Easy Baby Blanket

I'm worried about this second child not having anything of his own, but it doesn't make sense to re-buy things that are still perfectly usable after Theodore.  So, I have picked up just a few select things, and decided to make him a blanket.  I was thinking maybe an elephant print, but we found an owl print at Joann's and decided to go with that.  Theo approved it.

I used a fleece for the background, rather than a minky fabric, just to give it some variety.

I followed the steps on this tutorial:  http://quiltingintherain.blogspot.com/2011/07/easy-baby-blankets.html.

Considering I found out that my rotary cutter is rusted over when I began the project (during nap time) and I had to cut all the edges by hand, it turned out pretty well.  I am the worst straight cutter in the world. 

Theodore has already test run the blanket.  Hopefully he is okay giving it to baby and not stealing it all the time like he does his blankets when they are on us.

"Nursery"

We still live in a two bedroom apartment.  Both bedrooms are full.  This is a problem, as we prepare for the new little boy who needs to live here too.  Since we're not sure how much longer we'll be working in DE, we don't want to move, so we're going to just make due until the end of the fall semester squeezed into this little place with two boys in diapers. 

I feel mother guilt in that this baby won't have a nursery all put together just for him like Theo did.  But, we've found a way to make this work for now.

Since the baby will be sleeping bed side in a bassinet for at least the first few months, we've decided to just move the "changing table" into our room, with all of the baby gear.  We figured we would not want to be going into T's room to change the baby in the middle of the night.  So, we cleared off Brian's dresser and got a new shelving system.  Once we are done using it in here, we plan to turn it sideways and use it in the boys room.  I will probably get some nice baskets to help hide all the clutter that will be in there eventually, but for now, I just put in a couple baskets we already had and left the rest open.  I'm very excited to see it all coming together.

Getting Ready

                This pregnancy has been so low-key compared to my first one.  With it being the second, and being another boy, there just isn’t much to do to get ready for this one.  Thankfully, my doctor’s visits are very simple:  my blood pressure is fine, I’m measuring right, and don’t really have any questions.  Hopefully my glucose comes back fine again.  I had to take an early one months ago since Theo was so big, and it was fine, so as long as this one is too it seems like smooth sailing this last trimester.
                Because of this, it doesn’t quite feel as real.  I have the next two months off of work, so I am basically just sitting around waiting for baby, even though I don’t have much to do to get ready.  Today I started a few things that made me feel like I was doing something to get ready.   First, I pre-registered to donate the cord blood again, same was as last time.  Then we looked into the VBAC class at the hospital, which we’re planning to attend.  And I started really researching double strollers.  And that about completes my list of things to do.  It seems so much easier the second time around.

28 Weeks Along

40 weeks pregnant with a 9 pound baby

We took these right before we went in to get induced...

Within a week...

So, no real changes in my pregnancy today, except that this baby seems to be pretty big! My doctor is getting a little nervous about letting me go too long, since she thinks he's going to be so big and have trouble getting out. So, I'm scheduled to go in and be induced Monday, Feb. 22 at 9:00 PM, if he doesn't come on his own by then! I guess we really need to get to work picking out a name now!

She sent us over to get an ultrasound to get an estimated weight of the baby. According to their measurements, he is measuring 40 weeks, 6 days (instead of the 39 weeks, 2 days he's estimated to be). And his weight is 9lb 3 oz +/- 21 oz. Hopefully not on the plus side! The tech also mentioned that my fluid is on the high side, so that is a slight concern.

I love this picture below! His lips aren't really that big, they are pursed because he was practicing sucking! It was pretty amazing to see his little mouth moving like that.

Doc's Apt

Today is the date of our first due date. Our adjusted date is the 21st, but the 10th was our original one.

Yesterday, we had a check up. I'm still the same, and the baby is still really high! I don't see this baby coming for a while still. She also ran a quick ultrasound to make sure he is head down, which he is. Had me a little worried though.

I'm starting to feel the uncomfortableness... and sitting around for three snow days in a row isn't helping anything! I've had to start pacing the house since I don't have any shoes that will fit to walk out in the snow in. I'd rather be up moving than sitting too long, I get very stiff. But if I do too much, then I get pretty exhausted. And I'm not that comfortable sleeping anymore... I must have gotten up 5 times last night.

I just want the baby to go ahead and come soon. To give you an idea of what this little one might look like, I've included Brian and I's baby pictures.

Baby Update

2 Weeks to go!!

So, it's been a while since I've written any updates on this pregnancy. There's actually been a lot going on in the last two months. Here are some of my pregnancy related events:

Right now we are at about 38 weeks, and according to the doctors for the last couple of weeks I've been 75% effaced and 1.5 cm dilated. I take that as a good sign that things are starting to get going. I've actually got another appointment tomorrow, so we'll see if I've had any changes.

My plan is to stop teaching on Feb. 23, whether the baby is here or not. It's the start of a new term, and I figured it would be good to just put a start date on my maternity leave. If I use all of my FMLA time, I'll need to go back for about the last two weeks of school (more if we keep getting snow days :( Right now, I'm counting down the school days left.

Mon. Feb. 8 -CANCELED
Tues. Feb. 9 - CANCELED
Wed. Feb. 10-regular day, plus parent teacher conferences all night
Thurs. Feb. 11- NO Kids in school, parent teacher conferences all day
Fri. Feb. 12- NO SCHOOL
Mon. Feb. 15- NO SCHOOL (President's Day)
Tues. Feb. 16 REGULAR DAY
Wed. Feb. 17 REGULAR DAY
Thurs. Feb. 18 REGULAR DAY
Fri. Feb. 19 LAST DAY!!!

We've started to get the nursery together a little bit. We mainly have the changing table area set up. We need to start working on getting some cool "sea" themed prints up on the walls.
Jan. 2, with Brian's cousin Jessica. She's due a little bit after me.
While we were home for the holidays, my mother took us to her hospital and ran a stress test on us so we could track the babies movements/heart rate in relation to mine. Her nurses also played with their ultrasound on me. We could see that the baby had hiccoughs at the time. I couldn't feel them, but I've been able to feel them since then. It is pretty cool.

I had showers on Dec. 26 (in Ohio) and Dec. 27 (in Indiana) and got a ton of stuff we needed for the baby. Ashley had a really cute posting, so I'll just direct you there for the photos of the Indiana shower.
Ashley's Link
I finally finished up most of my thank-you cards today... while doing so I got to thinking about how many aunts this baby is going to have. According to my calculations, when he is born he'll have... 5 aunts, 18 great aunts, 14 great-great aunts, and at least 6 great-great-great aunts!

I loved my super cute winter pajamas. I'm about 31 weeks here (and looking huge).


We also had an ultrasound mid-December, confirming he is still a boy. They calculated him to be about a week and a half too big at the time.

Winter/Christmas 2009

Picture of the Atlantic snowstorm:

Dec. 19. Saturday: I wake up early to find the entire complex covered in snow. It’s been coming down pretty hard for a few hours, and no one has really mussed up the streets yet. I make Brian get up to see it, and Cori loves bouncing around in the snow. The car dealership closes, so we can’t take our car in to get its oil changed like we had scheduled. We take our Christmas card picture with the windows open so everyone can see the snow. “The Blizzard of 2009” ends up being pretty substantial, definitely setting some records for the area. I see on facebook that our church has canceled services for the next day.

Dec. 20. Sunday: I bake pretty much all day… We get a call in the afternoon that Appo has already canceled school for the next day!! Get a lot of wrapping and letter writing done.

Dec. 21. Monday: The baking continues. I’m making up for last year, when I didn’t get any Christmas cookies made at all… I get another call saying that Appo has called the next day as well, and am officially on Christmas vacation! Get the Christmas letters mailed.

Dec. 22. Tuesday: Bake a few more things… decorate our sugar cookies! I normally don’t have the patience to decorate, but tried to make them cute this year.

Dec. 23. Wednesday: Wake up to find a tragedy in our fish tank. Apparently a bubble fish anemone has attacked our Nemo fish. Brian got it knocked off, but by then the fish was pretty much a goner. We hoped he would perk back up, but he never did. Good-bye Nemo fish.

Started on our way home. First stop is the Gap cheese shop, to pick up some extra aged gouda (Rembrandt) for Brian’s sister. We also add the following to our cart:
· Campo de Montalban (semi-hard Spanish cheese, made of cow, goat and sheep’s milk)
· White Stilton with Mango and Ginger (AGAIN! We always get this)
· And one of Bill’s Christmas Cheddars (Beecher’s Flagship Reserve, Seatle, WA)

We then decide to stop for lunch at the Gap Diner, since we always drove past it. We finally get going, and make the following progress, averaging 30 mpg. The cat and dog actually traveled very well together. No fighting, hiding, or getting sick.
· Left Newark at 10:17 AM
· Estimated Drive Time: 10 hrs, 43 min, Estimated Total Mileage: 627 miles
· Actual Drive Time: 12 hours, 33 min, with 2 hr, 44 min in stops, and actual mileage of 637 miles · Arrived Huntington at 10:50 PM

Dec. 24: Thursday: Spend the morning in Huntington, and head up to G & G B’s for our early Christmas. We then head to my old church for communion, and then up to Roanoke for a Lutheran Christmas Eve service. We sleep at Brian’s house. I’m too tired to make sure someone put out cookies for Santa.

Dec. 25: Friday: My mother ends up not having to work another shift, so we do get to have Christmas morning with my family when she comes home from being at the hospital from 7 pm-7 am.

We then head to Grandma Knight’s and see some of the family there. Little cousin Madison does a good job of leading Cori around like a steer and tiring her out.

Then we make it back up to Huntington to spend the afternoon with Brian's family, including Grandpa Eddie, excluding Mike and Ashley.

Our last stop of the day is the Banter Christmas that evening, where we get to meet baby Dylan.

Dec. 26: Saturday: We head to Ohio for Brian’s family Christmas. After a freakish car malfunction that left us sitting in a parking lot for about 45 minutes, we make it to the party. After eating, the Hutson aunts do an awesome job showering us with gifts for the little one.

Dec. 27: Sunday: Brian and I attend my church for worship, and then I have a “last super” (before one of us is a mother) with Mariah and Ashley. Following this we head to my second baby shower, hosted by my sister. She did a great job with it! We did the candy-diaper game, one where they had to guess my girth, a guessing game, and also the game where you lose your necklace if you say “baby”. It was cute, and pretty fun. My older sister in Alaska got to attend over the internet through Skype, which was really cool. I’m not much for video cameras, and this had the same feeling to it, so it took a while to get used to, but it was really awesome. Nephew Aydan acted like it was totally normal for him though. Good food and great gifts rounded out the shower.

(Pictures from the showers to come...)

Dec. 28: Monday. This was our first break in a while. We returned one double gift we got, went to the Bath & Body Yellow Sale (a personal favorite of my mothers, and a big surprise to Brian-“This normally costs $12????” Everyone in the store heard his opinion on the price for a bottle of lotion), and ate at Biaggi’s for lunch (you can now get refills on the soup!!! I have not had the chicken Florentine in years and was very excited). I got to read through most of “Hunger Games” and Brian spent most of the night playing poker with Matthew and my father.

Dec. 29: Tuesday. We ended up going to see my mother’s new hospital unit… see more in baby update posting. We then headed up to Huntington to have our official Christmas dinner with all of Brian’s siblings.

Dec. 30: Wednesday. Hung around in Huntington all day… I finally finished this needlepoint for baby Alison. I almost had it done with she was born, but it took me forever to get the last details done. Picked up “Chasing Fire” to start reading.
Cori had a lot of fun playing with Gus, most of the time. She had more energy to play than he did though, and he got grouchy about it a few times. Here they are in her cage together.... they both went in together on their own.

Dec. 31: Thursday. We had a busy day, having breakfast with my grandparents, and then eventually heading over to Megan and Ben's for a late lunch. She made us really tasty chilly, and we enjoyed some time with them. My sister thinks she is moving to Germany soon to live with Ben while he is still in training, but I'm not thinking about that until I see the actual orders in her hands.

We then have a quiet New Year's celebration with each other. For TEN years (!!!) Brian and I have visited the Marion lights every New Year's eve. We continued that again this year, and then headed to Ivanhoe's for tenderloins and ice cream. It was fantastic, and a nice little quite night together. We then headed to my parents where Brian worked on cooking meatballs and I fell asleep long before midnight. Brian missed waking me up to see the ball drop, but we said our "Happy New Years" a few minutes later.

Jan. 1: Friday. We partipated in my cousin Joel's 8th Annual Meatball Contest. There were 13th entries.  Even with crumbled bacon on his, Brian was not able to pull out a win. Afterwards we spent over an hour packing the car, getting almost all the Christmas and baby gifts in the car. We finished with dinner at BWW with Kari & Josh and Mariah & Kory. Even though it was absolutely FREEZING out, we finished off with DQ ice cream. My ribs hurt quite a bit after today-I think it was all the giggling.

Jan. 2: Saturday. We attended our last Christmas party in Toledo at Brian's grandpa's. Afterwards we drove straight through for nine hours and finally arrived home. Unpacking and getting our house back in running order will be on the agenda until we go back to work on Monday.

Getting Ready For Baby

We brought back my bassinet at Thanksgiving. All the kids in my family used this one. I'll probably try to get around to making a new cover though-with less lace. My sewing pile is a little overwhelming right now though, so no guarantees.

Megan made these super cute shower invitations. We finally registered a few places... I think Brian is pickier about things than me.

25 at 25

I'm almost to the last third.... here I am 25 weeks pregnant at 25 years old.

Cori wanted in the picture too!

Through 23 weeks...

My due date is calculated from about May 15, 2009. I don't think I really started showing at all until about week 16, and even then it is marginal. The baby really moved in the past few days and seems to really be showing now. I do pretty good covering it up at school with cardigans.

This baby has already been a lot of places...

2 Weeks - Rehoboth Beach

4 weeks - Atlantic City7 weeks - Ohio

11 weeks - Montreal, Canada

16 weeks - Baltimore, MD

21 weeks - New York state

23 Weeks-At home in Delaware