Introducing Violet

She’s here!  Say hello to our newest addition, Violet!

Everything with Violet’s Labor and Delivery went so smooth, it had to be an answer to prayer.  Thank you for your months of committed prayer for our family.  Not only did HELLP not rear it’s ugly head, but the entire process was almost easy.  (I never thought I’d have a delivery like that, so I understand if you completely hate me for saying that.)  It’s just unbelievable how it was so smooth.  We started pitocin at 10:30, got an epideral about an hour in, pushed through 4 contractions and delivered at 1:32.  Short and sweet.

Violet is a little sweetie, of course.  She’s a good eater, a good sleeper and a good pooper.  All of the things you want in a baby.  Oh, and she’s seriously adorable.  She looks SO much like her brothers and has their red hair… especially like Collin’s shade of red.

Here are some pictures from Monday – Saturday of this week.  Hard to believe she arrived less than a week ago!  Thanks again!

Last Belly Update!

Here is one last picture of my massive belly just for you:

We will be heading to the hospital Monday morning to be induced.  Be praying for an uncomplicated birth and healthy baby girl!

New Baby Update

After last week’s visit, my doctor told me she wanted to do another set of tests then decide the timetable according to those results. (Not the results from the previous weeks tests.)  Is that even making any sense?

Anyway, so she pushed things back a week and we’re not sure what dates she’s thinking of now.  We have an appointment tomorrow and will know more then.  (Hopefully.  She’s played us once before!)

In the meantime, enjoy some sweet newborn pictures and baby facts from our other two cuties:

High School Humiliation Week

Anne and May are having a High School Humiliation Week contest in honor of their new book A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS.  One way to be entered into the contest is to write an embarrasing story about high school. I figured that should be easy enough for me.  I mean, when was I NOT feeling humiliation during high school?  The hardest part was picking the best out of hundreds of humiliating moments.

Should I write about the time I walked dead-on, full force into a pole while leaving a building? Or….

Maybe the time I was talking with this boy I liked and it became clear that he had absolutely no clue who I was.  He asked,  ”Oh, have we met?  Where do you go to school?”  ”Uh, Marcos.”  ”Really?  I’ve never seen you there before.”  Perfect. Or….

Maybe the time I was in the computer lab typing away and had the hiccups.  I was talking to my friend and hiccuped at the same time so it sounded like I let out a extremely massive, extremely inappropriate belch.  It went something like this, “I think maybe it needs to be double spaAAAAAACED!”  I never felt like such a lady. (line up, boys) Or…

Maybe the time when I called my older, cool college friend, Steve, and begged tactfully asked him to go to Sr. Prom with me since no one had asked me and I was scrambling to be able to go to Prom.  He, of course, said he was tied up with some “frat event” he had to do, but I’m sure he meant he possibly, maybe, potentially had a slim chance of going to Subway with his buddy that same night.  (I went to Ed Debevic’s that night with my sister-in-law who took pity on me and got me out of the house so I wouldn’t sit around and mope.  We took pictures in their Photo Booth so I could always remember my “Prom”. LOL  Is she sweet or what?)  Or…

Maybe when my sister and her friend were walking and I came up in the middle of their conversation and someone complained of a papercut and stated, “Ugh!  I just wish I had a Band-Aid!”  ”I have one!”, I declared, and promptly pulled out this random Band-Aid from my backpack.  I didn’t think about how totally uncool and lame I would look until I raised my head from looking into the backpack and they looked back at me like, “O.M.G.”  Nerd Alert!

But no, I think any major humiliation moment for girls needs to include one thing:  Panties.

So I started walking with a friend of mine, LouAnn, after the bell rang and Algebra let out.  I was wearing my favorite dress at the time, a navy blue knee length number with a scoop neck and creme flowers printed on it.  It was actually pretty cute and I wish I had a picture of it, but all my high school pictures are strategically hidden tenderly placed in the garage somewhere where you’ll never find them.  Well, my friend and I walked the length of this LOOOONG hallway and were chatting away minding our own business.  We went to turn the corner and then we heard, “HEY!!!  GIRL!!!  YOU HAVE YOUR DRESS UP YOUR A–!!!!”  It was loud and startling so everyone in the hallway stopped.  We stopped.  Everyone looked around.  Everyone looked at me.  I looked down.  Holy.  Crap.  I was the offender.  My face immediately turned bright red and I broke into a sweat.  My dress was indeed up my a–.   And everyone was looking at me. I quickly pulled it down.  I snapped my head back up to look at LouAnn who looked as equally shocked as me and then we both burst out laughing.  I had thrown my backpack over my shoulder, which apparently caught the bottom of the dress, which apparently hiked it up over my panties.  Way up.  We tried to walk to our next classes as fast as we could, but we were laughing so much it was hard to get there.  Because as I always say, when you’re humiliated you just have to laugh.

Proof

Proof that long ago, I actually did have a waist.

I was starting to question it myself…

Finishing Touches

We made the finishing touches to the Baby Room this morning!  Part of me wonders if it’s a little busy with so many parts going on, but most of me is quite happy with the way it turned out.  :)  One of the things I like is that we tried to buy a lot from independent sellers, as well as make a lot of it ourselves.  It feels good to support regular people and be able to come up with a unique room.

We bought the blue owl print that is in this picture from Linda Solovic’s shop.  The red quilt on the rocking chair is from Sewn Natural.  And the cute stuffed animal owl in the chair is from Buttercup Bloom.

Here are a couple close-ups of the blocks I made now that they’re completed.  They’re on the little white table.  I love the unique paper and eventually want to do more of these for my B is for Block store. (Currently not selling anything until the baby comes…)

We found the awesome owl mobile at Royal Buffet.  I loved the look on it’s own, but totally fell in love with them when I saw that they’re made from vintage french magazines. *swoon*

One thing that was really important to me was finding a little doll for Violet that would be just from me and really special.  I thought about getting a Bitty Baby or one of the PB dolls, but it didn’t feel special enough when millions of other girls have them, too.  I found this site, Cuddle Me Friends, and found the PERFECT, sweet little doll.  It’s totally one-of-a-kind and ADORABLE.  ”She wears a flannel nightie and panties with matching booties and cap. Her outfit is all cotton. All of her clothes are easy to take off and put on and are completely washable.She also comes with the fleece blanket.”  SO sweet!

So here’s a view of what we’ve done on the diaper changing side of the room.  We bought some green IKEA boxes to hold PJ’s, bedding, etc.  Also You can see the “Violet” letters and the “D” that some of the nice MOPS girls made after Drew was born.  So they’re both being represented, yo.

Here’s a close-up view of the ABC’s that we ordered from a little hut, which was the inspiration for the room.  It gave us our color palette and the  ”O is for Owl”, “C is for Car” ideas for Drew and Violet’s own space.

As you can see, Drew likes the new letters on the wall.  He’s even been known to grab the “T” and take off running out the door!  They look really light in this straight on picture, but the sides are black, so it feels balanced in the rest of the room.

Close-up of the “V”.  I found some cool letters at Hobby Lobby, painted them black, adhered some paper and sealed it.  Voila!  They were done!

Here are a couple old baby room posts in case you want to go back and look, although, I’m probably the only one THAT interested.

Big Bellies

I just realized I’m not 8 1/2 months.  I’ve hit 9 months, folks!

Yowza, now that’s what I call a belly!  (Collin’s, not mine.)  Only a few weeks left!  Yahoo!

Basics of 8 1/2 months

Surprise!

Shock Shock Shock Shock

Tired Tired Tired Tired

Pukey Pukey Nausea Tired

Wait Wait Energy Wait

Wait Wait Girl Wait

Shock Shock Shock Huh?

Cry Wait Energy Tired

Energy Energy Back Ache Tired

Back Ache Energy Back Ache Tired

Wait Cry Tired Wait

No Sleep No Sleep No Sleep Tired

Wait Cry Back Ache Tired

Wait Wait Wait Wait

Back Ache Tired

Wait.

Dates

At my visit to the doctor this week she informed me that she wanted to induce either on Oct 15 or sometime during the week of Oct 22.  I’m having a few tests done next week which will decide which date we go with…  So 5 days from now we’ll know when we’ll be heading to the hospital to have our little girl!  The baby will be considered Full Term once we hit 37 weeks (the Oct 15th date) so the doctor is comfortable with any day after that to avoid sitting around worrying about HELLP starting up.  It’s just too risky to sit and wait for a problem to develop, especially when there would be no risk for the baby at that point.  So we are ecstatic and are so happy we’ve gotten this far!  We feel much more content with things now that we’re 35, almost 36 weeks.  If anything happened between now and Oct 15th, the baby would be fine.  Drew was born at the end of the 33rd week – about 2 weeks ago – and is fine.  So we’re able to breathe a sigh of relief.

Coming Soon to our House:

New Sweet Baby Toes!