Pictures of my cute baby

Need I say more?

Ergobaby

One of our nice baby gifts was this Ergobaby carrier. It works as a front carrier, a back carrier, and even a hip carrier. Right now Jane sits facing sideways with some extra padding because she is small, but soon she will face toward mommy or daddy with her legs out the side. It is really great for walking around stores (and for going on walks outside, but we don't do that in summer around here because we don't want to melt). I highly recommend it!

PS - Isn't my hair getting long? I'm pretty sick of it, but if enough people tell me it looks good, I'll keep growing it out. :)

Daddy's girl

Here is my little sweet pea with her daddy.

Blessing Dress

While Doug's mom was visiting, she made a beautiful blessing dress for Jane (the bonnet from the ealier post goes with this). We didn't get any pictures of her wearing it on her actual blessing day - I know, but I was too scared she would poop on it or something to leave her in it for very long - so I took advantage of her good mood yesterday and put it on her again to get some pictures. The good news is that it is still pretty big on her, so when she's a little older she can wear it again to a special occasion (or just to get more pictures).

The hem of the dress is actually the edge of the fabric - it worked out really well.

My beautiful little sweet pea.

She makes the cutest faces sometimes! You can tell her little arms are flailing around in that bottom one - photo shoot mood over!

Bonnet time!

Doug's mom made a beautiful blessing dress for Jane as well as this bonnet. Yes, I need to get her back in her dress and take some pictures of it. Will do that in the next photo shoot. However, I discovered an obsession with bonnets thanks to a pattern that I found at the fabric store. You may be wondering, "When are you going to have time to make bonnets?" I'll find it. They are way too adorable to let this baby time go by without them. So, I have to get Jane used to them (How would that be if I made them and she hated wearing them?), so we wear this one for a little while every day. It's a little big on her still.

Getting bigger

Little Jane is getting bigger! I was obsessively worried about whether or not she was gaining weight. I'm nursing, so every time she goes through a period of wanting to eat and eat and eat, I worry that she is starving. When we took her to the pediatrician two days after she was born, she weighed 5 lbs. 13 oz., down from 6 lbs. 2 oz. at birth. Then, a week later when we took her back in, she weighed 6 lbs. 5 oz. - and the doctor was blown away! Anyway, thanks to some helpful advice on Facebook (thanks April!), I dropped by the doctor's office yesterday to weigh her again. She is now 7 lbs. 8 oz. - gaining over a pound in the last two weeks! So, I won't worry for another couple weeks. :)

Right now I am on day three of no parental help and doing alright! Sure, the kitchen is already not as clean as it has been for the last three weeks, but we're getting by. The vibrating bouncy chair and the swing we got from one of my father's former co-workers are great helps when I need to get some work done on the computer or around the house. She is sleeping in her swing now, listening to rain from an online radio station. I've discovered that she likes the sound of water.

Doug is super busy running his office, doing lots of marketing and screenings and the like, and now working a few nights a week from 10 pm - 7 am stocking. I am so grateful that he is working so hard to provide for our little family since we made the decision that I am not teaching again in the fall. And he is still a great help with the baby those few hours that he is home!

That's just a little update on how we are doing!

Catch of the day?

Yes, Doug caught a largemouth bass almost bigger than his child. Crazy!

Another use for the Boppy

So, I'm way too big to use the Boppy pillow around my waist. I read in the reviews to skip it if you're over a size 12, so I'm not totally surprised by it. So, it sat unused for a couple weeks, and then I remembered you can set the baby in it! It's great when Jane is content to sit next to me while I'm reading or whatever. Love my beautiful baby!

Dad playing the didgeridoo

Doug once bought a didgeridoo to waste time with. It's rather annoying, and I'm usually tempted to hide it in the garage and hope he forgets about it. (You know, out of sight, out of mind...) Anyway, while Doug's wonderful parents were visiting, Dad decided to try it out. The results were, well, I'll let you be the judge. :)

Baby Jane!

Here are some more pictures of baby Jane that we took yesterday - when she was four days old! She's already five days old! That's so crazy. We are doing well and somewhat falling into a routine. This little one is truly the light of my life and I love her so much. Okay, I can't go on (even though I could) because I will sit here and weep for joy rather than type (and typing time is limited)!

Since we left the hospital after 24 hours, we took her to the pediatrician the next day and everything checked out just fine! She is lovely and alert with those big blue eyes at times and she sleeps wonderfully sound at others. I am so grateful that my mom is here helping out. She is taking care of so much around the house while I rest and feed Jane, and Doug is of course wonderful with her. That won't come as a surprise to anyone that has seen him around children. He is already a great father - he got a good start by first being one on Father's Day! Best Father's Day gift ever!

This one is my favorite of the ones we took (thanks for the dress, Lyndsey!):

So tiny! And yes, there's an audience watching in the background. I think the dogs are getting used to her. Cosmo is indifferent, Sherman tried to lick her and can sit right next to her without a problem, and Maggie is, well, curious. Very curious. They have officially been demoted to "pets" in my mind and not babies.

Jane

Here she is. 6 lbs 2 oz and 20.5" long. Jane Afton Falke!!! Way to go mom!!

Jane Afton Falke

Gross, but here she is in all her glory!

Proud parents. Mom didn't use any drugs!!

itty bitty feet

deep blue eyes
6 lbs 2 oz 20.5 inches long

Sherman's dance

So, maybe this will work. It always takes so stinkin' long to upload videos, and it's never worked before. Obviously the last test didn't work. Let's try again. This is, hopefully, a video of Sherman "dancing." Pretty darn cute!

just a test

This is a test...will this post as a video? Is Emily smart enough to figure this out? We shall see...

Baby Showers!

I had a couple wonderful showers over the last couple months! These pictures are from a shower given by Tera, Jen, and Noel here in Leander. We played some really fun games - Noel put certain foods in diapers that resemble what I might soon find in Jane's diapers, and then we had to guess the food! It was disgusting and hilarious at the same time. I'm sure everyone would dislike me putting pictures of them on the blog, and you definitely don't need a million of me, so I will stick with the wonderful decorations! :)

Beautiful - and useful - diaper wreath made by Tera

Noel has an undiscovered talent - look at this gorgeous cake!

I ate a TON! And then I was glad that Jen took most the leftovers, because I went to her house the next day and ate more of it for lunch!

Happenings

Okay people. So I haven't blogged in, like, a month and a half. Sorry about that to those few who follow the blog to see how we are doing. It's been crazy! A snapshot of where we are now: I have 3 and a half more weeks of school (16 days to be exact) and around 5 and a half more weeks of being pregnant (this is week 34). I am moving, sometimes merely dragging, along. Doug is busy building Live Oak Chiropractic and has picked up some extra work for one of Lowe's vendors. Together we have been talking, budgeting, planning, going to Bradley method classes, encouraging, and showing love to each other. He has been the most wonderful support throughout this entire pregnancy.

The last couple weeks have been especially rough. On Friday, May 1 my school closed for a week due to a possible swine flu occurance. That would have been REALLY nice, except that Friday night we went to the hospital because I was having kidney stone pain. (For those who don't know, I've passed three before; I know what it is when I feel it.) However, the tests came back negative, so I was sent home thinking maybe I had passed it already.

Nope. Saturday and Sunday gave me a lot of pain. I had difficulty keeping fluids down. Sunday night I was back with more pain. This time the tests showed that I was having kidney trouble and that my right kidney was completely blocked. The doctors didn't know if it was the baby or stones because we couldn't do a CAT scan, and we waited most of Monday until we could talk to a urologist who believed (like me) that it was a stone. He suggested surgery to remove it and put a stent in place for a week to help everything heal. That was a much better option than the nephrostomy tube (catheter from kidney, out through my back, to a bag I have to wear to collect my pee for two months), and I had the surgery done. Two stones were completely blocking my kidney.

After that was done, my mom and brother got into town to help out. I was so happy to see them. A huge thanks also to my friend Jen Parker who, let's see, cleaned the guest bedroom out, cleaned the kitchen, washed towels and sheets, and did who knows what else! I spent Monday night in the hospital and came home late Tuesday morning. Because I had my mom and brother, Doug could see his patients and that was a good thing. Tuesday was very laid back, and then Wednesday morning my mom helped me clean the house so it's more prepared for the baby. Yay! I am so grateful for all her help! They went home Wednesday afternoon.

Meanwhile, I learned that we would be going back to school on Thursday. I was not up to that, but I did go on Friday. Yesterday I had the stent removed, and I feel like a new woman! Random week-long school closures and hospital trips are two things that are definitely NOT convenient, but I am truly grateful that they happened for me at the same time.

The other thing on my mind is how grateful I am that the Lord blessed the baby to be healthy through this. Being in severe abdominal/back pain at eight months had me more than a little scared that labor and an early birth could be involved in all this - with absolutely nothing ready at home for such a thing to happen. I was also so sorry that after months of trying to do everything right so we are prepared for a natural birth, here I was putting her through strong pain medicine/morphine, x-rays, general anesthesia, hours of fetal monitoring, etc. However, then I realized that if my goal is healthy mom/healthy baby, I did the things I needed to do to help that happen. If I was weak from pain and vomiting or allowed my kidney to be damaged from NOT doing those things, the two of us would be in much worse circumstances.

So that's THAT. I will soon put up pictures from my lovely baby shower here in Leander, the dogs, etc.

Sewing projects

I have been having fun with different sewing projects to get ready for Jane's arrival. These were all done with my fabulous mom's help! Below is a "hooter hider"/nursing cover that we made from a pattern we found online. Here is the website with the instructions if you are interested: http://photojulia.com/2008/02/how-to-make-a-nursing-cover.

I have been working on a quilt from fabric that I bought in Boise over Christmas, and we finally got it tied and finished this week as well. It's just a quilt to lay on the ground for the baby to play on. I really loved the fabric. I realized this week that one thing I truly enjoy is picking out fabric for different sewing projects - quilts especially. I'm not so good at sewing them yet, but I'll get there.

My mom had to make the sling because I was too scared to make a mistake and have something come loose with the baby in it. Again, we found a free pattern with instructions online. Here is the website for that one: http://www.handmade-adelaide-baby.com/baby-sling-patterns.html. The sling is brown twill reversible with the beautiful floral fabric below (we wanted to see if it actually worked so we stuck Maggie in it).

And here's me at 26 weeks!

Hair cut for Sherman

Our little Sherman is a long-haired dachshund. He has only been groomed once, and his hair was getting pretty long (especially the hair around his bum; he was bound to start getting dingleberries soon). He is always tracking around pieces of grass and leaves in his hair. Plus, it's going to get warm soon, and he'll be really hot. And, I wanted to see if he was really fat or if he was just poofy. So, I finally convinced Doug that he needed a hair cut. Doug tried to trim him with his clippers, and they quickly died. However, we got some animal clippers (which Doug will now use to cut his hair), and gave him a hair cut. Here is a "before" picture:



And here is an "after" picture. No, not the prettiest hair cut, and not what I was expecting. But it gets the job done! I don't know why Doug trimmed the hair on his back legs and not the hair on his front legs. He still needs some trimming. But he's still very soft and looks much smaller than he used to.
And here is the hair in the bath tub where Sherman patiently sat for his hair cut.

Update: 23 weeks

Here I am at 23 weeks. I'm getting bigger and a little more achy. Need to exercise more. Plus, I'm quickly running out of pants - thanks to Mom and Grandma to the maternity clothes rescue! :)