New Baby Update- 30 weeks

Here are a few little factoids about baby's development. Thought you might be interested. I'm feeling good, not too tired or anything. Kaiyah's been sick this week and so my lower back has been stressed from holding her more. Otherwise, things are good with me and baby. One of these days I'll take a picture of my belly! Funny how I did that so much with Kaiyah and have yet to do one with this baby! : )


Week Thirty
Did you know your baby is nearly three pounds now?

His head is getting larger to accommodate a period of rapid brain growth. Don't forget to continue to "teach" your baby in the womb by exposing to music, literature, and simply talking to him.

A pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds him. As he grows and fills your uterus, the amount of amniotic fluid will decrease. Funny, you certainly won't feel any lighter!

She spends more and more time practicing opening and closing eyelids. Her eyes can move from side to side, following a light source. She may even reach out to touch the light.

Early lanugo is beginning to disappear that served to protect your baby's skin from the water in the womb. Your little one's own hair may begin to appear.

Toenails are entering their final growth stage.

Bone marrow is now in charge of red blood cell production. These red blood cells will continue to service your child's body by transporting oxygen and removing the wastes (carbon monoxide and other gases).

Your baby has the capability now to produce tears -- yes, within the womb.

By the end of this week, your baby is now 15.7 inches (39.9cm) long and weighs 2.91 pounds (1319gm).

Brief thoughts and a few misc. pictures

So, we're realizing how little time is left until this baby arrives! Wow, time has flown by and May 4th is fast approaching! ( And I haven't taken ANY belly pictures this time! Whoops!) The good news is that the results of my glucose screening came back fine and so I don't have to take the 3 hour, miserable (and expensive) test to tell me that I don't have gestational diabetes like I did with Kaiyah. Yeah! Thank you God! Regardless, we're going to switching gears soon to baby-prep mode. We've got lots (really not that much) to do, but most of it is settling into our new place and mental work, like coming up with names and such. But the baby will be happy to be here regardless of how settled we are and we'll be happy to have him/her here too. : ) With or without a boy name! ha ha

Here are some pics that I just had to share... :)

Chris says all she needs is an SUV now. She's got the cell phone and banana (which she had in her mouth, just prior to this). Ha Ha!

I love this outfit and our cute-as-can-be daughter!

Does anyone doubt that Kaiyah and I have the same hair?

Kaiyah loves to rock with her dolls and read them books. Often one or both of them are snuggled in a blanket. A girl after my own heart!

I love Daddy!

Kaiyah loves her Daddy so much! And he feels the same. : )

Three of Kaiyah's favorite things: Daddy, Dolls, and Books

(By the way, Kaiyah's favorite doll (in Chris' lap) was my mom's, then mine, and is now Kaiyah's. Chris think it looks funny and has funny hands, like Winston Churchill smoking a cigar.)

Giving Daddy kisses.

It's Batman and mini-Batman! Chris gave Kaiyah this shirt for Christmas.

It's kind of blurry, but Kaiyah is trying to lick her Daddy, who was resting on the floor. (Chris taught her how to do this and thinks its hilarious. I think its gross, but daddys need to have their own relationships with their children. :) And Kaiyah loves it too. )

Burn Update...

As many of you know, Kaiyah was discharged from the burn clinic in the fall, but we went back becuase her wound site was starting to scar and we were concerned. We discovered that her scars should not create any future physical problems. She won't need surgery or therapy or anything, which is a huge, huge praise! However, since we had covered all of our insurance premiums for the year, we decided to fit her for a pressure garment that she would wear 23 hours a day in order to smooth out the burn site and minimize scarring. So, between visiting family in Indiana and East Palestine for Christmas, we returned to Columbus to pick up the pressure shirt. Over the next few days/weeks, we realized that it just wasn't worth it to us or to Kaiyah. It was so tight at first that it took two people to zip it up, and, though it did smooth out her scar, it also impaired her breathing and mobility. She developed raw spots under her arms and on the back of her neck from it rubbing and would really cry when she saw it and periodically throughout the day becuase it was so uncomfortable. And then Kaiyah got a cold and the pressure shirt made it even more difficult for her to catch her breath.

So, we decided that asthetics weren't enough to make it worth it. Her scar will stretch and smooth as she grows and probably be mostly located on the underside of her breast eventually anyway, so not many should see it. (At least we hope not.) What we've been doing instead is putting on a gel patch (really only at night as Kaiyah is really good at taking them off when I'm not looking and losing them) under the tight shirts she wore when she still had bandages. They keep enough pressure to smooth the site a little bit, without being very uncomfortable. Kaiyah doesn't mind it at all. She thinks its fun to look at her belly now.

Looking at her stretchy shirt and gel patch. She is really into her belly and bellybutton right now. (Mommy's too- "baby")

All that remains of Kaiyah's burn, about the size of a half dollar. It doesn't hurt or itch at all. Praise God for his healing touch!

Our New Place- Upstairs (part 2)

So, here's our bedroom, looking to the hallway. Can I say again how much we love all the space we have?! The closet, one of Kaiyah's favorite places, is to the left of my dresser. She loves to go in it and close the door while yelling (and I do mean yelling) "Bye". A fun game.


View of our bedroom from the door. Our room is the only one in the house that gets good sunlight. This is unfortunate since I love, love, love sunlight streaming in windows. But we've got houses close by and that big pine tree out front that, combined, block most of our sun. I am sure that I'll be grateful in the summer, but I sure do miss my front windows. (That may be the only thing I really miss. ) :) In this pic, you'll notice that Kaiyah wanted her baby to look out the window as well. : )

This is part of the office. Chris, as you can see, has been working on his lego display. It's really neat and the first thing you notice when you walk in. This is the back wall (back of the house). There are three windows that take up the entire wall to the right of this pic. It's probably my favorite room in the house becuase of the windows. I'll have to post pics of that later, as they were too dark to see well. Like I said before, I've been changing stuff around in here, so it looks quite different now. : ) Our plan is to keep the baby in the office for a while until he/she sleeps thru the night and Kaiyah moves to a bed, probably sometime in the summer. Then they'll share a room and this will revert to an office/guest room.

So, there you go. That's our house in a nutshell. We love it so much and would love for all of you to come and visit us here sometime! We have lots more room now!

Our New Place- Upstairs (part 1)

So here are a few pics of the upstairs, but not in the correct order. I haven't figured out how to change the order of the pics yet, so you'll have to settle for explanations. : ) Also keep in mind that things are constantly changing here. Since these photos, we've hung pictures, unpacked boxes, and made everything one step closer to settled. I've even gotten the office/nursery mostly, though crudely, unpacked.

This is Kaiyah's room (and eventually the new baby's). It's the first bedroom to the left if you come up the stairs. I can't tell you how much she loves her room. We have to open the windows for her as soon as she wakes so that she can look outside. (Although you really can't see anything but the neighbors house and a little of their backyard, she always exclaims "OOOOHHHHH" or "WOWWW". She's funny.) I will post pics of her bed and such later, as they haven't been uploaded yet and I'm too lazy to walk upstairs right now. :) ha ha

Kaiyah loves her little green rocking chair. It was formerly pink and white, but I painted it a few weeks ago.

This is the hallway from the top of the stairs. The kid's bedroom is on the left and ours is at the end of the hall. If you look the other direction, you'll see the bathroom straight ahead and the office to the right.

Bathroom. I'm still trying to decide what to do in here. I'd like to get a new shower curtain and paint a little, but those are projects for the summer, I think.

Laugh out loud 'til you cry!

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi327483673/

So Chris and I recently watched a movie and laughed harder than I've laughed in a long, long time. It's called Run Fat Boy Run, with Simon Pegg. Here's the link to the trailers on the IMDB site. It's rated PG-13 becuase there's a few questionable (but hilarious) scenes, so it may not be for everyone. But check out the trailers and see what you think. It's not all funny, but quite touching in parts. I cried a few times (and I don't think it's just because I'm hormonal), to which my husband's response was to laugh at me in unbelief. Good times, good times.

Our New Digs- the Outside

We moved to Columbus proper, in the part of town called Clintonville. It's a great little neighborhood with lots of community oriented people. It's mostly single family homes, but there are quite a few half-doubles (like this one) as well. Our half of this double is the right side (in the pic below). As you can see, we have a front porch! Yeah!

The front of the house.

The back yard and off-street parking. It's great for squirrel watching, one of Kaiyah's favorite pasttimes. :)

The back of the house. We're responsible for lawn care and snow removal. But I think that our neighbor mows.

My already prepared flower bed!!! I bravely transplanted some of my perrenials and bulbs in early January when we were having abnormally warm weather. We'll see if they will come back. I'm especially eager to see if my amazingly beautiful (and huge) delphinium grows again. They can be testy, so I may have killed it. And it seems like the squirrels may be getting a few of my spring bulbs. Lucky for them that Kaiyah loves them so much. :)

Our Great New Digs! -downstairs

So I'm finally getting around to posting some pics of our new place since we've moved. Some of the delay was caused by not knowing where the usb cord for our camera was stowed, but of course, after much searching it was found in the camera bag. Don't I overlook the obvious! I even put it there in the first place! Too funny. : )

Kitchen

Kitchen- with mini-hallway to lr/dr
There are two windows opposite the stove (at the drop-leaf end of the island) and we have a little pantry cupboard and two drawers built into the wall. Just above the drawers we've hung a chalkboard for Kaiyah. She is getting the hang of that pretty quickly! :)

view of LR/Dr from front door

Kaiyah loves all of the space and runs around and around the table. :)

LR area and front door. We have a nice decorative fireplace. Years ago it had a gas insert, I'm told.

Snow Babies

It snowed a bit here before we moved and so, on a warmer day, Kaiyah and I played outside. As you can see, Kaiyah loves being outside, even in the snow. She's even starting to try to eat it. :)

We made a mini snowman, which we called "snow guy." It was love at first sight! Kaiyah hugged and kissed him the whole time we were outside. And when she knocked its arm out, she lovingly tried to put it back in.

The finished work: a snowguy not quite as tall as Kaiyah. By the time we moved (3 days later) he had mostly melted, been peed on by the neighborhood dogs, and been run down by the moving truck. He was great while he lasted.

Some old pics of our new place

Here are some pics of our new apartment before we moved in. We were still painting and getting stuff ready. We're moved in now and I've found the camera, but need to look for the cord to upload the pictures I've taken.

Everything is pretty self explanatory. The green room is Kaiyah's, but it looks less olive in person. Call it bad lighting or only one coat of paint, but it definitely looks different. The bottom two pics are of the same room from different ends, our combined living/dining room. We're really excited becuase we can have all 6 chairs around the table all of the time! And we have over double the space we did in the old place. It's been an amazing difference! Stay tuned for more later this week! :)

And so it begins...

Well, things are really changing around here and we hope that you'll be able to keep up with the craziness that is our life thru this blog. I know lots of you loved getting the email updates, but I just don't have much time for that anymore (and forsee even less time in the future), so I thought this might be a good way for you to keep up to date with us. Here it goes... :)