Babies Have a Mind of Their Own

(38 weeks 3 days, and looking like I'm ready to pop! You can also see the pretty roses Dusty gave me tonight before our date)

I am learning before our little person even arrives that she definitely has a mind of her own. Not a big surprise given the example has in us for parents. For better (Dusty) or worse (Erin) we both tend to be strong willed, or possibly even a bit bull headed. Well, this little one is making me think she has picked up those traits from us already.  She has made it fairly clear she is quite content where she is residing and doesn’t have plans to join us out here until she is good and ready.

I have been dilating for several weeks now and effacing too, as is needed to get all the labor processes moving along. My doctor has said each time we have been in that it “could be any day” and baby is MORE than big enough to be ready to meet the world. We are doing our best to progress things by walking, keeping ourselves busy and well…staying active! Most of which seems to be having little impact on the movement of baby.

Now this does not mean that baby s completely ignoring me. Sometimes I wonder if she thinks she is pretty funny playing tricks because she has taken to doing it fairly often. Currently she likes to sit on my hip bone at night making my leg feel like it is asleep or numb. This is tolerable at first but after a few hours it makes sleeping out of the question.  I also believe that she may have taken up boxing, and has decided to use that little squished bladder as the punching bag. The game we played yesterday was to start some fairly strong contractions going, get them in a nice regular pattern, then out of nowhere just stop and continue with a quiet night. It was very exciting for the hour or two that the contractions were getting closer together and stronger, thinking that we would get to meet this stubborn little person soon. Then the contractions subsided and left me wondering when the big day will be once again.  Oooof,  it appears we have quite the independent thinker growing away and in the game of making life uncomfortable baby is winning by a long shot!

P.S.  A few days ago I also thought my water had broken. As it turned out I just didn’t put the lid on my water BOTTLE tight enough and it had leaked all over my lap. False alarm…

A Space for the Bump

Since Erin is always so good about keeping everyone up to date about what I am doing, I thought it was my turn to brag on her a bit. Even before her craft cottage was complete Erin has had a vision of a beautiful space for our little one. I have been amazed at how beautiful she has been able to make our nursery without buying all new furnishings.

Once we found out we were expecting a girl, Erin and I fell in love with a cute crib bedding set. I especially appreciate that it has just the right amount of pink. My dad and I were able to order it for Erin’s birthday and as soon as she opened it her vision for the room began to take shape. It was amazing to see her eyes light up when she opened the bedding set up.

We had decided to use my old crib and dresser, but they needed a coat of new paint, so with bedding set in hand off to home depot we went. As you can tell from the pictures Erin did a great job of taking my ugly old dresser and transforming it into a perfect dresser for a little girl. I love her taste in colors. With the dresser painted and the crib adorned with a new coast of white paint to whole room really tied together. Now that things are all arranged Erin and I both catch ourselves stopping in the hall and just looking in the room.

 (Yes, the wood sign on the wall is backwards. It has a baby's secret name on the other side!)

I am so blessed to have a wife who is so excited to be a mom. While waiting for our little one to arrive is full of unknowns and potential worries, the beautiful nursery fills us with joy and reminds us of the blessings yet to come.

A Warm Winter Shower

Although the name for this particular post may fit our unseasonably warm and somewhat rainy weather, it more importantly describes the wonderful baby shower I was given. My mom and sisters hosted it for me just before Christmas at my parents’ house. I loved how festive everything looked with all the baby stuff and Christmas decorations.

Dusty and I were blessed with so many adorable outfits for our little one, most of which were pink of course! We also were given many other baby essentials that, although may not have made me squeal as I was overwhelmed with cuteness, I am sure we will be extra thankful for very soon. For example, I know we will be happy to have received diapers, diaper rash cream, and a Diaper Genie once our girl is here and starts superbly stinking up our house.

Dusty played a part in helping make my shower special too! He knows my favorite place to get treats in town is a little shop called Sweet Dreams Bakery. So he went to the bakery picked out and secretly ordered a cake for me. Then he coordinated getting the cake to my mom’s house without me knowing about or seeing it. When shower day arrived I had expected to see a simple Costco cake on the table but I was delightfully surprised to see this beautiful picture of deliciousness waiting for me. The frosting is absolutely amazing!

Last but certainly not least, I was so excited that some of our out of town friends were able to join us in the celebration. We had guests traveling in from all over Spokane of course, some from Post Falls, and a few made the trek from Pullman and the Tri-cities too! It was a wonderful day and we really appreciate everyone that was able to join us or sent well wishes for baby!

New Years Eve

This year we had such an awesome New Years Eve! For the past five years or more we have been hosting a party this night but typically there is enough snow that we spend most of the time outside sledding, snowmobiling and of course around a bonfire. However, this year snow play was not an option because there was no snow! We realized we would have quite a bit of time on our hands between when our dinnertime potluck got over and when we celebrated the stroke of midnight.

Eventually we came up with a plan to play some fun minute to win it games. If you haven’t ever done this I would highly recommend it. It was much easier to set up than we first guessed. All of the directions are easy to print off right from NBC’s website. Then that just left us to gather supplies for each game. This was super easy because everything needed was common house hold stuff so we only had to buy a very few things and had everything else around already. I recognize that many households may not have as much random “treasure” as is around ours, and I’d like to blame it on the farm not us personally but it is more likely an even split!

Here is a quick look at some of our fun from the night. We especially want to thank those that came for being such good sports and putting up with our crazy plans. The night would not have been near as much fun if we didn’t have friends willing to look pretty silly for the sake of a game! We hope you all had as much fun as we did, we think you are all awesome! Happy New Year!