6 months old

Levi is now 6 months old!

Of course he had to stick out the tongue!

This is his official Pooh and Levi picture.

Such a giggly boy!

Classic Levi expression! I can now see little bumps under his gums where his little teeth are coming in eventually.

This is a common look for him, concentration while examining something.

Splish, Splash, Levi was taking a Bath!

Levi learned to splash!

Stockings

Well trained parents?

We survived one Christmas, 2 more to go.
The inevitable topic came up, sleep. "How is Levi sleeping?" He actually sleeps fairly well. Many nights we sleep for a 6-8 hour stretch.
Lately though he has been sick. A couple of months ago all 3 of us had a nasty bout of strep throat. That messed up his sleep. Then just when he got back into a routine of nice long stretches of sleep, he got Bronchitis. :-(
The thing that shocked family was the fact that Levi does not usually go down to sleep until 9 or sometimes 10pm. The family looks at me like I am a cruel mother. I tell them that we have tried to put him down earlier but if we start trying to put him down at 7 we just waste our time trying to rock him to sleep for 2-3 hours. He won't go down earlier.
They of course ask, "Why don't you just put him in the crib and let him cry-it-out? Have you tried it?"
Sister pipes up, "My kids cried 30 min the first night. 15 the second night. Now they sleep great."
"I can't tolerate it for more than 4 min." I didn't tell them, I was in tears myself at that point. In my defense it had been a rough night to begin with. I was frustrated to the point of desperation.
My loving family's response, "Well, he has you well trained."
I do frequently wonder if, after trying so long to have a child that we didn't know if we would ever have, do we spoil him? Am I going to be one of those helicopter moms that I have despised for so many years?
What they did not know was that Levi spent the first 6 weeks of life crying incessantly. He could not sleep for more that 1-2 hours at a time. We took him to the dr's office 40 minutes away and our newborn baby would cry for 30 minutes solid before he fell asleep. He must get his stubbornness from his mom and dad. When he was about 6 weeks old he was diagnosed with GERD. My poor baby had been crying in pain for 6 weeks! I felt awful! Then in a couple weeks he stopped crying as the medicine kicked in.
So now I have a terribly difficult time letting him cry for more than a few minutes after having had my fill in the beginning.
So I bought the No Cry Sleep Method book.  It is not a one-size-fits-all method. It has a bank of things to do to what works for you and your child. It is NOT an overnight cure that is so convenient for parents. The emphasis is on routine, but not so rigid that you can't live your life. Many of the things in it we had already been doing intuitively, like play the same music each night to signal sleepy time. i.e. training like Pavlov's dogs.
One aspect of the book that I do not like, they say to begin the routine and get the children to bed by 7pm. We get home from work at 5 or 6 so to get him in be by 7 we'd have to start as soon as we get home. I would not get any time to play with him. The book says if that is a problem you can get up early. Uh...yea, right.
I choose to ignore it. Levi gets enough sleep, he just goes to sleep later and sleeps in late. It works for us so far. We get to play with him and he gets his sleep.
Yet, I am not used to not conforming to social norms.
I do not mean to offend all my friends who use the cry it out method but, I see it as cruel to leave a child to cry himself to sleep. They say it teaches the child to put themselves to sleep. I don't see any teaching going on, just abandoning them to figure it out themselves. Besides that, I have cried myself to sleep before. I sleep hard after a good cry but it is not a pleasant way to go to sleep.

I have yet to meet another mom who sees things the same way. I admit, I am not an expert on child psychology. I'm only a mom with a tender heart. So I ask you this, "Does Levi have us well trained? Am I going down a path that leads to bad parenting where the child runs the show?"

Christmas Letter 2011

Friends and Family,     

                                                                                            

Merry Christmas! We hope you are well. 

This year has been an exciting one for us. From January to June was a blur of worry about our jobs. We weathered that with our jobs intact in the end, although Jesse’s job was altered so that he works at 2 schools now instead of one.

 

Our miracle arrived on June 30^th, 2011 at 11:08 PM. Levi William Herrera was born! The first few weeks were filled with diapers, feedings, sleeplessness and crying, lots of crying. Then he was diagnosed with GERD, essentially baby version of acid reflux. This was not surprising given my family history. Once the medicine kicked in Levi became an incredibly happy baby! 

 

Levi has the cutest most expressive eyebrows! He is a social baby. Jesse and I went back to work after 6 weeks, when school began. My mom takes care of Levi for us during the week and Jesse’s mom does it some days when my mom takes quilting classes. Mom takes Levi with her when she volunteers up at church. Levi is passed around among the other ladies at church.

 

We went to the Dallas Arboretum with a photographer friend to take pictures in October with all the pumpkin displays. Levi did beautifully. He posed and smiled for the pictures. Then at the end when we put him in the car seat he konked out for a few hours.

On October 2^nd Jesse and I celebrated our 7^th anniversary and Levi was baptized. I prayed long and hard that Levi would not cry for the baptism. He did great. He smiled and jabbered at Pastor Gary.

 

For Halloween Levi dressed up as Tigger! That night he started to jabber in a way that sounded like a roar. 

Levi is getting really good at sitting unassisted. However he does not yet roll over, at least not on purpose. He loves to eat all kinds of baby foods. I have yet to find one that he doesn’t like. He drools like the Niarga Falls but no teeth yet. He plays in his activity bouncer or sitting on the floor independantly for longer and longer periods of time. He is learning to pretend his over-reach to face-plant was done on purpose. He does a very nice push up and scoots backwards on his belly. When his feet meet resistance he pushes up on hands and knees and rocks forward and back, trying so hard to move forward!

Levi met Santa (aka Earl Amox) this year. He was not afraid of him. In fact to prove it, Levi pulled on Santa's beard! Santa handled it with grace, as you can see. 

The picture shows Levi "baby Jesus" with "Gabriel" or rather "Gabriella". This year Levi was asked to be the baby Jesus for our Christmas eve service at 3:00. I wonder how he will do; he wiggles a lot.

    

We hope you all have a blessed year!

Mary, Jesse and Levi

5 months old

The belated "Levi is 5 months old" post. It has been busy so I've not had time to do much.

Levi got to meet Santa this month at our church. Unfortunately I was not there for this picture. (That is Mom's thumb in the corner.) Levi has the privilege of knowing, Santa because he goes to our church. So thankfully he has no fear of Santa thus far. We'll see next year if he will fear him. I kind of doubt it though because Santa's beard is real, only the suit and hat are different from his usual appearance. 

Levi's first baby food was peas. Second was prunes. His response to prunes was cute:

1st spoonful- shocked look and spit out.
2nd spoonful- whole body shiver
I'm thinking he may not like prunes.
3rd spoonful- ya know this stuff is not so bad.
By the time he was to the end of the bowl of baby food, he was trying to help me put the spoon in his mouth because I just wasn't doing it fast enough for his liking.
At the end of his meals I usually let him play with the bowl and spoon and let him get messy, finger paint etc.

Levi was facinated by our view from the back yard.

Levi Giggles

Tigger Roar

This is Levi's Tigger roar on Halloween night after his bath. I just wish I didn't sound so stupid. His daddy can do a fake laugh that sets Levi off with giggles.

4 months old

4 months. I can't believe it has been 4 months.

On October 2nd Levi was baptized. Levi did very good. He didn't cry; he was  happy baby. Afterwards he fell asleep.

Levi is teething like crazy. I can't feel any teeth coming in yet but he is drooling everywhere and chewing on everything he can.

Levi loves his bouncer! He can turn the music on and sometimes I think he actually turning it on, on purpose.

A couple weeks ago we went to the Arboretum with Jesse's coworker, Monica Maldonado. She does photography on the side. As you can see, she is very good. Levi did very good, laughing and smiling the whole time. When we finally took a break, he zonked out.




My all-time favorite picture, with twinkle eyes.


Something miraculous has happened, he has begun to sleep longer at night. All of a sudden he is sleeping 6-8 hours at a time! I feel like a new woman! I even feel like I can function again.


He is trying so hard to figure out how to roll. He has rolled over from front to back several times by accident. It is fun to see the surprised look on his face when he does roll over. For a few days he has been rolling onto his side from his back. He wiggles and moves different ways, trying to figure out how to go the rest of the way onto his belly. Jesse and I encourage him and try to help but he hasn't it gotten it on his own yet.

Tigger bright-eyes

Levi continues to babble incessantly. The funniest thing happened on Halloween. We dressed him in a costume that a friend gave us...Tigger. He looked adorable in the costume! Jesse, Levi and I sat out front passing out candy.  Neighbors across the street from us came over to say hi and play with Levi. A pair of families came trick-or-treating. They commented on Levi's costume. He thought that was funny and laughed about it. Then I don't know if it was the costume that did it, but it sure sounded like Levi was roaring. Really he was just "talking" but it sure sounded like he was trying to roar like a tiger. I caught it on video after a while.

Cereal. So the dr told us at the 2 month check up that when we feel comfortable with it, we can add cereal to his formula. She said this helps the reflux not flux into his esophagus quite so bad. Now that he is 4 months old we decided to try giving him some soupy cereal. He doesn't like it at all. He even made the gagging sound that my sister made when she was little and she tasted something she didn't like.

I thank God every day for this amazing, happy little miracle!

Sticking his tongue out

Levi learned to stick his tongue out, so of course he has been doing that constantly ever since.
He has also been tucking his bottom lip in and humming. Mom says that is a sign that he is teething. He is producing buckets of drool.

Tonight we are watching the The Sing-Off. Vocal Point sang "Foot Loose". Levi was jamming out! He bounced in his bouncer and sang along with them in his own special way.

He is not dancing here but he is "singing".

3 months old

Levi is now 3 months old! 

He is becoming very good at "talking". This month he has experimented with pitch and volume rather than any new vowels. He has discovered shrill and loud.

We put Levi into a bouncy chair play station thing for the first time a few days ago. He loves it. It has a mirror that he can talk to, music he can jam out to, and knobs he can play with to make sounds, when he is a little older. His legs are not quite long enough to reach the floor yet but we put a pillow under it for him to stand on. 


Levi loves to "stand" on your belly. He actually bears weight on his legs. He is getting pretty good at rolling from his tummy to his back.  He will roll over the first time or 2 that you put him on his belly. After that he throws his head down on the floor and wails in frustration! : ( It is sad but at the same time, so dang cute it's hard not to smile.



A couple times when I put him down on his elbows, he throws himself forward like he wants to crawl but hasn't learned to move his arms. So he does a face-plant instead.

Levi also likes to chew on his arm when he lays on his belly. Actually he has been chewing on everything and drooling excessively. He bites hard on my finger. I suppose this is the early stages of teething.

He is beginning to take interest in things farther away now. At a restaurant last night he was fascinated with all the motion in the server area. He watches the dogs run and play. I can't wait to see how Freyja reacts to Levi grabbing her tail! She'll be surprised but I am confident that she will be patient with him. She is the type that will let him jump on her and pull her hair. She will just give him a look. My other 2 dogs will avoid him like they would the plague! 

"Talking"

"iiieee"

At 3am Levi is wide awake. He has been fed, has a clean diaper, and he is wide awake instead of sleepy. His dad and I are bleary-eyed and hoping for a little more sleep before going to work. He began "talking" to Jesse, who was holding him. So far Levi could say, "oooh!" and "aaahhgg!" This morning he has added a new "word" to his repertoire, "iiieee!" I heard him smile in response to his new word. I couldn't help but smile too.

Morning has broken

This was my post on Facebook this morning:


6:30am Levi was laying on a blanket on the nursery floor kicking his feet, flailing his arms, talking up a storm, happy as can be. While his mommy was laying on the floor beside him, trying to get five more minutes of sleep, but secretly loving this moment, a gift from God.

2 Months

Two Months
I can't believe Levi is now 2 months old.

Milestones
He will frequently smile in response to our silly antics. When we talk to him in vowel sounds now. ah, ih,eh, oh, and uh. Sometime he even humors us and will respond with his own vowel sound. Or if he is in a particularly good mood then he will say, "guh!" Then Jesse and I get all excited!  It is the little things in life...ya know?
Well, my little genius child also does a kind of little belly laugh at times. It used to be that he would do that in his sleep in between his Joker style smile. A couple times he has done it in response to something he deems particularly funny.

We now have a baby workout center in our living room! When he tires of being held, we put him in the swing for a while. Then he likes to lay on the floor and swing with his hands and feet at the things hanging down from the 2 arches. Finally he likes to finish his workout with some time in the vibrating chair. 

Sleep...if you saw my previous post you know that sleep is still somewhat of a rare commodity still. He still averages 3 hour chunks of sleep at a time. Some nights he is awake every 1-2 hours but mostly it is every 3 hours. On rare occasion Levi will sleep for a 4-5 hour chunk of time.  I thought about trying to do one of the sleep schedule things that say he will be sleeping through the night by 8 weeks. I just don't have the discipline or the heart to do that kind of thing. I will let nature take its course for now.




 Oh and we received our first family portraits in the mail! The people scheduled to come right before us didn't show up. So the photographers spent over an hour with us. They got some great pictures!


 








The Dr Visits this Month

When he was about 4 or 5 weeks old we took Levi to Dr. H for his weight check. He was born 7lbs 2oz and dropped to 6lb 5oz (11% body weight). He had lost more weight than doctors like them to lose. Well while he was there being weighed he was crying and crying and wouldn't stop.  Finally Jesse put him on his shoulder like when we burp him. We told Dr. H that he liked that position, it calmed him down frequently. Sometime that is the only way we could get him to sleep. She noticed that he was calm while upright, fussy when we laid him down. She gave us a prescription for acid reflux. That night we noticed a difference. Over the next week Levi became a whole new baby! He didn't cry every waking moment. He slept more. He was happy and alert when he was awake. We couldn't believe how wonderful parenting could be when the baby wasn't crying 24/7!!
Today, I took Levi to his 2 month check up. He weighs 12lbs 3oz which is in the 50th percentile range. He is 23 inches long which is between the 25 and 50th percentile range. His head circumference is also in the 50th percentile range. Yea! All normal and average!
He had 4 vaccines. Yes, he screamed and screamed. All the way to the car, he screamed. Then I put him in the car and drove. He fell asleep in 60 seconds flat!

Sleepless Nights

We knew what we were in for...a sleepless night. Levi slept all day long, only waking to eat a little bit. We knew he would eventually wake up and be ready to stay awake for a while.

He woke briefly at 8:45pm, ate and was back to sleep by 9pm.
At 10 we went to sleep, praying that we would get some sleep that night.
He woke up 2 hours later. We fed him.
Blink.
Blink.
Blink.
Rocking, rocking, rocking.
Blink.
Blink.
Eyes Wide open.
He was not going back to sleep.
He was going to stare at us, the fan, the blank wall, everything!
We put him in his crib to see if he would be content there and we could go to sleep for a while.
He fussed.
Rocking.
1:00 am
Rocking.
We prayed he would get tired soon.
2:00 am
Rocking.
Rocking and feeding again.
2:30 Sleep
With the grace of a dancer,
I stand up and cross the distance to the crib.
I lift him into the crib as gently as a feather.
Blink!
...Holding my breath...
... I'm not moving...
Eyes close.
...I'm still not breathing or moving.
Silent as a cat, I back away, climb into bed, pray he stays asleep
and I sleep
          ...for 3 hours until he wakes again...


In spite of all that, I wouldn't trade it for anything! After Levi falls asleep, I love to watch him dreaming. He gets a whole face smile as he dreams about what ever it is that little boys dream about. I love to see Jesse lay on the floor with Levi while the make faces and noises at each other. I love that now when I come home, Levi wakes up and looks at me, bleary eyed; he smiles.

The First Month

Daddy's hands

What a ride this month has been!! They say childbirth is the hardest thing you will ever do. I agree, but a close second is surviving the first 2 weeks of mommy-hood! First let me say I do not have any idea how women survive if their husbands are not home for at least the first 3 weeks! Jesse has been the best husband and father anyone could ever hope for!! I thank God for such an amazing spouse!!

3 days old  

The best part of this first month is gazing upon our miracle! Each day he becomes more and more awake and alert for longer periods of time. I am watching him become not just a baby but a real person with a personality.

The hardest part of the first 2 weeks was the lack of sleep, raging hormones, being in pain from giving birth, nursing pain and not having a clue what to do. They say that babies sleep for 16-19 hours per day. They say that we should sleep when the baby sleeps. So we should be able to get plenty of sleep, right? What they don't tell you is that it is in 2 hour segments and you are holding and rocking him while he sleeps for 10 of those hours!

6 lb 10oz

Lack of sleep and hormones gave me the baby blues for the first 2 weeks. Poor Jesse. He would look over at me and see that I was crying. He'd ask why. I'd sob, " I don't know!" or "I'm so tired." I'd calm down after a while. The it would happen again later. "NOW why are you crying?" My response was, "I'm still tired." or "I don't know why he's crying." Jesse was doing everything humanly possible to alleviate my tiredness and help me by fixing meals, changing diapers, cleaning, laundry, bringing me pillows and water. Levi was wanting to nurse constantly (and still is) so it was up to me to nurse and rock him for hours and hours a day. Jesse could and did rock him to sleep frequently but I don't like to hear Levi crying so much when I am able to nurse while rocking him so he doesn't cry. So I did as much of that as I could for the first several weeks.

I have not figured out how women nurse exclusively day and night. After a week of trying to do that, I caved in and asked Jesse to give him a bottle of formula during the night. I tried pumping but I have been unsuccessful at that as of yet. That has me stressed out, which makes everything more difficult. I want to throw in the towel, but then I think about all the germs at school that we will be indirectly exposing Levi to. So I'm still trying.

The "ooh" face

The picture above shows us weighing Levi in a mixing bowl on our digital kitchen scale. : )



What I love about being a new mom is watching Levi wake up. his face goes through a myriad of expressions as he does so. He stretches his arms up above his head and twists his body in the biggest stretch his little body can manage. Then he makes his "ooh" face which means "I'm hungry" and if you don't give him what he wants he'll scream.  Yea he has us well trained already! Sometimes he just stares off into space and I wonder what he is thinking.


I can't wait to see what new things he will learn to do next month!



*Photos at top were done by BellaBaby Photography. Rights were purchased.

Picture of Levi

My little angel sleeps! 

Week 38- nearly there!

The waiting game continues. I did, however, survive the stomach flu on Saturday and Sunday. At first I thought I was suffering from self induced nausea from nervous waiting. Then I thought I might be going into labor because I had read somewhere that some women get sick right before labor and my warm up contractions were getting to the point of painful. I slept very uneasy Saturday night waiting for the contractions to become more regular. But no... they were 30 min, 5, 8, 18, 45, 10...you get my drift. I woke up sorely disappointed and feeling only marginally less ill.  I decided that the contractions must have been more intense due to dehydration.

By Sunday evening I was feeling as good as I could while being 38 weeks pregnant. DH...not so much.

Monday- I actually got up off my bum and did a little organizing in our front room. This is the room that is normally presentable but is currently not.  When school was out I dumped all my school stuff in there that I needed to sort through.
10pm-3am Levi was trying to find an escape route! He would not go to sleep, nor would he let me sleep either! Jesse and I were amazed at how far my belly pushed out! I have never read anywhere that you should worry about a baby moving about too much, but i was starting to worry that he was under some kind of stress causing all the movement. Maybe he is claustrophobic like his momma?
Finally he settled down and I was dozing off, when the thunderstorm rolled in! Oh well, more preparation for sleepless nights!

Tuesday- Dr. Apt. Good News! I am 1 cm dilated. And according to the fetal monitor, having little bitty contractions 4 minutes apart. I am feeling them 15-30 minutes apart right now. The others are generally too minimal for me to notice. He is not yet fully engaged in the pelvis though. The doctor said to make an appointment for next week but she doesn't think we will have to wait that long! I am so excited to finally see Levi in person!

Lord, I hope she is right. I pray for patience and trust in Your timing. And I pray for inner calm.

I think I can...

Well I'm finally showing signs that I will one day have this baby! Praise God!!
At the OB appointment, while hooked up to the fetal monitor (aka old lady monitor), the dr asked me if I felt anything.
I said, "He moved." in a tone that respectfully said, Duh that happens frequently.
She shook her head and said, "You just had a contraction about a minute ago. We'll watch to see how far apart they are for the next 20 min." Sadly, I only had the one during the 20 minutes so I am not in real labor...yet.

She reminded me that Levi only has 4 days until he is considered full term! Dr. Hsu said that most women are anxious for the baby to come once they are full term.
I raised my hand and said, "I'm there!"
She also reminded me that since this is my first, I will most likely go all the way to 39 or 40 weeks. At least she didn't say 41 weeks.

My prayer tonight is to ask God for patience. I have never been good at waiting or not being able to plan anything with certainty.

One Month to go!

It is exactly one month to the day until my due date! I'm huge and my feet look like balloons each evening when I finally get to put them up. Tonight was worse than usual though. I did a lot of waddling around school today. I'm determined to stay off my feet more tomorrow though. Ha! With only 2 days of school left, that will be hard to do.
I have noticed, and I wonder if I am alone in this or not. For 2-3 days in a row I am ravenously hungry, to the point where I wake up 1 or even 2 times during the night and have to eat something in order to go back to sleep. During those days...and nights...Levi is very active with big movements. Then for the next 2-3 days after that, I'm not as hungry and Levi still moves but the movements are smaller and less frequent.
I wonder if it is a growth spurt thing. Then when he grows he has no room to move until he stretches my belly out even more. Then he has more room to grow and the cycle continues...
My sister said I was very "intuitive" (I think) that I noticed this pattern. I think it is just obsessive compulsive paranoia that causes me to notice. 

35 weeks- possible TMI alert

5 weeks remaining. Even though my gut tells me that I will deliver early, I asked the doctor how long past my due date she will let me go. I know most women tend to go past their due date for their first child. She answered 7 days. So Levi will be here by July 9th!
The nursery is pretty much ready. We got our changing pad this past week. That was the last missing piece that we needed to be ready. There always seems to be more to organize in the nursery though. I think it is more excitement that he will be here soon than any real need to move and organize the diapers yet again.
I have moved into a new phase of pregnancy now. While I am still anxious about how well I will cope with the pain of labor, I am beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable as the days go on. And I think perhaps labor won't be so bad if it means Levi will be here in a matter of hours instead of weeks. I am in daily pain from Levi putting his foot/feet on my ribs and stretching, thus pushing ribs in a direction they were never meant to go. There are times when I am ready to sit down and weep because that pain comes day after day, while not constant it is frequent and searing. If I lay on my right side, I am guaranteed to wake in a few minutes, with that searing pain in my ribs. So now I can only sleep on my left side or my back, when my left side gets sore. I know you are not supposed to lay on your back but I am propped up on a wedge to near sitting position. I had done that for heartburn, which is much better now that my dr. gave me an acid blocker medicine. I am learning to use pillows as lumbar support for my back. I am also learning that chairs with no cushion are murder on my back.
I suspect that Levi has "dropped" now. I used to have a belly shelf and now my belly is a little more sloping. I can no longer cross my legs because my belly is down too low. Over the weekend I have again felt muscles and tendons pulling, stretching and cramping because of the shift. I have felt perineal cramping and worried that I was in the super early stages of labor. Now I think he was just dropping into the pelvic area.
I often think of a friend who was pregnant as a teenager. She hid it from everyone and didn't have prenatal care. This was also before the days of internet. I wonder how did she cope with all these strange feelings and almost no one to talk to or ask questions? (The father was out of the picture.)
People have asked me, "Oh don't you just LOVE being pregnant!" While I am so very thankful that God has blessed us with a baby of our own, I do not love being pregnant. I feel like I have no control over my own body. I worry at every little twinge. Should I call the doctor? Should I mention it to her? Is this normal? Am I over reacting? What if I am under reacting and something is wrong? something I could prevent if only I told the doctor?
Now I am beginning to hear stories of women who have delivered with 5 weeks to go. In the last week I have heard about 5 stories like this...I tell them I have 5 weeks left and they tell me "Oh I knew a lady who delivered that early and the baby was in the NICU for X number of weeks for this problem and that." Oh God! Not another thing to worry about, PLEASE! I am trying to keep Matthew 6 in mind. Paraphrase: Who by worrying can add a single day to their lives? With God's help I will get through this.
I feel like a wretched, ungrateful person for complaining so much. However, the alternative is to smile and pretend, I am not scared, in pain, worried. I can pretend that I know what I am doing and understand all these strange feelings. All that would be a lie.
Truthfully, I lack a blind trust in God that all will be well. My life has taught me that God is always with me, even when I stray from Him. However, I also know that God has never promised me a perfect life, a life without struggles. I, like many, fear the unknown. God please give me courage.

The good thing is that so far all the sonograms have shown a healthy baby boy. Normal weight and size. He continues to move frequently. With the exception of his feet in my ribs, he is a very gentle boy. He doesn't kick so much as stretch. Last night I think I felt his elbow. I am more frequently able to tell which way he is laying. Although I have a hard time figuring out which end is his head and which is his bum!

10 inches gone!

 I finally got tired of my long hair and decided to chop it off! Now I won't have to spend 20 minutes trying, unsuccessfully, to flat iron all the waves out. Now it will only take 10 minutes or I can diffuse it. Besides soon I will more important things to worry about.

The lady actually styled my hair so that it curled under, but my hair has changed its mind and decided to flip out instead. Figures!!! Oh well I can deal with that. Besides I will probably diffuse it more often than not. 

Here is my mugshot! 

T-Shirt Quilt Finished

At long last I finished making the t-shirt quilt I had been working on! Here are the pictures:

Please excuse the school desks hanging over into the pictures.

I never knew that sororities had so many shirts. This quilt was much more massive in size than I thought it would be. So for some of the shirts I cut them down to half as tall and staggered them down the quilt.  

 My mom made the label for me to put on the back of the quilt.

 Each "patch" is sewn on with a different stitch design. 

 The quilting is not perfect, but it'll do. I am pleased with it since this is only the 4th or 5th quilt I have used the long arm to quilt. I usually have a hard time with the tension but I slowed down a bit and the tension did fine for this quilt. Yea, since this was for a customer rather than myself.

WHAT IS NEXT?

So now my next quilt is...wait let me rephrase that...My next quilts are: a Winnie the Pooh cheater cloth quilt for Levi that I am machine quilting. Cheating ALL THE WAY BABY! And I am piecing a red, white and blue quilt for Levi. This one I think I will hand quilt, so I know it won't be finished until his 2nd or 3rd birthday. Probably just in time for him to move into his big-boy room across the hall.

34 Weeks

As of today I am 34 weeks pregnant, only 6 weeks to go! I can't believe it.

Jesse and I went for a sonogram yesterday. Levi looks good. They confirmed again he is a boy; Jesse and I saw for ourselves as well this time. They also saw that he has hair on the back of his head! I can't believe that they can see that on a sono! We asked if it was red hair and they said technology is not quite that advanced yet. ; )

Levi is approximately 5 lbs now and if gains an average amount of weight from now till 40 wks, he should be an 8 lb baby! I hope that is true.

Since yesterday was my birthday and I am now 35 years old, the doctor told me that I am now considered a high risk pregnancy! So now I am going to the doctor weekly to be hooked up to the fetal monitor. It doesn't really bother me that I'm high risk now. It is just strange how last week I had a normal pregnancy, but this week I'm not, and the baby is fine. I am glad they will be watching closely from here on out. I do feel a bit old now though.

Last week Jesse's school had a baby shower for us. Here is a picture of all the goodies that we got!

 They all signed one of the books too!

Laura came over today to help me decorate the nursery. I stink at such things and she is awesome at it, so it worked out perfectly!

This is the closet door with his name above it.

Jesse and I found some Classic Winnie the Pooh decals for the wall. Laura and I had so much fun because it was like playing with the old Cling-on thing-a-ma-deals. I forget what they were called but it was a 80's paper doll thing.

Here is the crib with a storage unit next to it. I'm loving the cube things! We actually had to go back to the store and buy another cube unit to go in the room because they are such great storage.

We actually have Piglet also but we have not finished decorating that wall yet so that picture will come later. Jesse found the coolest 100 acre woods map decal that we are going to order online and hang above the dresser. 

Oh and we could not resist buying a pkg of these limited editions diapers! How cute are they!