Our Growing Family

At about 36 1/2 weeks we took some maternity pictures of our growing family. This was important to me since we did this with my pregnancy with Denver and the fact that I haven't been good about getting pictures of my growing belly for this little girl to go back and see some day. Denver is all about my belly and the baby. He talks about the baby a lot, so lets just hope he continues to think that this baby is great once she's hear to really truly see AND hear! Here are a couple pictures from our photo shoot. (Sorry there are some pictures of my bare belly...Denver is more about the baby if he can see my actual belly!)

photography by Tom and Jessie Schoolmeester

Gearing up for Summer!

The last couple weeks we've had some really nice days! Denver of course loves these days as we usually spend a lot of time outside and he couldn't be happier to be outside! For Christmas we got Denver a tee ball set. We showed him a little bit how it worked, but then just left it alone as it wasn't really something for the house. One day I noticed he knew exactly what to do with it and was really pretty good at it for not even being 1 1/2 yet! It's out in the garage now and he LOVES playing with it.

He's too fast all the ones of him swinging were blurry and I was too lazy to go get my good camera!

How about this ball? Will this work?

Denver still LOVES to swing! Running around enjoying the sun!

Daddy's picture taking skills one evening!

Yes, I guess 6lbs 1 oz didn't scare me enough...that's a bowl of ice cream in my hand that Denver's eating...we continue to have a bowl almost every night!

We had our first bout of the stomach flu with Denver a little over a week ago. Thank goodness it happened on my weekend off from work. On a Friday Denver was not acting himself and not really wanting to eat, but we didn't have a clue of what we were in for! The next morning when I went to get him from his bed we found that he had thrown up during the night and just switched ends of his bed so he didn't lay in it! He was starving and wanted to eat and I thought maybe it was just a fluke and let him have some oatmeal and juice, but that came up later (in the car...all over him, his car seat, and the car....YUCK, and I was by myself! We tried getting a hold of Daddy at work, but couldn't). The rest of the day he didn't eat or drink much, but what he did stayed down. I thought we were maybe over it, but then he had diarrhea before he went to bed that night and then woke up and threw up 3 times that night. The next morning he had an even worse diaper, but that was basically the end of it then! He had a couple more pretty loose diapers a day or 2 later, but then it was over! We are thankful that he's feeling better and eating good again. The little guy can't afford days of not eating or keeping his food down! Here is a picture of him one morning when he wasn't feeling the hottest.

our sick little boy

Generation to generation...

Not sure that I picked the best title for this blog, but my creative mind is no more. Let's hope it comes back when the baby arrives! :) I didn't plan to do a blog on this, but the other day I got to thinking about it and thought maybe I should. Sorry, no pictures of Denver or anything about him....it's about boring me and my family! After Christmas, Evan asked me what I was going to spend my Christmas money on. When he asked me I knew I had thought of something, but couldn't remember what; well I finally remembered and I think Evan may wish he never asked me. I wanted a sewing machine! I bought one and have had tons of fun using it and remembering my sewing skills that mostly my Grandma Betty taught me (but some from my mom as well and maybe my Grandma Waltner too, I'm not sure). Once I got going I wanted to do lots of things for our little girl. One being large flannel blankets to wrap her in, unlike the little ones in the store! A boy I take care of in the NICU has lots of "homemade" blankets and I had always been intrigued by the edging/sewing on one and started asking questions. Then when I was home one day we got to talking about Grandma Betty's serger sewing machine and then I discovered I could make those blankets I wanted too. Mom helped me hunt down the serger and then my sister helped me figure out how to use it. The figuring out how to use it was quite the experience. We believe that Grandma Betty was watching and laughing at us struggle to figure out how to use this silly machine and how we (well, I guess "I") made it all the harder to figure out. Eventually we got it all figured out and our little girl ended up with 4 additional blankies!

Here I'm trying to get the machine threaded. Little did I know I shouldn't have unthreaded the machine with Grandma's thread, but cut the thread at the top and tie my new thread in knots to the old and let it run through the machine! NOW I KNOW and am not scared to change thread anymore.

Here are 3 of the 4 finished products. The other one is packed away in the diaper bag for the hospital so this will have to do.

A Growing Girl!

We are past the 36 week mark with pregnancy #2! I'm amazed how fast this pregnancy has gone compared to Denver's, but I guess it makes sense....I didn't have him to run after when I was pregnant with him. We had our last ultrasound (or at least we hope as if we have another one it meets things aren't going quite how they are supposed to) this week. It was amazing to see how our little girl is getting "chubby"! Her estimated weight was 6lbs. 1oz.. This weight was very scary to me at first until I realized Denver was probably the same weight at that point in my pregnancy too, as he was born 2 weeks early. At this point everything continues to look good and we still hope and pray for a natural birth, but are open to whatever happens. Probably a biggest reason for really wanting a natural birth is for Denver's sake as he'd never be able to understand why Mommy couldn't pick him up, carry him, or why I wouldn't want to hold him (he's a monkey...he'd crawl all over me and cause a lot of pain). Therefore, we ask for your prayers that Denver too can transition with all of the changes that are about to take place in his life as well.

Here are some pictures of our adorable little girl!

We think Mommy might actually get the credit for her!

New Rooms!

Everyone has a new room or bed! About a week or 2 ago we took down Denver's crib/toddler bed and moved it to the nursery along with the dresser/changing table. We then put up a day bed for Denver. Evan put some extra love into those bed by putting baseballs on the 4 corners of his bed. Denver loves balls so he thinks this is pretty cool. The first morning he woke up in his bed I just happened to be watching on the video monitor and I'm so glad I was able to catch him wake up! He woke up, looked around and immediately went to one of the balls and looked at it and touched in for awhile and then he went to the part to keep him from falling out of bed and looked at that and touched it for awhile and then he went back to where he had been sleeping and just sat there looking at everything and waited until I came to get him from his bed! How precious!

Denver watching ("helping") Daddy take down his bed. Denver and Daddy hanging out in Denver's new bed!

Denver's first night sleeping in his "big boy bed"

My biggest fear of putting Denver in this bed was that he'd get stuck or fall through the "posts/railings". Well, my biggest fear became reality at about 1:30a.m. Tuesday morning! I awoke to Denver screaming and waited a minute or so and then decided I better go check, just in case. Was I ever glad I did as I found him hanging from his bed with his head and shoulders stuck between his bed and his wall. I think this was a little more traumatic for me than him as when I got him out and picked him up he put his head down on my shoulder and immediately quit crying. Instead I was the distraught one of "now what do I do....where do I put him to sleep?". In the end he ended up sleeping with us for the rest of the night. The next day I looked at it and realized his bed could go closer to the wall so we moved it closer and pulled his crib bumper pad back out of its tub and put that around his bed (as you can see in the pictures below). I'm hoping to find a dresser on a rummage sale to add to Denver's room, but until then most of his clothes are now hanging in his closet. Lots of things are stacked up in his room as well and I hope to do a couple more "decorating" things, but we'll see how far I get. I'm just not ready to do anything until I have a dresser and know how I want everything. For the time being this is his room (sorry...no pictures of the clutter!).

Next was the nursery. Her room is not done either as I hope to hang some pictures and put her name up on her wall, but this is what we have done for the time being and I figured everyone would be antsy to see it.

Daddy (and Denver) setting up the crib for our little girl!

All done! (Well sort of!)

Not that any of you care, but in case you do...here's a picture of our bedroom. We moved to the basement which is the biggest bedroom in our house. I wasn't so sure about this move, but I absolutely love it. We have more room to move around in....which is especially nice when you have a big belly in the way and you're trying to find your way in the dark to the bathroom several times a night! It's also lots cooler and I'm HOT all the time....we'll see what I think when it's winter and I'm not pregnant!

Happy Easter!

We hope everyone had as wonderful of an Easter as we did! I unfortunately had to work, but the 3 of us got to spend some time together as family when I got home and we had a great time! Denver has to think Easter is one of the best holidays as we got him a swing (as well as some other fun things/toys/candy) that you can barely get him out of! He's always asking to go "een"...or at least that's how I think it sounds coming out of his little mouth. After swinging for awhile you ask if he wants to get out and he'll immediately tell you "no"! We made the mistake of swinging before we had supper so I had to convince him that there were more fun things in the house for Easter and finally he was okay with getting out of his new swing. (Since then he has spent several hours swinging in his swing!) We also did a little Easter egg "hunt". Evan "hid" the eggs and Denver had a great time finding them. I got some great pictures so you luck out if you like the picture part of my blog the best as there are lots that I couldn't resist sharing! Sorry this is no picture of Denver in his Easter outfit as Daddy only thought of taking it on his cell phone (which doesn't take great pictures) and he was out of it before I got home, so even I (Mommy!) didn't get to see him in his Easter outfit.

So much fun!!! "Een, een!"

"Mmmm...Easter is fun Mom and Dad!"

"Peeps are the best!"

"Where is the purple egg?"

"Ah! I found it!"

"Finding eggs under my big boy bed (there will be a post in the switch to the "true" big boy bed at some point too...just too many things happening and not enough time to blog!)."

"I'm so good at finding these eggs Dad!""Mmm.....chocolate!"

Busy, busy, busy

Denver is always BUSY! He never stops moving! Lately I seem to be working a bunch of shifts in a row and then I'll get a stretch of days at home with my little man. I love those stretches at home with him! At the same time...I'm exhausted after those days. We can never stop doing something. I rearranged patio furniture so Denver could play out on the deck, but not get down the stairs and have an open area to play while I'm inside doing dishes, picking up, putting away groceries, etc. While I thought this was a great idea and that he'd love it....I was mistakenly wrong. Of course, that wasn't good enough for Denver. He looks through the spindles while he yells and points to the ground where he wants to go play. A fenced in yard just may be coming our way before we know it!

The other day I was doing some baking and Denver was keeping himself occupied in the kitchen with me. It was a LONG day of continually picking up after him. The same day he also took egg shells out of the garbage and crumbled them up all over the kitchen floor and colored on the wall for the first time! Thankfully everything cleaned up! :) We always have so much fun together, but boy can he be exhausting!

Big Brother in Training

Denver was a "big brother in training" about a week and a half ago. He got to spend about 4 full days with his cousin Jacob! Denver loved spending time with his cousin and loved him up lots. We are thinking one of our biggest problems will be that Denver will smother his baby sister. He also wants to be a big helper which could be troublesome in some ways. Unfortunately I missed out on seeing this, but I guess he wanted to change Jacob's diaper for my sister one night. Also, if we would stand Jacob up he would come and grab him like he was trying to tell him to walk. (He's ready for a playmate!) Denver also wanted to pick Jacob up, get him out of his car seat, feed him, etc, etc. It was pretty cute and fun to watch them together. I hope Jacob didn't mind all of the Denver "torture".

Denver took his wagon to Schmeckfest and let cousin Jacob have a ride with him.

Watching some cartoons and playing together. What fun!

Denver trying to share his toys!

Playing with Jacob's fun toys! (this picture turned for some reason & I can't get it to go the right way, sorry!)

Lots of love for cousin Jacob!

34 weeks!

We have finally made the 34 week marker! This is a huge relief to me being a NICU nurse and knowing what my baby would have to go through if she was born early; and at this point more than likely she'd just need a little help with learning how to bottle and maybe a some oxygen if she was born now! I had a doctor's appointment today and once again everything looked great. This pregnancy has flown by, but we're starting to get a little anxious to meet our little girl. The nursery is almost ready for furniture and probably would be if we had every thing in place for Denver to be switched over. Here is the long awaited picture of how my body has been changing with this growing little girl. Be happy to see this picture as it was a lot of work. I'm afraid my camera is realizing it's almost 6 years old and it didn't want to cooperate very well with me. I also thought you might find it interesting to see a picture of me pregnant with Denver about the same time. Unfortunately I couldn't find a 34 week picture so it's a little different.

34 weeks pregnant with Baby Girl

32 weeks pregnant with Denver John