34 Week Appointment

We are excited to report that everything is going well. When I saw the doctor on Monday he said that everything is right on track and quite normal. For the first time he did an "external palpitation," which basically means he felt the baby. The report is that baby brother is head down and not too big or too small. Praise the Lord!

Next appointment: Monday, April 9 at 2:30pm

32 Week Appointment

I had another visit with our doctor about a week and a half ago and was told that everything seems to be going well. My tummy is measuring right on track and my blood pressure was normal. He asked just a few questions about my delivery with Sarah and said that he expected an equally uneventful delivery this time around. I sure am praying for that!

With the rescheduling of the past two appointments, my most recent visits have been at 22, 27, and 32 weeks. That is a little more spaced than usual. Well, now we are really rolling and plan to go in next Monday at 34 weeks. Then the home stretch really begins with weekly visits starting at 36 weeks. This is really happening!

I am still thankful to be feeling great and going strong. When Sarah needs a little loving I usually go to her on the floor these days rather than picking her up and use that as a chance to rest a second. We did a big furniture shuffle while my parents were is town last week and Dave had someone to help him do some heavy lifting. It is really exciting to see our library/office become a nook for baby brother (as he is affectionately known...just ask Sarah, she will show you that baby brother lives in her belly button)!

Painting! [finally :)]

We have paint on the walls...and it is pretty! First, we used Discover card cash back rewards to get gift cards to Ace. In our first trip we brought home 4 samples: shades of green, yellow, navy, and blue/gray. The green, as well as the subsequent green we tried, were both too bright. The yellow is pretty good, but we might try one more. The navy was too dark. The blue/gray was perfect! We decided to use the blue/gray in our bathrooms and Dave in particular went quickly to work one weekend.

Step 1: sand all the walls with our nifty new sander (they had texture from the wallpaper glue)
Step 2: clean the whole house, which was covered in a layer of dust
Step 3: paint the ceiling
Step 4: prime the walls
Step 5: paint the walls!!!

The walls only seemed to need one coat. We then spent Monday doing a thorough cleaning of the bathroom and touch up work to connect our white trim to our new blue walls.

Sorry, Dave Ramsey. Credit card points are painting our house!

BEFORE

The colored spot on the left wall is the navy that turned out to be too dark for the space.

AFTER!

We are so pleased! This weekend bathroom project taught us much about the painting process and we look forward to transforming the rest of our home.

Bow Hanger

I kindly ask you to now call me Emily "Craft Queen" Cook. That's right, this not-so-artsy girl made a bow hanger. Dave and I made a fun Monday trip to the shopping center in Wareham a few weekends ago and stopped in a Micheal's. While there, we found an awesome big roll of pink ribbon on sale for $1. That led to the hunt for the perfect piece to which we could attach the ribbon. We stumbled upon the perfect size chalk board that was on sale for $.99. Score! With a little white paint from home, hot glue, a nice bow I could never make twice in a row, and a thumb tack/wire rigging for hanging, Sarah now, at 19 months, finally has a bow hanger.

This bow hanger has meant much more variety amongst the simple bows that Sarah wears to keep her hair out of her face. (We plan to put off the first hair cut for as long as possible...) The most gratifying moment was the first time Sarah saw it above the changing table. Her bows weren't even attached yet and she just kept excitedly saying, "bow, bow, BOW!" It was like she wanted me to take notice, there was something new and fun in her room and she recognized it. Plus, it was one big bow compared to her normal like ones. Alas, my $2, 2 hour project has brought us much joy. Maybe it has even inspired a spirit of craftiness that will linger for while.

Here is the newly finished bow hanger on the kitchen table...

...hanging over the changing table...

...loaded with bows!

Cloth Diapering

Dave, Sarah, and I have embarked on a new adventure- cloth diapering. We did not ever consider cloth diapers when we were expecting Sarah, as we were paying for laundry by the load. Sometimes it seemed too expensive to just wash our clothes!

Here are our two big reasons for making the switch:

1. Long term savings- We had great success with BJ's brand diapers. They came at a low cost, in bulk, and often had a coupon. Diapering sites often talk about how going with cloth saves you middle of the night diapers runs and the thousands of dollars you spend diapering a child. Honestly, their argument didn't sway me as much as it put me on guard for deceitful advertising.

We bought diapers about once a month and spent about $26 a pack. It wasn't breaking the bank by any means, but looking ahead to our baby boy on the way and any other children the Lord may have for us, we wanted to carefully consider the long term costs. Our investment in cloth was hefty, probably the equivalent of just over a year of using disposable diapers. Since we hope to have little ones in diapers for many years to come, we decided it was a worthwhile investment.

Now our monthly costs come in the form of water for washing, oil for water heating, and the time it takes to wash, dry, stuff, and change more frequently. These are significant costs, but ones that we (maybe mostly I) decided could be handled.

2. A friend in the business- There is so much on the internet about cloth diapering. So much of it seemed contradictory to me. As I have studied the product and grown in knowledge, it has become somewhat more clear. But the most influential and encouraging figure was my friend, Meghan, who has been using cloth diapers for a number of months now. Meghan was very honest with me and able to very accurately help me count the costs. She let me drill her with difficult and probably repetitive questions as I tired to figure out if we could really live the cloth diapering lifestyle.

She has also been very influential in problem solving since our diapers arrived. (Think me leaving her a frantic message the day we received our diapers in mail. She called me back that evening- that was Thursday and she had delivered her second child the Saturday before. Yep, she is a best friend.) Sarah is definitely at the large of end of things at this stage and it has taken some work to accurately size the diapers and learn the timing of when to change her. Initially, we were changing pants and sheets quite often. A week into things we are settling into a pretty great system. I am so thankful for Meghan's encouragement!

The method to our madness:

The diaper system we choose is a pocket style. The pocket is made of a waterproof outer layer and quick dry fleece inner layer. An absorbent insert goes inside and can be layered to fit a specific soaking need. (Aka, we put extra layers in at night.) Our diapers are "one size" and can be adjusted through the leg and waist elastics and snap options in the front to fit a child for the majority of their diapering life. We also invested in some biodegradable liners. They go on top of the fleece and mean that a dirty diaper just gets the liner plopped in the toilet. What is left on the diaper is not enough to worry over.

From top to bottom: biodegradable liner, insert, and diaper.

We seem to use 10-12 diapers every two days. My goal is to do laundry every other night. With the 18 diapers we have, this seems to work out perfectly. We now have two baskets next to Sarah's changing table. A small one has a grocery bag liner and holds used wipes and other trash. The diaper pail now holds a waterproof diaper bag. When taking a diaper off Sarah, we shake the insert(s) and liner out/off of the pocket and all the separate pieces are dropped in the pail. On laundry day the whole bag comes out and everything gets dumped in the washer, bag and all. 

For laundering, our current method is to start with a cold rinse, then a hot wash with detergent followed by a cold rinse, and one more cold rinse for good measure. (Sarah has gotten a few rashes on her legs and tummy, so I like to make sure all the detergent is out.) I then hang-dry the diapers, liners, and diaper bag. They can all go in the drier, but we want to get as much life as possible out of these guys. If time allows, I do throw the inserts into the drier since a warm dry can help them become more absorbent at this point. At Meghan's recommendation I am using one tablespoon of a cloth diaper detergent that came as part of our package plus one tablespoon of Arm & Hammer Free.

They arrived!!!

Sarah thinks diapers are big fun.

"Dad, this is photo worthy!"

Here they are drying after the initial washing sequence.

 

All of the inserts were dried to help boost their absorbency.

Here she is! Fresh out of the bath and in her very first cloth diaper.

Valentine's Day

Dave and I enjoy Valentine's Day. It is a perfect day to reminisce and eat chocolate. We have also established a tradition of Dave doing a little something to show me he loves me and I do I little something in response (though expecting that he does love me, I do prepare for my response).

Year 1: Our first year of marriage I made Dave heart shaped cookies with a lemon frosting from a fun magazine recipe. They were very pink. He made me a favorite Starbucks inspired drink: blended passion iced tea with lemonade. Yum! He also shared with me a sweet song he wrote about waiting tables and having a baby and how having a baby makes you a richer man than eating fancy steak regularly. Very wise. You should ask him to share it with you :)

Year 2: This February we were in Osterville, had a 7 month old, and didn't ever really leave the house after 7pm. Dave talked to a friend about watching Sarah (we have found that long married couples don't put much stock in Valentine's Day, just their anniversary) and planed a three part date. Phase 1: enjoy book browsing at Barnes and Noble. Phase 2: dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant on Main Street in Hyannis called Alberto's (best said in your most Italian accent). Phase 3: a fun coffee shop within walking distant that had live music. Sadly, phase 3 had gone out of business, so we went back to Barnes and Nobles and had Starbucks and looked at magazines. It was an awesome night out. I think I made Dave cake truffles for the first time that Valentine's Day, but that doesn't even compare to date night.

Year 3: This year I made Dave cake truffles again, because he really likes snacking on them from the freezer. He put Sarah to bed and let me relax while he worked on his secret. I enjoyed a rare uninterrupted hour of reading. He then said we were to dress up, fancy dress was required. I walked into the kitchen to find our table in the living room. First, we had a dinner of grilled lobster with butter and marinated grilled portobello mushrooms. This was to remind us of the joy of being open to things that the other loves (aka, Dave loves a whole lobster while I could do without and I love mushrooms which Dave could do without). We had Coke and Ginger Ale from our fancy water glasses and moved on to the second part of our evening, dancing! Dave had cleared the kitchen floor so that we could practice the waltz moves he found on youtube. We had such fun watching instructional videos, finding the perfect music, and then going crazy on our dance floor. Let it be known that for at least that one night, we really rocked the turning box step.

Hello lobster and mushroom!

Celebrating Grandma

It was with mixed emotion that Dave, Sarah, and I traveled to MS on Christmas Day. We went to celebrate the life of Mary Agnes Howell, known as Grandma to the three of us. It was a sweet short week with the extended family and a joyous time to celebrate Grandma's life in the aftermath of celebrating the birth and life of Christ.

When I think of Grandma and Poppy I think of cheese toast and malted milk shakes, long walks through their neighborhood and trips to the local museums. They had a great tree for climbing and knew all the different kinds of birds.

Sarah meeting Grandma for the first time...or Great Grandma, should I say!

The lighting isn't great in this one, but I love that Sarah is looking at the camera. Sarah was about 8 weeks old.

Notice that even though Sarah was also wearing her beads, she felt to need to keep a hand on Grandma's far superior beads.

Sarah now has a string of Grandma's beads and let me tell you, this girl loves to accessorize. Here she has her beads, a hat (most would call it a cloth plate), and bracelets (a few shower rings and a leaf shaped cookie cutter). She is ready to roll!