can't wait to rock you to sleep as you gaze at the beautiful butterflies.

With all my love,

Mom

Hiccup! And a Bumpy Boat Ride

Dear Sweet Baby Kay,

By now, you weigh 3.75 pounds, like a large jicama, and are about 16.7 inches long, and are beginning to take up quite a bit of space.  I have noticed this because it is getting more difficult to move around and to get up and down off of the floor or to roll over in the bed.  I should be gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to you. In fact, I'll gain a third to half of your birth weight during the next 7 weeks as you fatten up for survival outside the womb. You now have toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). Your skin is becoming soft and smooth as you plumps up in preparation for birth.

 

We are so close to being finished with your nursery!  Your Grandma made these beautiful panel drapes for you out of the cloth we picked out that is pink with white polka dots.

 

Our friends, Ms. Stephanie (who helped with the Baby Girl Belly Party mentioned in the last post) and Mr. Mark are letting us use this great bassinet for when you first arrive.  They also gave us a little baby spa and a ton of baby diapers their baby Weston out grew before he could use them.

My, oh my, how our Friday nights have changed.  This Friday night we enjoyed a quick dinner out and came home for a nice relaxing evening at home hanging up pictures in your nursery.

 

It really turned out very nice.  Again, your name has been whited out.

 

Saturday morning, your Dad cleaned up a couple of pieces we have had for a long time.  I scrubbed them with dish detergent and your Dad applied a fresh coat of white paint.  They look really great now they are done.

This tic tac toe in blue you see is serving as a grid.  The blue lines are just painters tape that we will remove once we have added the other items to the wall.  We have ordered prints from the photographer who took your gender reveal photos and will put them in some of the tic tac toe holes.

 

Here is the computerized version of the picture and frame that will go in the middle of the grid.  The other photos will be in clear frames so this one can be the main focus.

 

We are getting there slowly but surely!  We had a little adventure with you on Sunday.  We were invited to join our neighbors on their ski boat for a nice afternoon out.  The wife of this couple is also pregnant and due almost exactly a month to the day before your due date.  They live across the street and we know it will be a lot of fun raising the two of you together.  We had a great time on the boat just relaxing and enjoying each others company when all of a sudden, a big storm came out of no where!  We sped back to the dock as the rain pelted down on us feeling like tiny bee stings.  Ms. Ashley crawled under a chair for cover and I hunkered under a beach towel that was soaking wet by the time the storm passed.  It was quite humorous, a lot of fun and definitely a memorable first ski boat ride for you.  It will be fun to go on little adventures like that with you once you are here.

 

Another fun thing that happened this weekend is your Dad got to feel you hiccup for the first time.  You are big enough now where your hiccups can be seen and felt on the outside.  You had a really bad case of the hiccups the other day and your Dad was able to see and feel them.  The movements were so rhythmic we knew it was you just a hiccuping away!  Your Dad thought that was the neatest thing!

 

Well, 32 weeks down, 8 to go!  Looking forward to another week of helping you grow.

 

With all my love,

Mom

Ms. Erin's Baby Girl Belly Party

Dear Sweet Baby Kay,

This week, you measure over 16 inches long. You weigh about 3.3 pounds, about the weight of four naval oranges, and you are headed into a growth spurt.  You really did grow!  My tummy grew out more and your movements became stronger.  You can turn your head from side to side, and your arms, legs, and body are beginning to plump out as needed fat accumulates underneath your skin. At your 30 week appointment, everything was great.  My blood pressure was excellent, I am 6.9 pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight and you were measuring 29.5 weeks, which is a little small, but nothing to be concerned about.  The doctor said we should start to gain between and half and a whole pound every week for the duration of the pregnancy and you will really start to make my tummy poke out.  We will go to our 32 week appointment at 33 weeks because of some scheduling issues.  That appointment is scheduled for September 11.

We have a lot of friends who already have little boys and girls of their own.  We are very excited for you to meet each one of them and discover why they are so special to us.  One little girl is pretty special to us and she is very excited about meeting you.  These two pictures capture two of our favorite little four year old, Madeline's, diverse sides:

 

 

Isn't she beautiful?

 

Her mom, Ms. Anne, along with three other of my friends planned an extra special baby shower for you. Lots of hours and thought went into planning this event, and Madeline was enjoying every minute of the party planning too. Sweet Madeline had her very own special Madeline name for the baby shower.  She decided to call it "Ms. Erin's Baby Girl Belly Party".  Love it!  Sweet Madeline will have to teach you all about her favorite things, such as Arby's, jewels, and being kind to others.

 

These four ladies were the force behind your Belly Party.  They worked very hard to make this event special, memorable and more than we ever could have hoped for.

 

 

Ms. Anne, Ms. Misty, Ms. Anna and Ms. Stephanie have been there for the journey to get to you.  They have been there to celebrate the great parts and walked beside me in the low parts.  They have been loyal, dedicated and never lost faith that we would get to you.  They have cried with us and jumped for joy with us.  They are true friends and we pray you will have friends like them in your life.  Your Dad and I were overwhelmed at the out pouring of love they put into celebrating you and this mountaintop we have finally reached.

 

We had around 60 people that came to the shower.  It was a couples shower which was such a sweet idea by our friends so your Dad would be able to participate in the fun, and boy did he have fun.  We had lots of people from our church there along with friends from our neighborhood, family, and other friends your Dad and I have acquired over the years.  Overwhelmed is an understatement!  It was a perfect evening.  We were all having such a great time we neglected to take a lot of pictures of the details, but a few were captured.  They used the canvases for your room as decorations.

 

 

And Ms. Anne spent a lot of time making these beautiful tissue puffs!  The food was out of this world!  They used the pattern from the invitations to make markers for the food.  They were on toothpicks and mounted on quartered granny smith apples.  Seriously, the details of your celebration were amazing!

 

 

 

Pretty much everything was homemade: stuffed mushrooms, artichoke pasta salad, chicken on skewers with a variety of dips, bacon wrapped sausages, London broil to make mini sandwiches, mini cupcakes and lemon cakes, brie tarts, white chocolate covered pretzel sticks with pink sprinkles, spinach artichoke dip, Texas caviar, my FAVORITE, homemade mini cheesecakes, just to name a few things that were there!  They really made this day special for you.  They even had peanut M&Ms and mini snickers - two of your Dad's favorites.  This is one of the beautiful tables of food that was set up.  Homemade and from the heart.  It could not have been more perfect.

 

They had yummy beverages for the pregnant people to enjoy as well as beverages for those who are able to enjoy adult beverages.  Corn hole boards were set up outside for the guys which was a perfect touch for your Daddy since he loves playing corn hole with his buddies.  They had lots fun playing together.  I had a great time visiting with friends from near and far.

 

Girlfriends from the neighborhood.

 

One of the most beautiful surprises was our friends who we mentioned a few posts back, Jessica and Jonathan and their newborn son Maverick, who surprised us by driving all the way from North Georgia to come to the party.  It was wonderful to celebrate this special time with them.

 

Eight years of friendship and many more to come.

 

I adore this picture.  Maverick is wondering when he will get to meet you!

 

We had so much fun opening our presents.  You can look at our faces and see how excited we are to finally be here celebrating you.  Baby girl, you were beyond showered with love by all of these people.  You are one very loved little girl.  This is a wonderful thing!

 

 

Some gift were fun and made us laugh:

 

 

Some gifts were more serious and made us a little emotional:

 

 

And of course we would be amiss if we didn't have a little Auburn / Carolina rivalry in the mix!

 

 

 

Showered with love at your Baby Girl Belly Party is an understatement.  We love you dearly as do so many other people.  We know you are a direct result of God's grace for our lives and from many prayers from many people.  We are thankful we had such a beautiful celebration hosted by our beautiful friends to honor the gift of you.

 

Loving you and my baby girl belly.

 

With all my love,

Mom

 

 

 

30-10

Dear Sweet Baby Kay,

We are getting VERY close to the kick off of the 2012 Football Season which is a time of year for your Dad where every weekend is like Christmas.  Your week ratio this week reminds me of a football score: 30-10... 30 weeks down, 10 to go!

These pictures below were taken in 2008 at the USC stadium. Your Dad was selected for the Punt, Pass and Kick contest. We have it all on video and will have to show it to you one day, and tell you the hilarious stories that surrounded this moment!

We were able to bring friends and family on the field with us, so naturally, your Dad wanted his Dad, your Papa to be there to experience this once in a lifetime moment!

Funny I took a picture of the 10 yard line, and here I am writing you this football score type of post with 10 weeks left to go.

Pre-filming your Dad for the big screen.

 On the big screen!

And it's good!  He made the kick, so we HAD to pause for a picture to capture the moment!

You are about 15.7 inches long now, and weigh almost 3 pounds like a head of cabbage. A pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds you, but that volume will decrease as you get bigger and take up more room. Your eyesight continues to develop, though it's not very keen.  Even after you are born, you'll keep your eyes closed for a good part of the day. When you do open them, you'll respond to changes in light but will have 20/400 vision — which means you can only make out objects a few inches from your face.  I guess we can look forward to lots of nose to nose Eskimo kisses when you first get here!  Oh, I just cannot wait!

Your Dad was able to assemble your crib with a few moments of comedy mixed in.  Once we had the crib together and the bed made, it really made us realize how close we are to holding you in our arms.  There are no words to describe our joy.

Working hard! (The screw driver you see on the floor is my very first screw driver.  Your Grandpa bought it for me when I was in college.  A girl needs a few tools to get by!)

Isn't your bed beautiful!

Your special ordered curtain fabric came in the other day.  I was able to find some fun material for the tie backs.  It will be something else to see the finished product hanging from your bay window!

In other news, we went to an all day baby class at the hospital on Saturday.  It was a class called Your Special Delivery and it taught us all about labor and delivery, the different types and options for delivery and what happens after you get here.  We also learned about different comfort measures during the process and got to tour the facility.  It was a great day!  Your Dad was so proud when the instructor told us about the important role Dad's have in taking pictures, carrying the baby too and from the nursery and being with you during those first few moments where they take your foot prints and measure you.  I honestly can say, I don't think I have ever seen him that proud.  During the breathing exercises, you were kicking up a storm!  I still never tire of feeling your movements.  We are very fortunate to have a baby that moves as much as you do.  I feel you a good portion of the day, and your Dad gets to feel you pretty much once a day.  Some Dads only feel their baby move a handful of times.  We are so grateful for every tiny movement you make.

I head to my 30 week appointment tomorrow!  I will be sure to tell you all about it.  Only 70 more days until your due date.  Only around 70 more days until we will finally meet and we will get to hold you in our arms.  This is so real, and so wonderful.  We love you.

With all my love,

Mom