Where to Start?

It's been so long since I've blogged. Faith has kept us very busy. Unfortunately she has turned out to be a very fussy baby. She doesn't handle dirty diapers at all, nor does she handle transitioning from one thing to another. Heaven forbid you sit down with her unless you plan on feeding her. She wants to be held constantly. As most of you know, we have found that the blow dryer gives us some relief. This is what I often come home to after leaving Alan in charge.

With that being said, she has been better the last couple of days. Friday I declared it "No Cry Friday" and she played pretty well I do have to say. I thought I'd play again with her yesterday and declared it "No Cry Saturday," again she held her own. However, she did not want to play "No Cry Sunday!" She started refusing that game at about 1:00am Sunday morning. We had a rough night with her waking up every 1.5 hours or so after that. Alan and I are exausted!

Anyway, here are a couple of cute clips from "No Cry Saturday." Sorry I haven't had time to edit them.

PS..it only took 2 days to get this posted!

Fussy Baby

I've never been around a newborn, needless to say, as much as I've been around Faith. When Faith was first born, she came out of my tummy all calm, just looking at the world around her. She was quiet while they cleaned her up and pretty easy going in the hospital unless she had a dirty diaper. I was sure I had an easy going baby and boy was I thankful! Well, let me tell you...I was wrong! The last few weeks this baby girl has been the biggest fuss-bucket around! If she isn't eating or sleeping, she's crying! Alan and I can barely get anything done because we spend so much time trying to console her.

On Sunday, I needed to blow dry my hair and I was carrying Faith around. I use a sound machine with her, but it doesn't really seem to do much, but I thought I'd see if she liked the sound of the blowdryer while I used it on my damp hair. I placed her in her seat and turned it on and WA-LA, she was instantly quiet! I got my hair dried, curled and make-up put on! I felt human again!

I told Alan of my new found cure for Faith's screaming, I think he thought..."whatever". Well on Monday I needed to run a couple of errands and left Alan with Faith. When I came home, I found Faith asleep in her swing with the blowdryer on full blast while Alan sat next to her eating a hamburger! Now we both run for the blowdryer when we can't console her. We have one upstairs and one downstairs! I wish I would have tried this a couple of weeks ago!

Faith's First Tub Bath

Alan and I gave Faith her first tub bath earlier this week. It only took me 24 hours to think she needed a bath and to actually get her in it! I'm going to work on cutting the time down between the thought and the actual doing....I hope! Anyway, here is a video of her experience:

And just incase you missed the pouty face

Thanks Jason and Allison for the tub, it worked great!!

Sing with me...

To the tune of Chili's Babyback Rib song:

I want my booby back, booby back
I want my booby back, booby back
I want my booby back, booby back please!

Potty Humor

Who knew that such a tiny baby girl could make so many dirty diapers!!

Faith does not tolerate wearing a dirty diaper. If she's screaming it's either because she is hungry or because she is dirty. She is becoming notorious for waiting until her diaper is off for her to have a bowel movement. I wish I had the video camera the other day when it all started! I came into the nursery where Alan was running around frantic trying to get new clothes out of the closet while Faith laid on the changing table pooing away! I stepped in and tried to help. I grabbed her legs and lifted her hiney up to remove all the soiled linens out from under her when Alan approached the table. Just then, she let it blow! There was poo all across the changing table, it hit the wipes bucket and everything else at the foot of the table, passed the table and landed behind the rocking chair! She just barely missed her Daddy and he's yelling at me to put her legs down! It was pretty hysterical! She has since done this many times. We may have to put up Plexiglass at the end of the changing table to have to keep from cleaning the carpet as much!

She also enjoys waiting until she has a clean diaper on to immediately use it, sometimes we can't even get her clothes changed before she's screaming for a new diaper! We can go through 3 diapers before getting off the changing table!

However, you know you're a mommy when you have to go out in public covered in your child's urine! Friday I had my 2 week post partum c-section visit at the doctor's office. Before I headed in leaving Faith and Alan in the car, I changed Faith's diaper. Now I pondered laying all the pads out incase she decided to go with her diaper off, but I thought I could swing it with no problem. Sure enough as soon as I took her diaper off, she peed in my lap! I had to walk through the clinic building and into my appointment with a wet crotch! Oh well...welcome to Mommyhood...right? Anyway, as much work as it is, I love her and wouldn't change it for the world!

Happy Halloween

First off...I'm slowly working on my labor and delivery blog. Yes, still! It's a long story and this baby takes a lot of time!

Anyway....

Today is our first holiday with Faith. It's Halloween! We had decided to not pass out candy this year and since Faith is so little (2 weeks yesterday), we weren't going to dress her up or take her out. When friends would ask if I was going to dress her up, I would just tell them I was going to dress her like a baby. Well, this didn't sit well with my friend Melissa. Her and her husband, Brian, came over earlier this week to bring us dinner, rock the baby and present us with a Halloween costume for Faith. She said she just couldn't let me dress her up as a baby for Halloween.

So this evening, I finally got out of my PJ's, dressed Faith in her costume and headed out to Trick -or-Treat. We only hit up one house, we thought we'd start of easy since she is so young. We headed out to Melissa's house which is around the block to show off our cute baby girl!

Dreaming of Halloween candy!

Faith at Brian and Melissa's house...but we didn't even get any candy! What's up with that?!

6 Days...if she's on time!

I had my 39 week doctor's appointment yesterday, everything looks good. 2cm dialated and 70% effaced...is it okay to share that kind of info on a blog? Anyway, the doctor said she didn't think I'd make it to my due date, but who knows for sure. I guess she could have been saying that to just make me happy. Well anyway with that news, mom has decided to leave 2 days earlier to try her best to be here. So many things I want to go right, but I know none of it's really up to me. Not only would I like for mom to be here, I have a friend that works in the nursery who is going to give me special treatment if she is on duty...if not, I guess I get the regular old patient treatment unless I pitch a fit...which I might. :-) Bags are about packed and ready to go!

Anyway, the house isn't perfect, but I think I'm content enough with it. We have the nursery done, here are our pictures:

Before

During

And after!

We sure are getting excited about Faith Anne's arrival. I think the biggest thing I'm anxious about is the after pain and if her name is fitting. We'll see if it sticks when she's born...not that we have a back up though!

Perhaps my next posting will be about her arrival! Thanks to everyone for the precious gifts they gave us to take care of our little girl!

About 3 more weeks...hopefully

It's been a busy week for Alan and I. We've had doctor appointments, baby classes and errands to run before the big arrival.

I had my 36 week ultrasound, the doctor said everything looked beautiful! The baby is expected to be in the 7.5 lbs range and that she is currently in the 50th percentile. We got one profile picture from this ultrasound that Alan and I really can't make out other than she is being a drama queen with her hand over forehead as we've seen before in other ultrasounds.

Saturday we took a tour of the hospital and we were able to see the labor and delivery room and the postpartum room. The L&D room is new and was BEAUTIFUL, but after the baby is born, I will get wheeled to the older part of the hospital where you get to spend 2 days in a newly remodeled closet! Okay, it's not really a closet, but it sure is a tiny, tiny room compared to the L&D room. I guess it'll be alright, we aren't expecting many guests anyway.

After we toured the hospital, we went to part 1 of 2 birthing classes. It was great for Alan and I to attend. He was able to learn all kinds of ways to help during this last part of my pregnancy and through labor and delivery. He took it all very well and I'm looking forward to experiencing this journey with him.

I think we have finally settled on a name...we'll see if it sticks after she is born. Anyway, I believe we are going to name her Faith Anne Johnson. We are still discussing the "e" in Anne, but we will probably go with it.

Hope all is well with you all! -T

Getting Closer

It's been awhile since I've blogged, but I'll write a quick one about what's going on.

I was able to do some maternity photographs when I was 33 weeks pregnant (I think). Here are a couple of them I swiped from her website. Alan and I will go in Friday to view the rest. I'm not sure if I'll be able to show anymore or not.

Some of my friends hosted a shower for me this past weekend. It was really nice and lots of fun. I'll post pictures once I get them. Having those two showers really helped stock us up on our necessities. Thanks everyone!

I go in for my 36 week ultrasound this afternoon to determine how big this baby girl is. I am hoping for a healthy petite little girl.

Alan and I have narrowed down our name choices. Perhaps we'll announce it soon.

Baby Shower

Alan and I went to Ga to visit family from August 14-August 23rd. My cousin Jason was getting married, and my cousin Candy decided to host us a wonderful baby shower! It was just perfect! She made a beautiful cake, 3 tiers! It was bigger than my wedding cake. I wish I had picture of the spread she laid out, but my camera ended up not working, so most of my pictures are borrowed!

Baby Shower Cake, made with love by Candy



It was wonderful to see most of the women in my family. My cousins, Jennifer, Terresa and Lorrinda and my Aunt Donna from my dad's side of the family made it. I was also able to visit with my Grandmommie, Ashley, Angie, Candy, Aunt Kelly, Aunt Darlene and my mom. We also had several of my 2nd cousins come, all children of course, I love getting to know them. Jennifer and Terresa's girls, Nathalie and Alexis were a fantastic help with opening gifts.

Mom, Me, Jennifer, Terresa, Lorrinda and Aunt Donna

Alexis and Nathalie helping me manage the gifts

Aunt Darlene, Mom and Aunt Donna

I received tons of clothes and lots of other goodies. My mom brought about 8 bags of gifts! One being an endless bag of baby clothes and two others full of cloth diapers. Candy had the guests bring books for the baby instead of cards, this was a wonderful idea and it help start a small library for our daughter.

Cowgirl outfit from Aunt Darlene

Green Eggs and Ham, a gift from Jennifer

One of my favorite gifts was a homemade quilt my mom made for the baby. She started working on it right after we told her we were pregnant. She was so excited that she couldn't wait for us to find out if it was a boy or a girl. I think it turned out beautiful!

Showing off the Baby Quilt, made with love from Grammy

Candy had a few games for us to play. Baby Bingo where guests could mark off their card as I opened presents. The other game was Baby Family Feud. This was pretty funny since it was a family baby shower. I sat on the Howard/Baldwin side. As it turned out I sat on the right side, we smoked the McCrary side of the family!

Mom in the final stage of Family Feud

Aunt Donna getting ready to whoop up on the McCrary side



Grandmommie, Ashley, Aunt Kelly and Aunt Darlene

Humm, let me think.....

Now that I am writing this blog, I realized I didn't even get a picture of the McCrary side of the family that came nor did I get a picture with Candy! This is the only one I have!


Candy - Thanks for a wonderful baby shower! I truly appreciate all the hard work, love and labor you put into making this such a wonderful family celebration! It's a blessing to have you in my family!

28 Weeks and Counting

I'm in my 28th week of pregnancy, officially in my 3rd trimester. I am slowy converting from an innie to an outie! I need to get the tape ready to tame this sucker! I think it's about to get rough again. In my 26th week, I started taking naps again in the middle of the day. I'm not sure if this is part of the 3rd trimester ailments, but I also learned last week that I am anemic. The doctor started me on some iron supplements that have their own odd side effects.

Last week my back started aching terribly bad. Not my lower back like you'd expect, but my middle back. I find it very difficult to sit for more than a few minutes. This makes attending a 2 hour, boring pathophysiology class extremely difficult. I am now carrying a wedge and a back pillow to class to sit on, this only helps a little. Tylenol does nothing. My most comfortable position is lying down. The doctor gave me a list of physical therapists I could go to if I want. I need to check the insurance for coverage.

This evening another viscous cycle kicked in with a choking episode I had. I swallowed wrong which equaled coughing which equaled a weak bladder...back to coughing which also equaled reflux, the cycle just went on and on. Fun!

Alan and I are still trying to figure out names. I'm not sure if we will share before it's on the birth certificate or not. We are starting to narrow it down which is nice.

I am looking forward to my two baby showers. It will be so nice to friends and family! Well, I've been sitting here for too long, back is aching now, gotta go! Good night.

My New Form of Entertainment

Instead of doing productive things around the house or playing back to back games of Bejeweled I've found a new form of entertainment on the computer. It's a website you've all heard of, Craigs List. I started off searching on it for items for the baby that I might be able to get at a decent rate, I did this for a probably a couple of months. I was successful with a few items:

1. New Pink Bumbo Chair for half the retail price.




2. Changing table, which actually I shouldn't have bought because Alan has put more work into sanding and repainting it than should have (oh well).


3. A nice glider I am adding to the baby room. It's not the most beautiful thing, but it is a good piece of furniture that is oober comfortable. A nice quilt on it will make work well in the nursery. Only $100.
   


4. Sassy Mobile that has been discontinued. I used this mobile at work and loved the fact that it was developmentally stimulating for a baby. The mobile pauses to allow the baby to focus, the toys face down for them to focus on and the toys flip from simple images for young babies to more complex when they get older. Good price, since they sell used for more than the price I paid for it on ebay w/out having to pay shipping costs!






5. And 11 Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers.







6. Today I purchased pretty much a brand new Singer Sewing Machine for less than I could fine online.

Besides shopping for myself on Craigs List, I like to read the free and items wanted postings. I think it's funny the things people want. I saw a listing from someone who wanted as many empty lipstick tubes as possible. I saw another one yesterday from a family that wanted free household items, they just moved here from New York. Sounds understandable right? Then it goes on to say it was cheaper for us to just leave everything there and get new stuff here. I laughed, well yeah it is, you want it all for free! Anyway, I don't know there story, but thought it was a little funny. My favorite one was from today though, the posting headline read "Ex-Large Dog Kennel Cage Good enoug for your Mother In Law Free" if you click on it the ad also tells you it's big enough for your girly-friend! In the garden section I saw a large fern for sale for $60.00, she goes on to say that she just moved into a new house the previous owners left it behind. I just thought it was a little expensive for something she got for free and you'd really probably be doing her a favor by getting it out of her way. I've also seen trees for sale, but you had to come dig them up yourself aka please come do my yard labor for me; we both benefit!




I have noticed that most people are quite proud of their used items on Craigs List. Prices aren't garage sale prices. You have to be quick and keep a look out for a true good deal and you may have to do a little sweet talking to get them to drop the price a little lower for you, especially if you find something that didn't sale right away. All in all I guess it helps everyone all the way around.

Wide Awake

It's 12:30 am, and I'm wide awake. I'm not sure why, I didn't get a nap in today so I should be pretty tired. I was trying to sleep but someone was doing somersaults in my belly, but I'm not naming any names!

Not too much is going on here. I'm taking a pathophysiology class this semester, so I try to make myself study for it, but just find myself cramming two days before the exam. However, it worked pretty well for me this week, but I need to get out of the habit of doing that. While I was studying, I caught Paige petting herself in the curtains. She does this quite often, you can find her doing it also in my closet under the hanging dresses and in the back yard under my ferns. She's quite funny, you'd think she is starved for attention. I promise she is not!

And for those of you that want to see my pregnant belly, here is a picture from this week.

26 weeks

And just for fun, here is Alan studying. He usually studies pretty hard, in fact I wish I had his motivation to commit to a project like he does. It was pretty unusual to find him trying to nap with his book instead of reading it!

Baby Kicks and Belly Jiggles, Pt 2

Okay, after many attempts of trying to record this baby moving around in my tummy, I finally caught some movement on video.

You have to watch carefully. I think some it was lost from converting it from HD to Blogger. No belly jokes please!

And just for grins, here is Paige loving on the baby!

Baby Kicks and Belly Jiggles

I've been feeling our baby girl kick for awhile now. It starts off early in pregnancy where you feel the flutters, then the softest kicks, then you can feel them on the outside with your hand. Well this week I noticed that she can now make my whole stomach move at times. I was laying on the couch with my hand and arm across my belly and she kicked or at least flung herself wide open. I felt her on both sides of my stomach at the same time. I started watching my stomach and could tell where she was moving due to the movement of my stomach. Now when I'm still, she'll start moving around. Of course I watch her for a couple of minutes then I'll call Alan. However, once he shows up, she usually quits. He did get to see her move a little last night. Pretty cool! I'm going to try to catch it on video...well see. I tried today, but of course she'd stop as soon as I hit record!

Out with the Old

My favorite brother, Dusty, came over today to low ball me on my full size mattress that we no longer have room for due to the nursery. Dusty had been sleeping on an old couch as a bed, but he tossed it with his recent move and has been roughing it on the floor. Alan and I finally decided that there is just no where to keep this mattress at our house for the next several years, so we decided we'd give it Dusty. Mom offered to buy them from me for him, but since Mom bought them for me before I lived with Alan, I didn't think she needed to pay me to give them to Dusty.

You see Dusty always seems tight on money, so we usually give him our old furniture if he needs it, hence the free mattress. However, today I did get quite the kick out him! He hung around for a couple of hours waiting on lunch. While we were chit-chatting, he told me needed to swing by another friends house and pick up his TRAMPOLINE! Yes TRAMPOLINE! Not the little exercise ones, I talking the large ones you put in the backyard! I'm thinking he must have bought this thing cheap off of Craigs List...right? Nope he says he bought it new at Academy! Where are the priorities boy! He proceeded to tell me that he is still pretty good at back flips and can even add a twist into them! Boy was I low balled! By the way, he's 26 yrs old!

Anyway, Dusty got off with my most favorite and comfortable mattress. I'm so going to miss it. However, from now on we are going to have to do some bartering! Not to mention next time we go out to eat, I'm going to stiff him with the bill! After all, he is the one with a full time job!

Alan and Dusty strapping my nice mattress to the hood of his car.

Dusty thinking....SUCKER!

Dusty driving off with a steal!

Love you Dusty and may you have a peaceful sleep!

Nursery - Slowly Coming Together

Alan has been working hard on getting the nursery together. He painted, added a chair rail and crown molding. Yesterday our crib arrived, we cleaned the carpet and decided to put together the crib. Here are some shots of today's work! Alan working and me supervising!

He made me help!


Me being goofy, but Alan thought I was trying to get a surprise picture of him. Doesn't he realize it's about me sometimes too?

Hard at work.

Paige supervising and getting suspicious of what's going on.

Just about done!



When Mom was in town, she bought material for me to make a quilt, curtains and a dust ruffle with. It only took me two weeks to complete. Here they are in all their glory!

Me and my work!

Alan and his hard work!

We still have more furniture to work on for the room and we are waiting on the crib mattress to arrive. Thanks Mom! This is so much fun!

Daddy Doodies

Alan's been working hard these last few days on his daddy duties, so I snapped a few pictures of him in his new job.

Mom ordered us a Pack N' Play before she left and it finally arrived on Thursday. Alan whipped it out of the box to make sure all the pieces were there and that it wasn't damaged since it came with a large whole in the side of the box.

Here's Alan wishing it would just all snap together......and it won't!

Alan giving in and reading the directions!

He's finally figuring it out (I had to help a little, but I still need an orientation on it!)

Proud Dad and his masterpiece!

Thanks Mom!

His project for yesterday and today was to clean out one of the spare bedrooms and start on the nursery. We chose the room next to ours. Here it is before ALL the furniture was moved out.

One of the colors we chose was a yellowish cream, it's a little lighter than we expected, but it'llwork.

I was able to talk Alan into putting pink on the walls. We discussed colors for days; pink, cream or green. Since most of the house is already cream and green we thought we'd give pink a shot.

We also picked up a pretty little light fixture.

It works! And no one got hurt!

Alan's next project is to add a chair rail and some crown molding to the room. We are trying to figure out furniture color. If we go with white, then we'll repaint the closet doors and paint all the molding a bright white. If we go with cherry wood furniture, we'll just paint the new molding to match the old stuff. Now we have to find the funiture!

Thanks for all the hard work Honey!