Bakers

27 weeks 2/14/12 Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-20T16:58:00.001-05:00

Natalie turned 27 weeks on Valentine's Day! This outfit was courtesy of Grammy Rancourt. One thing you can't see is the onesie that she has on has a bulldog that says adorable on it. Do we love our Rocky?

She was not all that happy with this photo shoot. The pictures below were from earlier in the day. These are taken at night and she is about spent at that time. Very hard to get a smile out of this girl.

Someone was feeling left out so he came over to visit. Can't resist getting him in the shot. She was looking so intently at him.

Here they are looking at each other.

Natalie did pretty well over the weekend. We went back to the doctor's on Monday. He felt her head and thought it was pretty much the same. She developed this pretty nasty cough on Sunday, so he checked that out. He tried to check her ears but didn't work so well. There was a lot of gunk in there so the nurse came in to clean it out. Now my girl does not like to have her body forced to do anything, so you can imagine how she felt when mommy had to hold down her arms and head so the nurse could pour water in her ear and get all the goo out of there. She was not happy. It was not a good time for any of us. Grammy Jean was with us. She was SOOOOO upset. It doesn't hurt just very uncomfortable and weird. We got through it and the doctor checked her out and said she had a mild ear infection so had to be put on amoxycilin. When I went to fill it at the pharmacy, the girl asked what flavor. There were about 15 to choose from. I chose grape. Yech!! Does that stuff stink. All you smell after you give it to her is sickly sweet grape. Nasty. Can't imagine how it tastes. No, I can by the horrible face she gives us twice a day.

She's getting really good at holding herself up. I am helping a bit but she's getting there.

Her favorite thing to look at is the blinds in our room so she's looking at that and Mom's looking at the camera.

We did ok until about Tuesday night into Wednesday. The doctor had mentioned something about lack of sleep as something to look for in regards to the head issues. She has been consistently sleeping through the night for months now. She woke up Wednesday morning at 1:30am and ended up nursing as she wasn't going back to sleep. Also, at day care she didn't nap like she normally does. On a normal day, she has a 1-2 hr nap in the morning and one in the afternoon. Wednesday she only had 30 minute naps in the am and pm. I was a little concerned because of what the doctor had said so I called them when I got home from work. We went in to the doctor's office and he checked her out and felt that the lack of sleep was from the sickness and not from the head issues. He also said that since the ultrasound was normal and she is acting like what a 6 month old should act that we shouldn't be concerned with this unless something drastically changes.

This is what happens when dad takes her out. She gets socks for mittens and that blue striped thing she has behind her is a cloth napkin he is using for a burp cloth.

The rest of the week was good. Dad and her went discgolfing on Friday. She also finally got her shots on Friday too.

She fell asleep by hole 5.

Friday we tried some avocados with rice cereal. She really liked it this time. That's good because we have something else for our arsenal. So this weekend we were supposed to visit our friends Brian and Kirsten in Scituate, Ma. Their son, who is 3 1/2 months, was just getting over a cold and Kirsten and Brian both came down with ones so we decided not to go. Saturday we were going to go to Manchester to check out some more sofas. Well, that didn't work out. Natalie woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Normally she wakes up and gives you a big gum eating smile. This morning she woke up crying. She was not happy and would not even nurse. I think it had to do with the cold and the shots. Her legs hurt. We gave her some tylenol and later she felt a little better. We went out to a local store in Dover and made it through that without a melt down. Later, I left and Chris sent me this photo:

I think she was feeling better.

Sunday, I was supposed to go visit my high school girlfriends but that didn't work out either because of sickness. Chris had signed up for a disc golf tournement in Limerick, ME. He decided to go up a division. He thought he didn't do very well, and ended up taking third out of 16 people. Pretty good for having a cut on his throwing finger from changing his daughter's diaper.

Great Aunt Beverly made her some hats. This one is really cute and fits her really well.

This one is a little big and we will grow into it. But cute none the less.

Just thought this outfit was cute.

This is the earlier in the day photo I mentioned before.

There's the smile.

ROCKY!!!

We decided to get rid of our stinky couch that has a tear in it and also replace the one that the dog sleeps on because it is also gross. So we have been sofa shopping. This was taken at Bob's in Seabrook. Why would you need something this big?

This is Bob's in Manchester. Can't wait for her to get bigger so we can get this for her. Just her size. So cute!!! Cup holders too. Must have with little ones.

Chris' parents requested a gate for the loft area in there house. They wanted it to look like the railing which is why they didn't want a store bought one. It came out really nice and works well. Shhh don't tell Kellan it is for him mainly. They told him it was to keep Rocky from going down stairs.

We have made it through another week. Natalie is feeling better now. Still coughing but way better than she was earlier. Hopefully everyone else starts to feel better. We are doing ok. Rocky had some time off from us because we thought we were going away for the weekend. He had some fun with Kellan taking some walks but I think he was excited when I showed up yesterday. He has been sleeping on his sofa since we got home yesterday. See you next week.

6 months 2/9/12

2012-02-11T20:25:00.000-05:00

I can't believe that Natalie is 1/2 a year. The time has flown by. She is getting so big and she is so much more animated and interacting with us more. She has started to enjoy some tummy time and has rolled from her stomach to her back by herself. Any day now she will sit up on her own as well.

This is Chris' new thing. He pulls his hand back from her face and then towards her face. She really likes it.

Here she is with the bear. Now she grabs it and puts it in her mouth. She is finally bigger than the bear.

Here is another photo of Mom and Natalie. She loves looking at herself in the camera. She will stare at herself for a long time.

My former coworker Mary B. gave us this cute outfit. I had to have her wear as it was 6 months and she is growing like a weed.

Last Sunday, we were up in Alton for the Super Bowl. We were heading out for the night and I found a cowboy hat there and put it on her head. So cute!

Friday was her 6 month appointment. We were expecting to go in and to hear good news and be on our way but we got a little scare. They kept checking out her soft spot on top of her head. They asked a lot of questions about having a fever, throwing up, acting different which she hasn't done any of. She is always checking everything out, tracks everything, very happy most of the time. They said there was some more pressure at the top of her head so they wanted to get it checked out. We had an ultrasound of her head and everything came out normal. They said that she should get more fluids. She has been going a lot longer between feedings and sleeping through the night so she is not getting as much milk as she was previously. They said to watch for the signs I mentioned before through the weekend and we go back on Monday to check it again. So far, Saturday evening, she has been the same cutie pie as before.

On a more positive note, she weighed 16.9 lbs (60th percentile) and was 25"(45th percentile). Her head is still pretty large. It is in the 90th percentile but they said she is still growing like she should. The doctor really said that other than the pressure, she is really a healthy, happy girl and sometimes this just happens. If everything is normal on Monday, she will most likely get all of her shots then. They decided to hold off Friday so that they wouldn't adversely affect her situation.

She had a pretty rough day because of the timing of the appointment so the rest of the day was a fun day with dad. He took a few photos of the day.

Here she is chillin on the boppy with her favorite toy!

Bath time because we had so much goo on her head.

There's my smiley girl!!

Friday night, Chris and I attended a retirement party for a guy he used to work with at Fish and Game. Chris' parents came over to babysit. Grampy Dan was with her for about an hour by himself and they survived. She was getting fussy and as soon as Grammy Jean showed up she was fine. He was not impressed. They did well for the rest of the night.

Today, we tried some sweet potatoes and the high chair. If there was any doubt about this child being ours, this should seal the deal. This kid has a sweet tooth. She didn't really like rice cereal until cinnamon and applesauce were put in it. She likes bananas. Not so much for the bland avocadoes and peas. Now sweet potatoes she absolutely loved. She even took the spoon in her hand at one point and directed it to her mouth. She ate most of the bowl. It was a hit! The doctor on Friday had mentioned that it would be a good time to start meat. When he first said it, I thought he was joking. MEAT!?! He said that I am not producing much iron any more so we need to supplement her diet with iron. One way to do this is the rice cereal and the other is meat. He suggested cooking up some chicken and adding it to sweet potatoes. Had to try sweet potatoes by themselves and then maybe some chicken later on. I am still not giving up hope on the avocado and peas so we will keep trying on those. Life is sooo exciting around here. The little things make us so happy.

While we were taking her 6 month photo, Chris took her over to hang out with the dog. She is getting really good at petting him although sometimes she grabs on to his folds, which he doesn't particularly like. I have been trying to show her how to gently pet him and guide her hand over it as well. She will get there.

My two babies!

Otherwise, everything else is good. Chris had a cold this week that Natalie had last Saturday but he is much better than he was at the beginning of the week. I am doing well. Rocky's eye issue is pretty much gone. He doesn't produce tears in one of his eyes so we have to give him drops. We were bad parents for a couple of days and forgot to do it and scar tissue formed on his eyeball. We got a cream to put in the eye along with the drops and now it is like he didn't have anything. It is like he is a new dog. He just got off a round of antibiotics so he is actually somewhat healthy for now.
Hope this finds all of you well. We will update on Natalie's head next week.

25 weeks 1/31/12

2012-02-05T16:15:00.001-05:00

Natalie turned 25 weeks this week. She got to try some peas this week. Not a big fan but it is only the first time and we are persistant. We also tried avocados again. She liked it a little bit but also not her favorite. Bananas remain her favorite food thus far. I can't believe that she is almost 6 months. The time has flown by. She is getting a lot bigger and stronger. She hasn't really been too interested in rolling over unless we help and tummy time is not her thing, but she can hold her head up pretty well and can sit up with some help. We are getting there. Here she is with me. There is a reason you don't see my face very often because I take terrible pictures.

She wasn't very happy when we were taking her photos this week so this is the best we got. This is with a little help from Daddy.

She is grabbing on to things really well now. She will pick some toys up as well. Everything goes in her mouth.

Here's Rocky taking a snooze.

Here she is at daycare propped up with boppy pillows. She really enjoys it there and has a lot of fun with the other kids.

My mom had mentioned something about taking a picture of her teeth. This is a really hard thing to do because anything that comes near her mouth she wants to eat. This took me about 3-4 tries to get this photo. If you click on it, it will make it bigger so you can see the 2 bottom teeth.

Friday was Daddy and Natalie day. They took a lot of photos together. He also had her do some tummy time and she was actually ok with it. Amazing!!

Yucky peas!

Isn't she beautiful?

MONSTER BABY!!!

I really hope she keeps those beautiful blue eyes like her momma.

She has been doing this thing with her lips where she is trying to blow raspberries. She mostly just spits but it is super cute. Chris tried to take some photos of it.

Here she's doing it again.

This is a little blurry but she is able to sit up pretty much on her own....

....until she falls over.

Here is the cardigan so far. I really like knitting kid sized stuff because it goes so quickly. The colors look pretty good together. I am really excited to be finished and for her to be big enough to wear it.

Natalie has a lot of toys that are overtaking the house. Chris decided to make a toy box for her. He started and finished the box yesterday without any plans. It looks awesome and it is really big so all of her toys that she has now and the ones that are yet to come will fit in here.

24 weeks 1/24/12

2012-01-29T20:24:00.001-05:00

Natalie turned 24 weeks this week. Last Friday, we tried another food. Chris fed her bananas. They were a hit. She ate them a couple more times throughout the week. Chris went off to Florida for work for the week. He left early Saturday so we spent the day hanging out. The pink teether is her favorite toy right now. It was a long week without Daddy but I took Friday off so that we had a much needed break. Grammy Judy came to visit us on Thursday night and stayed until Friday. We tried some avocados on Friday. She wasn't really happy about them. We added a little bit of applesauce to it and she ate some of it. We are going to try again with the avocados. We also have peas to try.

Here is the pink teether.

Here is Rocky hanging out.

Here she is with another teether that she likes.

This is a cardigan and jumper outfit that I have started to make Natalie. I am making it for her to where this time next year. I learned from the first project that I need to make it a lot in advance so that she will be able to actually wear it.

Today we went for a hike with Natalie and the dog. It was a little windy but we didn't go for very far because the dog doesn't walk very far.

Other than that, not much happened this week. We are very happy to have Daddy back home. It was very tiring for Mommy to be all by herself with 2 babies. I don't know how single mom's do it. Hooray for them. Hope all is well with everyone.

23 weeks 1/17/12

2012-01-22T13:43:00.002-05:00

Natalie turned 23 weeks this past week. Big news this week: Natalie got her first teeth. Both on the bottom. Chris has been sticking his tongue out at Natalie and she has been doing it back. Now we know that it was because she was feeling her teeth. So exciting. She is getting to be such a big girl.

I didn't have a lot of photos to put up this week so I took some of my knitting projects that I have completed so far. This is the sweater for Natalie that I did but unfortunately it took me a little longer than I thought and it doesn't quite fit her. I have learned that now if I am making something for her it will need to be much bigger. I am going to be making her a cardigan and sweater that is size 18 months.

These are the fingerless gloves that I made for my sister-in-law Christina. They were originally going to be for Christmas but again didn't happen. Oh well, they are done now. There is a hat but the pattern made it huge.

Chris is off to Florida for the week for work so it is just me and my babies. Today, while I was making a crock pot dinner for myself, Natalie played in her exersaucer. She is totally in love with the pink teether in her hand. She holds on to that thing for dear life. She does stick it in her mouth occasionally but today she was banging it on the exersaucer.

It is a little big for her hence the box to stand on.

We are doing well. Chris is enjoying sunny Florida while I am stuck in NH with all this cold weather. Hopefully we don't get too much snow as our snow blower is really finicky. Guess I will have to do it the old fashioned way with a shovel. Next week should be fun but I took Friday off so it is a short work week. Rocky had a vet appt last Monday and is on all sorts of meds for his eyes and skin issues. He likes the antibiotics because hse gets peanut butter twice a day with them. He has no issues internally but externally he is a mess. He will get better as he always does. And even though he is a mess, we still love him. Who couldn't love the big marshmellow he is. Hope all are well.

5 months 1/9/12

2012-01-14T14:10:00.001-05:00

Natalie is the big 5 months. It is soooo crazy that the time has gone by so quickly. She has been getting a lot bigger. She is also finally eating some rice cereal. We had to add some extra stuff to it. She ate it with some cinnamon and applesauce. I forgot to take the picture with the bear. Oh well, there's always next month. She gave me a little smile here. This is another outfit courtesy of Grammy Judy.

Grammy & Grampy Rancourt came over to visit this past weekend. We took a lot of photos of Natalie and her Grammy. This is her modeling the hat that her great aunt Beverly made her for Christmas. The purple hand is a teether I bought her that you can freeze. She has started to really like the teethers and everything else is going into her mouth so I thought I would be prepared.

Rocky loves when they come to visit. He gets so much attention. And he gets away with a lot when they are here. Here he is climbing on the sofa onto my dad.

What a spoiled dog he is.

He loves his grandpa.

Doing what they do best, Snoozing!

After I took her 5 month photo, I was trying to get a good picture of Natalie to send to Chris because he was working late that night. These are some of the ones that I got.

Just thought this was cute because I caught her mid-sneeze.

I had some videos that I wanted to put on here but still haven't figured out how to do it. I will be looking into this because there are some cute ones. As for Chris and I, we are doing well. Chris came down with a cold last week and it is still lingering. Knock on wood, neither Natalie or I got it which is good. She is sleeping a lot better at night. Pretty consisitently every night sleeping about 8-10 hours. She got a little screwy due to the new year but other than that I have been sleeping well. I feel like I still need a week of constant sleep to catch up. Hope all is well out there in the world. Hopefully I will be more consistent with these posts.

This was a Christmas gift that Shannon, our daycare provider, gave us from Natalie. They are red hots that are reindeer noses.

I have been wanting to take a new picture of Natalie in her crab towel to show how she has grown. This one is of her last week.

This one is from when she was a couple of weeks old.

Thursday we got about 6 inches of snow. We had gotten this sled at Christmas for Natalie, so Chris took her out in it. It was pretty cold and they didn't stay out too long. He has a really cute video as well. I think she liked it but he wasn't sure. It's only her first time. She will love it next year.

He also fed her some cereal with applesauce and cinnamon in it. She seemed to like it since she finished the entire bowl. She has really starting being interested in watching us eat. I think she is ready for solid foods.

Chris finished 2 of the radiator covers. One for the kitchen and one for Natalie's room. They look awesome. Only 4 to go.

21 weeks 1/3/12

2012-01-10T19:33:00.000-05:00

Natalie turned 21 weeks 2 weeks ago. She survived her first new year's. We went to visit our friend's Jon and Stacey. We have been going there for the last couple of the years. She slept most of the time but we woke her up so that she could watch the ball drop. I think she could take it or leave it.

This is another outfit courtesy of Grandma Judy.

Rocky was feeling a little neglected so he got in the picture.

20 weeks - 12/27

2011-12-30T18:58:00.003-05:00

We celebrated Christmas with the Rancourt's this past weekend. We were there for Christmas Eve service. It is a tradition for our family to go to church. I have been going when I can since I was young. We dressed her up in a pretty dress and headed over. She lasted about 30 minutes. Not too bad. She was tired and Chris and Grandpa took her home.

We opened presents the next morning. Took some photos with Santa and Frosty that have been around forever. Totally forgot to take a photo of the other Santa. Oh well, next year.

This was the best of them except for annoying Uncle Chad's finger in the way.

This is later in the day after we had dinner. Chilling out with Grammy and Grandpy.

This is a cool book that Uncle Chad got us that makes a lot of noise.

The dog was wiped out.

Their cute pint sized tree.

Love her pimped out velour track suit. Thanks Grammy!!!

Grammy made Natalie her own stocking. Love it so much. Chris' is the one with his name on it - duh! Mine is the big huge one. I was brought home in this when I cam home from the hospital. 1 week old at Christmas.

Close up. She appliqued it.

Another outfit from Grammy Judy. Here she is at 20 weeks.

Silly dad messing with her hair again during bath time. Love the mohawk.

SOOOO CUTE!!!!

19 weeks - 12/20

2011-12-30T15:24:00.002-05:00

Natalie turned 19 weeks last week. We had a Christmas outfit to put her in. She is gripping toys and keeping it for a long time. We got a couple from Bob & Christina that she really loves. There is an elephant that has crinkly ears and a couple of good places to hold on to. She will get ahold of that thing and just bring her hand up and down, which she has started doing a lot now.

She wasn't really into the Santa Hat.

We got some really good photos of her and the dog. If we had done this earlier, I think this photo would have been our Christmas Card. I didn't get to them this year. Oh well, next year.

These are some photos of Chris tormenting the dog with the Santa hat, which is also not his favorite thing. Natalie is just chilling out in the background.

Really Dad? We're doing this?

At one point it looked like she was petting him. They love each other.

Rocky sniffing his little sister.

Our Christmas tree with its lone present.

18 weeks - 12/13/2011

2011-12-18T19:45:00.001-05:00

Natalie turned 18 weeks. She has been busy. This weekend was jam packed.

First, was Friday when Dad tried to attempt to feed Natalie some rice cereal. The pediatrician said you can start it any time from 4-6 months. I had bought some at the store the other day, so he tried it out. Well, as you can see it did not work out all that well. You can probably imagine that a baby that has been fed with milk this whole time might put up a fight when it comes to something mealy in her mouth and this kid is no exception. She was not happy. Chris emailed me and wrote "cereal fail." Oh well, it was only our first attempt.

This made me laugh out loud. She is really living up to her bib saying. Also her hair is not standing up on top of her head. That is my dead palm tree in the back ground.

He said she held it in her mouth for a second and then spit it back out. Also, I think dad was not concentrating on feeding too much as he took a ton of photos.

There's always a next time.

Saturday, we went to the mall. Did she like that. She was mesmerized by all the lights and everything to look at. We went into one store and there were these balls hanging from the ceiling that were glittery and she was straining her head up to see them. I think she got a little overwhelmed by it, though. Saturday night, we had the Toppin/Trested's over for dinner. We had spaghetti and meat balls. Yum!! Turkey meat balls of course. Natalie slept through the entire dinner. She hadn't napped all that much that day and was tired.

Today, was our first Christmas celebration with the Baker's. We had bought Natalie a cute Christmas dress.

Rocky loves paper. Kellan is getting the hang of ripping the paper.

Rocky is always in the thick of it. Here he is helping Kellan take off the paper.

Ahhhhh!!!!

Cute hat that Great Aunt Beverly made Natalie.

Here is another super cute hat Great Aunt Beverly made Natalie.

As I was opening her gifts, she was just staring at each one.

Rocky says, "Kellan, do you need any help?"

I think Grandpa likes the Big Dig better than Kellan.

Kellan was getting serious about the ripping now.

Chris and Bob made this chair for Jean. It is really nice.

We finally got a photo with the Baker grandparents. Too bad Natalie was on her way out. We will try again.

Will post some more photos of the presents later. This mom is tired and is going to bed now. Love to all.

4 Months - 12/9/11

2011-12-11T19:34:00.001-05:00

Ms. Natalie turned 4 months this past Friday. She is doing soo well. She is talking up a storm, starting to grab onto things and hold her hands together. Her 4 month appointment was on Friday, too. She weighed 14.9 lbs and was 24 " long which are both in the 75th percentile. Her head is in the 90th percentile. Still big but going down from last time. Everything was good. The pediatrician mentioned that we could be ok with starting some rice cereal soon if we wanted. Can't believe my girl is getting sooo big. Where has the time gone? She got 3 shots and 1 oral which she was not happy about this, not suprisingly. She didn't treat Daddy very well the rest of the day. Eventually, she did sleep a lot which was good. Then Friday night she slept for 10 hours.

Been doing this a lot with her hands.

My beautiful girl always smiling.

Here is the bear again. Love that look.

This is the best picture ever. She looks like a doll except for the drool. This was taken at daycare.

Mommy and Natalie at Kellan's birthday party last weekend.

Rock-Man!!!

Mommy and Natalie at the pediatricians waiting for the doctor.

Daddy and Natalie at Poker Friday night.

This weekend, Natalie and I went to visit Grammy & Grampy Rancourt. We celebrated my birthday a little early as I won't see them next weekend. Here is my birthday dinner. Mac & Cheese. Natalie is enjoying watching us. This is a bebe pod that we are borrowing from Shannon, our daycare provider. It is like the bumbo but a little bigger and it comes with that cool tray.

This is the sweater I made for her. It is a little tight but pretty cute. The next thing I make will be much bigger so that I have the time to finish it and she will actually be able to wear it for more than a day.

While I was in Westmoreland, my mom and I went to see the lights in Chesterfield. There is a big farm that they put all kinds of lights on over a few acres. They have been doing it for years and adding lights every year. For the past couple of years they have been having people bring food for the food pantry in Keene. Last night they had 300 cars go through. That's a lot of food. These were taken with my phone so they didn't come out that great.

Well, that is all for now. Can't believe my birthday is next week (the big 3-5) and Christmas in in 2 weeks. We got our Christmas tree. We have to put the decorations on it and take some pictures of the tree with Natalie. Hope this finds everyone well.

16 weeks 11/29/11

2011-12-04T18:10:00.001-05:00

Natalie turned 16 weeks this past Tuesday. She is doing really well. She has started grabbing on to things which is really cool. Took a couple of videos but they are really long and I am having trouble loading them up. They are taking forever. We had a good week this week. Again, we took her weekly photos late and she was not going to give us a smile no matter how hard we tried and how much of a fool we looked like. She wasn't having any of it.

She still looks cute though. This one I picked looks like she's just lounging in the chair with her hand on the rest. Just chillin'

Then Daddy thought we should take some photos with the dog. He puts up with a lot of stuff from us.

He was not happy by this one. He was growling.

Now he is better. He can lick and sniff all he wants.

Dad and Rocky exchange a look. Natalie is getting a little annoyed at this point.

At least one person was looking at the camera.

And I got all three of them looking at the camera. That was the end of that photo shoot and time for Natalie to sleep.

Here she is at daycare. She loves the mat with the batteries that are dying because they play the music over and over.

Here is a sunset Chris saw while out on the boat Monday night.

Kellan had his 2nd birthday this Saturday. He turns 2 on the 7th. It was a Thomas the Tank Engine themed birthday party with a burrito dinner and oreo cookie cupcakes. Chris dyed a Thomas on a really light disc for Kellan for his present. I think he liked it. It took him a while to figure out that it was ok to rip open the presents but he got the hang of it by the end. He was even allowed to throw the disc inside. Only on his birthday.

We all had to wear the hats. Even Rocky. Natalie wore one too for a second.

The rest of the week was good. Can't believe it is December already. We have a busy month with something going on every weekend. We are celebrating Christmas early with the Baker's on the 18th (also my birthday - hint hint) and will be in Westmoreland on Christmas weekend. Hope all are enjoying the mild weather we are having although the weather looks to be getting a lot colder in the next week or so.

Be Well!

15 weeks - 11/22/11 HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

2011-11-27T18:39:00.001-05:00

Natalie had a lot of things going on this week. We went up to visit our friends Greg and Shauna and their son Henry. Of course we have no photos to show you. They live up in Morrisville, VT which is near Stowe, VT. They have a really nice place that is really private. They were having some friends over for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner. It was yummy!! That was Natalie's first Thanksgiving experience, although I think she was sleeping for most of the dinner part of it. She did really well in the 3+ hour car ride up and back.

She also turned 15 weeks this week. I can't believe that the time is going by soo fast. I think I say this every week but it is true. Chris and I were looking at photos of Natalie a few weeks ago in this same chair and her head was at the base of the lambs ears and her feet definitely did not flop over the end. Some of her 3 month clothing is starting to get a bit tight on her. She is still talking and smiling up a storm.

Thursday, we went up to Alton to see the Baker grandparents for our 2nd Thanksgiving. They got snow in the storm we had on Tuesday night. We didn't get anything. There was a line around exit 13 in Rochester where it all of a sudden had snow. I guess there was a 1 degree difference where the snow occurred and didn't. Apparently, cousin Kellan loves snow. He went out to play in it and as soon as he saw his dad throw a snow ball at his mom, he was hooked. This is actually the 2nd time he has seen snow but the first time was in South Carolina and it melted by noon. There wasn't a whole lot there either. This is a whole new experience for him.

Grandma Jean wanted to have a picture of Kellan and Natalie for her Christmas card so here are some attempts.

Kellan seems not so sure about this. Natalie for some reason stuck her hand out in all the ones on the couch.

Then we switched to the leather chair. I love Kellan's face.

What a pair of cuties!!

He was doing so well helping her sit up.

And we got it!

"I am done!" he says. Meanwhile Natalie is slumping over in the background.

Natalie and Auntie Christina

Natalie would rather watch TV then look at the camera.

Friday evening, we headed over to Westmoreland to visit Natalie's Rancourt grandparents for our 3rd and final Thanksgiving. Since Uncle Chad had to work Friday, this worked out perfect. Chad actually held Natalie by force. Mom and I were getting ready to go to the Keene High School Craft Fair and Chad was sitting down. I plunked Natalie on him and he held her up. I do not have photographic evidence, but Mom did get to see him hold her. At Christmas we will have to get good photos of all of them to put in her baby book. Here is Natalie with Grandpa Bill.

Grandpa with his 2 grandbabies.

Uncle Chad got mom and dad a new computer so that they could Skype with us. They have a webcam and everything. We tried it out this afternoon and it worked great. So exciting that we will be able to skype with them now.
When we got home this afternoon, the streets were blocked off because of a holiday parade. It started down the street, so we headed out to see it. It was Natalie's first parade. We walked down with her in our new hiking backpack. It worked great, she seemed to like it a lot. We got to see bands, lots of kids groups, fire trucks, floats and Santa. It was a really cute parade.

Natalie with her first encounter with Santa

Chris, Rocky and I are doing well. Hopefully this week will be a little less crazy. Now we have to get ready for Christmas. We have moved all of her stuff up stairs to make room for the tree. We haven't gotten it yet but soon. Very exciting. Hope all had a great Thanksgiving. Talk to you soon!

14 weeks 11/15/11

2011-11-17T18:40:00.001-05:00

Natalie turned 14 weeks this week. She is a teenager in weeks. She is getting pretty big. I don't know exactly what she weighs but I would guess around 14 pounds by now. She is still smiling like crazy and making lots of noises. She loves to put her hand in her mouth too. I will put her in the vibrating seat and do something in the kitchen and all of a sudden you will hear this really loud sucking sound and she's got that hand in her mouth. She only takes the pacifier for short periods now every once in a while. I think she likes her hand better.

Since she had been using an exersaucer at daycare, I decided to go to my new favorite place to see if they had one. The Children's Orchard in Portsmouth is a used clothing/toy store for kids. They have all kinds of stuff. The first time I went there, I bought Natalie and pink poofy snowsuit for winter that was $8 and still had the tags on it. This time I found a "My First Christmas" feety pajama outfit, a bulldog with santa hat feety pajama outfit and an exersaucer. They had so many clothes that I really wanted to buy but held myself back. Couldn't resist the bulldog with santa hats though. I decided to put it on her early. I have been complaining that retailers and the like start with Christmasy things waaaay to early but I couldn't resist.

Here she is...

There is the hand I was talking about.

If only we could get Rocky to keep the Santa hat on.

I finally got a little smile but she looked to the side. Oh well.

Here is her new toy. We haven't really used it that much so hopefully she grows into it.

Not much else happened this week. Mom and Natalie had a whole day together while Dad went up to Maine. The weekend was pretty uneventful. She did sleep 7-8 hours a night from Thurs to Sun. Mon night was a short one and then last night she did 7 + hours. We are getting better but may be going through a growth spurt in the next couple of weeks so that might be out the window.
This weekend we are going up to visit our friends, Greg, Shauna and little Henry, for the weekend. They live up near Stowe so should be fun to visit. Will tell you all about it next week.
Have a good weekend. Hope this finds everyone well.

3 months 11/9/11

2011-11-11T09:51:00.001-05:00

Natalie turned 3 months this past week. I can't believe that the time has flown by soooo fast. It has been a whirlwind. She is smiling so much now. I know I am jinxing myself by saying this but she doesn't cry as much as she used to which is really nice. She is sleeping a bit more at night. In fact the last two nights we have gotten a total of 15 hours of sleep together. Yahoo!!! Keep it up Ms. Natalie. She has been doing really well at daycare. This past week, Shannon (daycare provider) noticed she was holding herself up really well and decided to put her in her exersaucer. She loved it. Mostly because the boys at the daycare are right at her level so that she can see them better.

She has also been going crazy on the floor mat that she has. We have one as well that we put her under a lot. She has been batting at things and really checking stuff out. She has started to notice that her hands might be attached to her body. She was checking out my hand today while I was opening and closing and she was touching it. She also is starting to grip things. Not quite to the point where she grabs on to things herself but if you put something in her hand she will hold it for a while. Don't think she knows she is doing it though.

This is a photo from daycare. I don't think it is recent but this is her favorite chair at daycare.

The next few photos are from times spent with Dad on Fridays. I know the one below is like violating everything baby related but we were in the room obviously since we took the picture. She just loves to sleep with those arms up as far as possible. This is a blanket made by Maw Maw (Natalie's great grandmother.)

Love this photo. She is just soooo cute!!!

Thankfully she is not really into the pacifier anymore. She likes her fist or the ears on the bears.

Playing some disc golf with dad. Her favorite thing to do.

My parents came up to visit this past Saturday. They needed their grandparent fix. We still have to get them hooked up with Skype so they can see her more often. We went to the Dover High School craft fair and another one at a local church. We got this hat/scarf set for her. It is a little big but it was cheap and really pretty. She just looked so adorable when we put them on her. Those little wispies were getting in her eyes but I think she liked it.

This is a hat I bought myself. I thought since we were embarrasing her with her hat we might as well put mine on her. Can't wait until she is older, like with her first BF, and we can bring these pics out to show him. See how adorable my baby was when she was little.

It sticks up a little much on the head. When she gets a little bigger it should fit well.

Sunday we went up to visit the other grandparents. Great Aunt Ruthie and 1st cousin once removed Amanda were up to visit. We had to look that one up. Ruthie is Grandma Jean's sister. They hadn't seen Natalie yet, so we had to go visit. Ms. Natalie was not very cooperative with her mommy that day. She nursed at 6:30 and a little bit at about 8:45 and then didn't eat again until 4 that day. She didn't really sleep much either during that time. Not sure if daylight savings time ending had anything to do it. Maybe it was a growth spurt. Who nows, but both Natalie and mom were not very happy. Every time I tried to nurse her she would start melting down. Once she was back with everyone she was fine. It was a long day for both of us but we made it and she was fine the rest of the week.

bad lighting with my phone. Notice she is holding on to a lego that her cuz gave her.
She is gripping things like a champ.

Here are her 3 month photos. This is the best smile we could get out of her. We keep doing these photo shoots when she is just about to go to bed, so it is sometimes harder to get a smile. But we got little ones.

This is her with the teddy bear given to us by the Mackey family. She is finally bigger than it. It will be cool to see how she grows next to it.

The blog just wouldn't be complete without Big Bro Rocky in it. He is doing well as you can see. Sleeping up a storm.

The rest of us are doing well. Chris went up to the disc golf course in Maine on Friday to retreive some more discs out of their ponds. He has been doing this about every other month since March and has found 3000+ discs. They have given back a big chunk of them which is really cool.
Chris also bought a new gift for himself. The iphone has an app called Woot Watch which has some cheap deals. One of them was a Starwars lunch box. It also came with sandwich cutters that were shaped like the Millenium Falcon and the Ti(sp?) Fighter. Here are the pics.

This is the Millenium Falcon sandwich.

He got made fun of at work for this, but he said it was worth it.

Hope all are well. Can't believe Thanksgiving is around the corner. We will be up in Westmoreland area for the weekend so hopefully we can catch up with some folks.

12 Weeks - 11/1/11

2011-11-01T20:52:00.000-04:00

We had a busy week. We went up to Alton on Saturday to help deal with the boat and help Grandpa Dan and Uncle Bob fix the road. Natalie got some clothes from a neighbor and in it was a Halloween themed feety pajamas. We put her in it and took some photos with their fall decorations.

Here's a photo with Grandma.

Christina did a really great job decorating the house.

This is the closest thing that we could get to a picture of Grandpa.

It was freezing Satuday because of the storm coming but we got this in quick.

They finally looked at the camera at the same time.

It was getting late in the day for Natalie so she wasn't much of a smiley girl, but we got some good shots.

We got home in time to weather the Noreaster that came our way. Luckily we did not lose power. I know a lot of people did and some do not have it back yet. We don't have a generator so it was good we didn't lose it. We also didn't get as much snow as everyone else. We only got about 6-8 inches. Because it was warm out today, most of it is gone. So glad because it is waaaayyy too early for snow!

Because of the snow storm, Dover's trick or treating night got to actually be on Halloween. We definitely didn't have as many kids as last year. Last year we were totally unprepared for the masses of kids that came. Trick or treating is from 5-8 and last year we were out of candy by 6:15. This year we lasted until 7pm. It was pretty cold to sit out on the front porch giving out candy. Natalie lasted about 10 minutes in her costume before she basically said I am tired and I want to go to bed.

Here is my little chili pepper.

My baby turns 12 weeks today. What a difference. I was looking at the photos from previous week and she is so much bigger and doing way more stuff now. She is smiling and making noises a lot. She is starting to bat at toys that are in front of her. She really likes being under her gym at home and daycare where she can check stuff out. I can really see her focusing on certain objects. She was checking out her hands at daycare today. Soon she will figure out that those things are attached to her.

She has only been waking up once a night to nurse, so we decided that she was a big girl and could sleep upstairs. We started Sunday night. She was probably really over tired that night but she was not happy when we put her down that first night. She has been better since. We still have some things downstairs so when Grandma Jean comes on Mondays it is easier for her. I just can't believe that she is almost 3 months. Where has the time gone?

Rocky, Chris and I are doing well. Rocky lasted about the same amount of time in his costume that Natalie did. Oh well. Next year we will be more into doing Halloween because she will be almost 15 months by then. Hope this finds everyone well.

11 weeks - 10/25/11

2011-10-26T20:32:00.000-04:00

Bob, Christina and Kellan came to visit us on Saturday. They hadn't seen Natalie in a while so they were excited. We walked up to the school playground so that Kellan could play a bit. We had fun. Jean and Dan came down later and we all went out for Chinese. Natalie had a good time getting passed around to everyone.

Not much else has happened this week. Natalie is 11 weeks and is as beautiful as ever. She is smiling tons and talking like crazy. She is doing really well at daycare. This week has been a little crazy for her again. Poor thing can't get into a good schedule. I am hoping that after this week, it will get better. Tuesday, she got to daycare earlier than normal and didn't get to see mom all day. Wednesday she went to daycare late. Tomorrow will be a short day. We'll get through it.

She has been really good despite it all.

I got a smile this time.

She was really sleepy tonight.

Getting even more tired. This is a new thing as well - rubbing the eyes.

This was a cute shot with her hand up by her face and her mouth kind of crooked. My little cutie!

One last yawn before she takes a little snooze.

I took a video of her in the seat about to fall asleep but for some reason it isn't working. Hopefully I can get it to work and put it on here later.
Chris, Rocky and I are doing well. Natalie is awesome as you can see.
Hopefully this finds all out there well.

10 weeks 10/18/11

2011-10-22T13:41:00.001-04:00

When we went to Scituate to visit Brian and Kirsten, we took the camera with us in hopes of taking pictures. None were taken with that camera and we left it at their house. Not so good. They found it amongst their boxes and decided to drop it off on their way to Newfound Lake to close up their lake house for the winter. It was really nice of them to do that as it is not really on their way. It was good to see them though. Kirsten is due this coming week and she is really excited.

I also didn't realize Chris took some pictures of Natalie before we left. If you notice this is the same dress that we brought her home in. Notice anything different?

Just had to add this in. Sometimes she does not really like the car seat but once you start moving her she calms right down. She is even cute whe she is crying.

We had gotten a small bath tub from the hospital that Chris was giving her a bath in. I did not like to do it as you basically had to hold her the whole time and she is a slippery little sucker once you get her all lathered up and wet. One day when he was giving her a bath, we noticed that the bath tub was cracking on the sides because she was too big for it, so Chris went out and bought the pink sparkly tub. It is actually called this. It has a sling in it that she can lay in while we give her a bath. It is super easy and mom can give her a bath now. We actually had one bath time where there was absolutely no crying involved. It was amazing. She just looks at you so intently. I think she really likes it. One night when I gave her a bath, she was falling asleep in it. It must be really comfortable.

So, my baby turned 10 weeks this week. We decided to do something different with the photos. We have her in her favorite seat instead. It is much easier this way as she doesn't fall over. She is getting really good at keeping her head up. She is smiling a ton at you and loves to look at everything. Her new favorite thing is staring at the refrigerator.

On this photo shoot that we did, we couldn't quite get her to smile long enough for us to snap the photo. But I thought this sequence of photos were really cute. Sometimes when you go into kiss her face, she opens her mouth. It is really cute.

Missy, Cheriene & Maddie, Paula & David, Nancy and me
Natalie got cut off in the picture. Oh well, she was sleeping.

Last Sunday we went participated in the breast cancer walk in down town Dover. I have walked with the same group for the last few years. We are known as Cash for Cleavage. This year I wasn't actively looking for donations because of just having her but I still really wanted to participate. So we headed downtown with Paula and her son David and walked with the group. She was really good in the stroller. She didn't fuss at all. David was a huge help and pushed the stroller for me a lot of the way. We had a good day for the walk. Dover raised over $100,000. Next year, I will do a lot better.

Friday, Natalie had her 2 month appointment. She got weighed, her length measured, and her head circumference measured. She is 12.9 lbs which is the 85th percentile. She is 23 inches long which is the 75th percentile. Her head measures 40.5cm which is the 90th percentile. She has a BIG head. She also got 2 shots and one oral vaccine. She was really good. The doctor thinks she is doing really well. Here she is right before Dad and her left for the doctors.

Also, yesterday was Chris' first full day with her. She slept a lot in the afternoon, probably due to the shots. She didn't really cry that much after she got them. I had bought infant tylenol for her to take but she didn't need it. She was more upset about the fact that she was laying down when the nurse did the shots. I am so proud that she was sooo good.

I don't have a lot of photos of just me and her so I was trying to angle the camera in a good way to take a picture and I realized I was taking a video. She sneezes so it is really cute. Also, you can hear Call of Duty in the background. Nice.

We are doing well. We had a bit of a rough week but our schedules were all wacky. That won't happen very often and we should pretty much be back to normal this week. Rocky is doing well. We try to give him as much love and attention as possible as we know it is hard being second fiddle to his baby sister.

Hope all are well.

9 weeks 10/11/11

2011-10-16T08:39:00.001-04:00

Last weekend we went to visit our friends Brian and Kirsten and their new house. It is located in Scituate, MA. They are due in a couple of weeks to have a baby boy. Natalie had another stellar ride down there and back. If you notice in the picture below, this is the dress she came home from the hospital in. She fits in it now. So we were hanging out on their deck and our friend Tanya was holding her. She was a bit fussy and all of sudden she made this face:

It had to be the funniest thing we have ever seen. She has done it before but not so prominently. She has done it a few times since. This kid really knows how to tug at the heart strings. Don't you just want to give her a hug.

Sunday, while dad was out playing disc golf, mom and Natalie and Rocky hung out. It was really nice outside, so we sat on the deck. The dog really liked that because he loves any chance to sit in the sun. Natalie started on the table but as you can see the sun started creeping over. I decided to put her on the floor in the shade. Rocky was already there. They were so cute, I had to get a shot of that.

So my beautiful baby turned 9 weeks last week. She is doing really well. This past week Dad has been off to Pennsylvania, so I was a single mom for the week. We missed Dad so much. We have been face timed every night so he could see his little girl. One night all she did was yawn. She was tired. Mom is tired from the week too. But dad came back on Thursday night from Pennsylvania even though he had to travel to New York the next day. His boss asked if he wanted to get a hotel room near where they would be working and they would pick him up on the way, and he said no. He wanted to go home and spend some quality time with his daughter. How sweet!! My mother also came up because she babysat for Natalie on Friday. She and Natalie had a blast.

She started off with a leapard print onesie but spit up all over it hence the pink pink ensemble.

So here are her 9 week photos. I got her smiling again. She has been smiling like crazy now. She really focuses on your face and when you smile she smiles back. It makes my heart skip a beat every time. That will never get old. She had another good week at day care. We are really fortunate to have found Shannon. She is great with the kids. She mentioned another family had their youngest child in a center from 3-6 months and he was sick all the time with some pretty nasty stuff. She was taking a lot of time off of work because of it and decided to switch him over to Shannon's. He hasn't really been sick since. That is good to hear.

Next week is her 2 month appointment. I am thinking she is going to be doing well as she is getting heavier and heavier by the day. My unofficial weight check last Monday was 12.2lbs. Yikes!! She is in the next size diaper and some of the 3 month clothing is getting tight. We are thinking in the next couple of weeks that she will be moving up to her own room. She has only been waking me up once at night to nurse so I think I can handle going up stairs once. She will be a big girl then. Guess we will have to clean the mess up there.

Hope this finds you all well.

8 weeks 10/4/11

2011-10-05T20:51:00.001-04:00

I cannot believe that my beautiful baby is 8 weeks. Where did the time go? She is getting way more alert and is smiling a lot more now. She loves her mama and when I come around, she usually gives me a great big smile. The first pic, Chris was taking the photo, and she gave him a big toothy (if she had teeth) grin. Sooo cute!!!
She has been doing really well. We were going through a bit of a growth spurt the last week or so. She was fussy a lot at night. She has gotten a little better.

Her favorite seat in her favorite position. She will pass out in this thing.
Mommy really got her moneys worth on this one.

We had a busy week. Last week I had a couple of doctor's appts to go to and she did really well through those. She even took a bottle for me at one of them. I have heard that doesn't happen too much. The pic below is her hanging out waiting for the appointment with me.

After the appointment we headed up to Rochester to visit my old co workers. I really wanted to see a bunch of people that I had talked to while I was pregnant. They always asked me how I was doing so I decided to visit them. They all thought she was great and couldn't get over the amount of hair and how big she was. She was a big hit there.

On Saturday; Bob, Christina and Kellan came over and we walked downtown to Apple Harvest Day. They had a ton of vendors and a large kids area with bouncy houses and a petting zoo. Kellan was not so sure about the bouncy houses at first but he got into it. His aunty Cara helped him out by sitting on it and bouncing him. He was laughing it up with me.

Saturday night, Chris and I decided to go on a date. Aunt Christina and Grandma Jean babysat Natalie so that we could go out to dinner at the Ellacoya Barn and Grille. She was good for them which was nice. We had a really good time and some really good food.

Sunday was a busy day for Ms. Natalie. She went disc golfing in the morning with dad and then went to Hampton Beach to visit her grandparents. They are camping for the week. Here is the third time that Grandpa Billy has held her and he did a really good job.

Then came Monday. It was my first day back at work since I had her. It went ok. I think it was good to be able to start off with Grandma Jean. She was sleeping when I left that morning so that was nice. I came to visit at lunch time but that went way too fast. Tuesday was our first day at day care. She is going to an in-home day care right here in Dover. I can also go visit at lunch time. Both Chris and I went Tuesday morning to drop her off. It was a little hard for me to leave her but about mid morning we got this photo from Shannon. That was really nice to see.

Somebody's sleepy!

These 2 are from today. She is pretty happy in the bouncy seat she has at there. She is eating well for Shannon.

She's always got those hands going.

This is her in a baby sleeping bag outside. The other kids are playing outside while she naps.

Sunday night she only woke up once during the night which was nice before my first day. Last night she went 9 hours between feedings. I got a full 5 hours of sleep. I am not sure the last time I had that. I think it all has to do with the growth spurt that she is going through. Hopefully we will get back to a routine. Although once we do, she probably will have another growth spurt and we will have to try all over again.

It has been a while since we had a photo of Rocky. This is him trying to get himself small enough to fit on my crappy pillow. He is too cute. We have got to make sure to give him lots of love becuase he is doing sooo well with Natalie. Best dog ever.

7 weeks 9/27/11

2011-09-29T20:50:00.000-04:00

Ms. Natalie turned 7 weeks this past Tuesday. Exciting and kind of sad as well because her mom has to go back to work on Monday. How am I going to leave this cutie all day? We will see how it goes.

I stole the block idea from a friend that had a son a couple weeks after Natalie.

I put this in so we could see her cute butt

She just melts your heart with those beautiful big eyes.

The next few photos are our attempts at getting a shot at her smiling. She has been smiling a lot in the last couple of weeks. She has started to recognize us now which is really nice to see.

This is her favorite seat in the house besides mom's arms.

She makes the funniest faces.

We made an incredibly cute baby!! Yeah us!

This is an outfit that a friend gave us that is newborn size. It is cute and we didn't really get the time to have her wear it. We put it on her so we could take the picture. It was a little tight but it still looks cute.

Sad to say that we have had to take out all the newborn clothes because she is not fitting into them anymore. Part of it is because of the cloth diapers but it is mostly because she was weighed on Monday and she was 11 lbs.

Here is another one of Natalie with her great grandmother from when they were up to visit.

6 weeks 9/20/11

2011-09-22T09:26:00.000-04:00

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit. They had a fabulous time traveling across Canada. They went on a train trip from Vancouver to Toronto. They went on a helicopter ride. They missed their beautiful granddaughter. Their friends made them the t shirts for them. Can you say proud grandparents. They were amazed by how much she had grown.

His shirt says "Anyone can be a Grandfather but it takes someone special to be Natalie's Grandpa!"
Her shirts says "First-Time Grandma Natalie"

Here is her six week photo. This was the third outfit. The other two were a bit too small. We had her weighed on Monday: 10lbs 12 oz.

Rocky was really inerested in what Natalie is doing. She seems excited too.

She looks like she is laughing. He has been so good with her. Mostly just a lot of sniffing and then looking away.

This one looks like she is saying stop sniffing me.

The last couple of weeks

2011-09-18T09:25:00.000-04:00

When Chris has to go to work, he sometimes hangs out with Natalie in the morning before he leaves. He likes to have fun with our little girl so here are some pics that he took.

Natalie in the snuggy. She is thinking this isn't so bad...

Natalie in the snuggy. Now she is thinking : get me out of here!!!

Is that a smile or does she just have gas? If it is our kid I think it is the latter.

Mom and Natalie went to visit Daddy when he had to work late. We had dinner in Hampton. Dad took her out on the boat and took a few pictures. Soon she will be big enough to drive the boat.

Natalie having bath time with Daddy. She is sometimes happy and sometimes not so happy at bath time. Daddy is the expert on giving her a bath so it is his thing. Mommy will do bath time when she gets older. Here Daddy was trying to style her hair. She looks very concerned here but cute!

We took a family walk. Even the dog was with us. Natalie loves being in the stroller. Rocky loves being in his wagon. We might have to purchase a wagon with 3 inch suspension for a smoother ride for him.

Natalie had her first long car ride over Labor Day weekend. Our friend's who are due to have their baby in late October had their baby shower in Cape Cod. She was a fabulous baby the whole ride down. Paul and Tanya were with us. We were expecting her to want to eat some time on the way down but she slept the whole way. She was passed around to a bunch of people at the party. She did really well on the way back too.

This is Natalie's foot on Dad's hand.

Chris took this photo from the front of our family walk.

We went shopping in the outlets and I saw this hat and had to take a picture of Kellan wearing it. He decided he did not want to wear it so we didn't get it. Too bad, he could have ridden in the convertible with his grandpa and they would have matching hats.

Mom went to the Children's Museum consignment sale and picked up this super sweet vibrating chair. I love it!!!

Sooo Cute!!! Dad and Natalie napping.

Another family photo.

While dad and Natalie were napping, big brother Rocky was too. How can he breathe like this?

Our friend's Andy and Hailey from Westmoreland came up to visit with their sons Bryce, who is 3 and Levi, who is 6 months. We had some fun with them.

Here is Levi and Natalie checking each other out.

Bryce and Levi got Natalie this bear. If I remember on her monthly pics I will put this bear next to her and see how she has grown compared to the bear. That will be cool.

Everyone was looking at me. It was amazing and only took 3 shots. Good job Mackey family.

She totally looks like she is posing for this one.

Sometimes she makes the funniest faces.

I can't believe that the time is going by so quickly. We are all doing really well. I am feeling a lot better physically and emotionally. Sleep in large quantities is still elusive but we will get there. I have another 2 weeks before I go back to work. I don't know how this will be. But the nice thing is that work, daycare and home are within 10 minutes of each other, so I am able to either come home when she is here or go to day care during lunch to hang out with her. I think it will be nice on some level to go back to work to get back in my routine. Right now, I am just on feeding time which is when does she feed next and when did she feed last. All the other stuff is out the window. Once I go back to work, things will even out and I will be like an adult again. The last weeks have been really fun to be with her and see her do some new stuff. I can't wait to see what she does next. Hope all is well.

Great Grandma and Great Aunt visit

2011-09-17T15:44:00.000-04:00

Natalie meets her great grandma for the first time. This is Chris' dad's mother.

They came up to visit from Oklahoma City.

Great Aunt Beverly looks on while Natalie yawns.

More yawning.

Great Aunt Beverly made Natalie a beautiful hat. Hanging out with mom after her lunch.

Natalie with her big cousin Kellan. We will be seeing a lot of them.

Great Grandma with the great grand kids.

3 weeks yesterday!!

2011-08-31T11:23:00.000-04:00

Here is Natalie's growth so far:

It is crazy how much she has grown in the last 3 weeks. The pictures of her in the hospital are way different than the ones now. She has definitely filled out more. Good thing because she eats like a champ. I am hoping to do every week for the first year but we will see. It may just be every month after the first. Enjoy!

She's Here!!!

2011-08-28T15:51:00.000-04:00

Natalie Elizabeth Jean Baker graced us with her presence at 5:23 am on August 9th, 2011. She was 7lb 15 oz and 21" long. She has beautiful long brown hair with blonde highlights. She is perfect.

This is the first photo of the two of us. Notice how mom is looking. Very tired but happy to see her new daughter.

This is Natalie a bit more cleaned up. The hat she is wearing went straight to Rocky so he could get used to her smell. He had it in his cage and slept with it the whole time. He has been great with her. Natalie loves the hands by the face. She was like that in one of her ultrasounds and she was like that coming out too. Thanks hun!!

This is both of us a little more cleaned up.

Natalie had some temperature issues at the beginning. So they wrapped her up in a couple of blankets and put some warm ones on her to increase her temp. We did some skin to skin as well to help her out. It worked. This happens a lot with newborns. Her eyes look swollen because of the Vitamin K drops they put in. She looks like a bruiser already.

Natalie showing her true colors. She gets herself so red in about a second when she is upset. She had the cutest little cry in the hospital. She sounded like a wookie.

Here she is getting weighed and measured. Can you tell she likes it???

Another picture of her with the warming blankets.

The first photo of dad in color. Natalie loves daddy time.

This is the same photo as above but in black and white. Looks cool.

I went into the hospital on Sunday the 7th because I was having some lower pelvic pains and wasn't sure what was happening. They checked me out on the fetal monitor and everything seemed to be doing ok. Then they looked at my history of high blood pressure and the cholestasis. My blood work had come back and indicicated a high level for the cholestasis but nothing that would raise a red flag before now. Since I was so close to the due date, and after consulting an expert at Dartmouth, they decided it would be best to induce me as nothing was happening up until this point. They tried several methods which I will not go into detail and we had some issues with a lot of them. By Monday afternoon, they broke my water and got ready for stuff to happen. Not much was happening. They ended up putting me on Pitocin to induce the contractions and boy does it. The contractions were very intense and plentiful. I ended up requesting some help and they put me on Stadol which takes the peak off the contraction. That helped a lot and about early Tuesday morning Natalie entered our world. She had the most beautiful head of hair. She was perfectly perfect. Chris was sooo helpful through the entire thing. He was always there giving me words of encouragement, always filling my water and giving me juice when I needed it. I could not have made it through without him. She was weighed and measured and we spent some quality time together as a family having her skin to skin with me. The pictures above are all of us still in the hospital. She doesn't look all that pretty but who does after all that.

We called both sets of parents and they came to visit later that day. We were in the hospital for the next 2 days. Throughout the whole stay we had the most fabulous staff at Wentworth Douglas Hospital attending to us. Even though you could hear that a lot of babies were being born in the time that we were there, we felt like the only ones there. They were very knowledgeable and helped us out a lot.

Here is our first family photo. I was really not sure about sizing. I picked out a 3 month dress and it was so huge on her. She was swimming in it. You can't tell from this photo but the dress goes about 2-3 inches below her feet. Oops. Who knew?

We were finally able to go home on Thursday afternoon. It was the first time that I had seen the outside since Sunday morning. That is a long time to be in a hospital. We headed home. The first night was rough and I didn't get a lot of sleep. Chris decided the next morning that Natalie needed some outside stimulation so she had her first disc golfing excursion on her 3rd day of life.

Here she is getting her first hole in one.

She loves being in the car seat and the stroller. The stroller is awesome. We have had a lot of visitors. Chris' mom came up the following Monday to help me out and then my parents were here for the rest of that week.

Here she is being held by her Rancourt Grandma. They loved spending time with her. It was so helpful having them around. They helped me have lots of successful shopping trips. Grandpa was the car seat carrier whenever we went somewhere. He also took Rocky out whenever he needed to. They are awesome grandparents.

We have been taking a lot of photos of her different faces. She has been to the grocery store several times and been really good. She went to her first cook out on her 5th day. She got to go disc golfing again and I went with her. That was the most that I had walked since I sprained my ankle. We went to a new parent support group and got to meet a lot of other little ones and their parents. That was really interesting for me to ask questions of other moms who had already been through this. Life has been pretty good for Ms. Natalie so far. She went to her 2 week appt yesterday and the pediatrician said she was fine. She has gained back her birth weight and then some. She weighed 8lb 5oz.

This is her after the doctor's. She did not enjoy the doctor's too much because she was hungry. She had also visited my coworkers Cathy and Lena and my other friends at Community Action. They had been waiting and waiting to see her so we finally made the visit.

This is just a funny photo of her arm sticking out. She loves the hands by her face. Not sure what she was doing here but it was the most comfortable position for her at the time.

Another angle of the above photo.

Some of my favorite faces and poses that she does:

Her deep thoughts look.

She is just sooo cute!!!

Mom and Natalie with their matching double chins. This is her Little B Princess onesie. Dad's favorite.

My friend Becca helped me bring all of her newborn to 3 month clothes down stairs so we didn't have to keep going up stairs to get them. This is one of the dresses that was super cute. It is nice because it covers her giant cloth diapers.

This is Natalie yesterday on her way to Drew and Becca's baby shower. When we got this outfit, I was not all that excited about it. Everything about it is so anti me, but seeing it on her she looked sooooooo cute. I love it. It is, however, not that easy to get on and off so the before and after it is not a pretty sight. Once it is on, she looks absolutely adorable.

This is the face I get after she eats. She is just so content. I love to stare at her face. She looks like a little buddha.

Another of her right after eating looks. So happy.

This is her exhibiting her Moro reflex. All babies are born with it. I call it her Super Woman pose.

38 Weeks Today

2011-07-26T07:38:00.000-04:00

My last post was only over a week ago and a lot has happened since then. So last weekend I was getting over some sort of stomach bug. Not fun. I was feeling better and back to work. On Monday night, I woke up to this awful urge to itch my entire body. I wasn't really sure what was going. Needless to say I didn't get a lot of sleep that night. It was really crazy. Every part of my body itched and itching did not help all that much. I called the doctor that next day and they had me come in. They said I had cholestasis which is an issue with the liver. I have high estrogen in my body right now and some livers can not handle this and dump bile salts out of the liver which go to the surface of your skin and make you itch. There is a medication you can take which I am on currently. It took a couple of days to actually kick in. The itching is a little better now but I still have issues. The same day they decided to put me on the fetal monitor, have an ultrasound and take some blood. The fetal monitor showed she was doing well. The ultrasound showed that everything looked great as well. They haven't gotten the test results back from the blood work though as they had to send it out.

I went back to the doctor's on Friday for my regular appointment. She did the group B Strep culture at that time. This is something that is present in some women. It does not effect a healthy adult but if it is present then it could effect the baby during delivery. So they check to see if you have it and then when you go into labor they give you antibiotics to protect the baby. Of course, I have it. Not a big deal though. She also checked to see how I was progressing. I was 30% effaced which means the cervix has thinned out 30% out of 100%. The baby's head is down and at a -2 station which means she is not quite at the opening of the birth canal but getting there. She couldn't tell the dilation as it was really painful procedure. Yikes they have to do that again. Not looking forward to that. The baby is facing forward which means if she stays that way, I have back labor. She may turn to the back and at least help me out there. But with all that's going on, I don't have much hope.
The rest of that day after this check up, I had some really uncomfortable lower pelvic pain that was lasting pretty much all day. I thought I was going into labor kind of. It was a constant pain which I didn't really think would happen. I ended up going home early from work and laying down and then I felt a lot better. Poor Chris thought we were going to have a baby that day. Not yet!!

Also, at this appt. I had a high blood pressure reading. I had one two appts before but a normal one in between. They wanted to take blood just to be sure. I went back to the doctor's yesterday and the BP was down. My blood work came back and one of the things was high, so they decided to do it again just to make sure. When they are looking at the results they look at it as a collective whole not individual stuff which is why they want to do it again. She also decided to put me out of work as I should rest as much as possible. My feet and legs are really bothering me. I can barely walk anywhere. They are huge. Good thing for my man shoes. So I am out of work as of today. I am going in for a bit to wrap things up and check on other stuff to make sure I have all the right documentation. If this kid wants to stay in there, I could potentially be out of work for 4 weeks before she actually wants to come out. 2 weeks until the actual due date of 8/9 and 2 weeks past if she decides to be overdue. Please, please pray that she doesn't decide to do that.
I go back on Thursday to do a non stress test where I am hooked up on the fetal monitor again. They will be doing this once a week to make sure baby is doing great. I can already tell you, she is awesome. She is a mover and a shaker. I am always feeling and seeing movement around my belly button which is where either her hands or feet are. Chris had a bit of a shock the other day witnessing that. It was pretty funny.

So on my time off, I will be organizing everything for the baby, reading, getting some extra sleep in, and trying to get as many projects done as possible while resting. I would like to at least make it until this Thursday as that is the waterbirth class. I have to take that in order to be able to have a waterbirth so any time after that would be super.

Hope all are well. Send good thoughts my way to the baby so she decides to come out soon.

Tuesday is 37 weeks - Full Term!!!

2011-07-17T14:37:00.000-04:00

Here is the 8 month photo. I feel huge and look huge. The last few days have not been stellar for mom. I seem to have caught some sort of bug that is wreaking havoc with my insides. Won't get too into it but just not feeling well and the heat and everything else is not helping.
So today is 36 weeks 5 days. Technically on Tuesday, at 37 weeks, I will be considered full term. Yay!!! I can't believe that I have made it so far. It seems to be dragging and going fast at the same time. We are pretty much all prepared. Yesterday we spent some time doing some final laundry and organizing the baby room. She is not going to be up there for the first couple of months because I am not going to be trudging up and down the stairs every 2 hours to feed her. So she is going to be in the pack and play down stairs in the living room for a little while. We have a lot of the stuff that we need but I am sure once she gets here that we will figure out something we missed.
Today has been spent cooking up some meals for us to freeze so that when she does choose to arrive, we won't have to worry about cooking. Just pop something out of the freezer and into the microwave or oven. We made chili, lasagne and tuna casserole. Later on, I am going to do a few more things. Chris has been big help with that.

We had our appointment on Friday. Thursday, I started having my issues, and had to call the doctor as I was shivering uncontrollably and had a bit of a temperature. They suggested taking some tylenol and eating the Banana, Rice, Applesauce and Toast diet. I did and in a couple of hours was feeling much better. On Friday, when we were at the doctors, she looked at my weight and my measurement and then at the chart and was a little puzzled. The nurse had written 36 w 2 d. But her 6 looked like a 0 so the doctor is seeing that I have gained a lot of weight and am measuring about 36cent and but thinking that I am 30 weeks. She then asks how far along I am and I say 36 1/2 weeks and she is like oh thank god. She was wondering how to let me know that with 10 weeks left I was much bigger than I should be. Yikes, I am not sure I could have lasted 10 more weeks. 3 weeks is hard enough. Everything else was normal. BP was 120/88. Heartbeat was fabulous. She is moving around like a champ. She is pretty sure she is head down which is excellent. I think that her feet are just about at my belly button because the last few days there have been these little movements across my stomach in that region. It is a bit creepy. Next week, I get the group B strep test. Most adults have this but it doesn't effect healthy adults. It can however effect the baby in labor so if you have it, they give you antibiotics when you are in labor so the baby doesn't contract it. No big deal.

I can't believe it is soooo close. I can't wait and I can. Chris is feeling the same way. He is anxious and excited at the same time. One thing we do know is life will never be the same for the Other Bakers once she gets here. Can't wait to see what she looks like....

5 1/2 weeks to go!!!

2011-07-02T13:01:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday I had my 2nd baby shower in Westmoreland at Carrie Staple's house. We had a good turn out and the day actually turned out really nice. Got a lot of great baby stuff and gift cards which I am soon to round out the things that we need for the baby

Carol Johnson, Charlotte Chamberlain & Loretta Ball

Shannon McNamara Litchoulis, Rachel Davis, Adrienne Domey and Stella Chickering

Aunt Betty Rancourt and Aunt Joanie Richardson

Hailey Mackey, Evelyn Shelley, Barbara Messer and Harley

That's me, Hailey, Evelyn & Harley with Levi (Hailey's newest edition)

Carrie Staple, Adrienne, Stella and Rosalie Walker

Me holding up a super cute outfit that I got from my Aunt Betty

The super cute poofy purple patagonia jacket. I love it Rachel!!

A quilt my cousin Donna made. She couldn't make it so sent her gift. It is beautiful.

A handmade sweater made by Carol Johnson. It is so well made and gorgeous!

Carrie holding Levi while Harley looks on. He took about a 10 minute cat nap. He is 4 months.

Had a doctor's appt this past week. Everything is measuring where it should. Next appt is 2 weeks and then it is every week after that. I can't believe it is already July and I have 38 days to go. I can't believe it went by that fast. On the other hand, it feels like it can't come quick enough. The feet have gotten pretty swollen. Chris learned from the chiropractor how to massage the fluid back into the ankles which does help temporarily but not permanently. It gets really uncomfortable on some days. I have a box under my desk at work but sometimes days can get pretty crazy and I don't have a lot of time to sit down. I try to lay low when I am at home with the feet up. That seems to help a little. Still doing prenatal yoga once a week and my swim class twice a week so at least I am getting some exercise. The ankle/foot that I sprained is still a little tender. This along with the swollen feet makes walking a bit difficult. Oh well, in another 5+ weeks I will be back to regular exercising. Can't wait for that. The baby is moving a lot these days. She tends to stick out a butt or something in the front and sometimes it feels like she is going to burst out the front. That can get kind of painful. I think she has the hiccups right now. She doesn't get them very often but they are weird to feel. Heartburn is still about the same and the peeing frequency has gone up quite dramatically. Can't wait until that stops. Other than that am doing well. Still going to the chiropractor which is helpful. I have to work on my posture because now I have the lower back, hip and pelvic pain. Once the baby comes, it will be shoulders and neck that will hurt.

Chris, unfortunately did not win his beard contest and when I got back on Sunday, he had gone back to his old self and shaved off the whole thing. I was shocked. It has been 3 months since I saw bare face and it is quite a change. I am slowly getting used to it as his he. He had a disc golf tournament on Sunday where he placed 4th out of 30. That is pretty good. He is off playing today so it is just me and the dog to get this place cleaned up a bit. Our weekends have been so crazy, we haven't had a lot of time to do other stuff.

Below are a few pictures of flowers and vegetable gardens that are growing so far.

This is where the driveway meets the garage. Don't know why or how these got there but they keep coming up.

Eventually I wil get those maple trees out of there and also pare this down a bit so that some of the smaller ones can have some room. There is a lot packed in to this small space.

These are cool. They are growing outside the stones. They didn't flower last year but they are pretty.

These are new this year. Really cool looking.

This is the view from the road.

Chris made me a new raised bed. We have tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, radishes, onions, pepper, rhubarb, zucchini and sugar snap peas growing.

These are my neighbor's tiger lilies.

Raspberries or blackberries back by the composter behind the garage.

This is the side of the house that is a jungle. We have lilies growing. Eventually a new fence and clearing out this area will be a big project.

My lonely beach rose. The rest have gone by.

Also, I don't know how many noticed but in one of the beard pictures, Chris was standing in front of our front steps. We decided to paint them red like the shutters. He painted them white and then started with the red that we had. Woah!! It came out purply. He didn't finish them. We had some old gray paint so he decided to put that on and then maybe the red over it to dull down the red. Maybe we might keep them that way, who knows.

Pictures of the Beard

2011-06-24T17:41:00.000-04:00

This is the before -

These are after bleaching -

Here is the final product and the outfit he will be wearing for the race -

less than 7 weeks to go

2011-06-23T07:29:00.000-04:00

I can't believe that Tuesday was 33 weeks with 7 weeks to go. As Chris says it has gone by really fast for him. Me not so much. I am huge. I get these looks at work from clients asking how far along I am and when they hear it they are like Woah! I am not sure if that is a compliment or not. I am really a lot belly or that is what I am telling myself.
Lots of stuff has happened in the last couple of weeks. I started seeing a chiropractor. It has been going well and has helped a bit with the pain. I was having a lot of sciatic pain and back pain at night and the dr. has been adjusting me twice a week. When you are pregnant things move a lot. One day I went in the right leg was longer than the other and the next time I went in the left leg was longer. It is crazy. But I have heard that getting a good alignment will help with an easier birth. I am willing to try anything to help that along.
I started taking a prenatal swim class. It has been 6 weeks since I sprained my ankle and it still hurts to walk. At this point I don't know if it hurts because I am a lot bigger than normal or if I am still recovering from the inital sprain. Either way I am still limping a bit so walking is a bit difficult. I can walk, just not for long periods of time like I used to. Hopefully it will ease up by the time the baby is here so I can get on with some good cardio and lose this baby weight. The class is really neat. I joined up at the gym I used to go to because they have so many options and it will be a good way to motivate myself so that I can lose weight after. Plus they have a lot of options for moms and babies. And summer camp options for later on down the line.
Also, last week my feet started to swell. Just great. I thought I was doing well, and then 32 weeks hit and I looked down and my feet were huge. I have been elevating them as much as possible. I have a box under my desk to put my feet up at work when I am sitting down for long periods of time. These are also hindering me from walking long periods of time. It is just not fun. We had a wedding to go to this past Saturday and the shoes I was going to wear I just couldn't fit my meat paws into so I had to break down and buy a pair of crocs. And actually I have to say that these things are actually comfortable. And they expand to fit my fat feet. I got the Mary Jane types in black so that I can wear them with anything. I have an appointment with the chiropractor today and Chris is going with me to learn how to massage my feet. Ha ha! Love it. The dr. asked me how he was at massaging and I laughed. I said the hardest part is getting him to do it. Oh well, he will have to do it for the baby now.

Speaking of Chris, he is gearing up for his race on Saturday. He has been growing the beard for about 3 months and it is going pretty well. It is super fluffy. He tried bleaching it last week but I think it just took out the black he put in it. He tried it again last night and wow!!! It looks yellow and even fluffier. Hilarious!! Definitely will post a picture. He gets to go to my chiro appt like that. Nice!! Sunday it should be shaved off. Will post all pictures later on to show the progression of this beard.
I also have my second baby shower this Saturday in Westmoreland. I am excited because I haven't seen a lot of my friends since the beginning of the pregnancy so it should be a fun time. Can't wait to see what I get so that I can finish up what I need to get. Diapers are the biggest thing at this point. We are planning on doing cloth diapers and just found out about a diaper service starting up this summer. We are kind of excited about that because that is one less thing I have to do especially when we both are back to work. I am just getting overwhelmed by all the different kinds, accessories and how many I am going to need so this weekend, I am going to be talking to my experienced expert moms that have used them with their kids so I should be all set.

My parents were up in Hampton last week. That was fun. We went out to dinner with them and their friends Al and Charlotte. Then Sunday they came up to Dover and we checked out a couple of campgrounds. They are going to be bringing the camper up to this area around the due date of the baby so that they can be here when she comes and help afterwards. That is a good thing as we just found out Chris is taking the lead on a big project that you guessed it starts in August. It is a really good opportunity for Chris but the timing is not so great. Oh well, we will work around it, hopefully. No telling what this baby has in mind for us. We also had lobsters with the crew last week as well. Yum!! Good thing as we will all miss the trip up to Stonington this year so we had to get our seafood fix in early. It was good to see them and they did finally have some good weather.

I was just thinking about all the babies that have been born this year that I know of. It is weird. I don't know if it is because I am pregnant that I am noticing this but it seems like an awful lot. Hailey, Shauna, Erica, Sarah, Sara, and Julie have already had their babies. 2 cousins, me, Erin, Becca, the girl that works down the hall from me and Kirsten are all due later this year. And that is just the people I know. Our birth class teacher said they expect 100 births at Wentworth Douglass in July alone.
Will post some pics of Chris' beard and baby shower pics later next week. The count down is on!

31 1/2 weeks - 8 1/2 to go

2011-06-10T18:50:00.002-04:00

I feel like a lot has happened since I last wrote. Foot is still hurting me a bit but it is getting better. I decided that with the ankle and other pains that I was having, that I would make an appointment with a chiropractor. My prenatal yoga teacher had mentioned that there was a place in Dover that worked with pregnant women and the expecting mom's group that I have been going to mentioned it as well. I found them and went today. Had some adjustments done. It felt pretty good. Lots of popping going on. My hips were rotated so he moved them back into place. Their table had a section in it that had the ability to go down so that I could lay on my stomach. That actually felt really nice. Haven't done that in like forever. I am hoping this will help me sleep a bit better. Between heart burn, peeing and pain, sleep has not been my friend. Maybe that is getting me used to when the baby comes.
This past weekend, I was supposed to go to my friend Tanya's bachelorette party but ended up not making it. The week before I had come down with a bit of a cold and it slowly progressed into something worse. By last Friday night, I was hacking and feeling awful. Saturday was spent watching movies and trying to rest as much as possible. Chris was at her future husband, Paul's bachelor party all weekend so it was good he wasn't around to catch it. I am feeling better, just really congested. That might also be a symptom of the pregnancy. Hopefully I will stop blowing my nose 150 times a day.
I think the reason I got this cold was partly because of Memorial Day weekend and partly because of the drastic change in temperatures that we had. It went from being around 50-60 during the day to about 70-80, which isn't too bad but I feel like whenever this happens quickly, I get sick. This week had a couple of days in the 90+ range. Thank god for AC. Last Sunday, we were both laying in bed exhausted but unable to sleep. Chris went out at about 10:30 at night and got the AC and put it in the bedroom. Even the dog has been enjoying it. It has saved us.
Memorial day weekend was a crazy weekend for us. Friday night we had friends over that we hadn't seen since last May at a wedding. They brought their 2 1/2 year old and their 3 month old. Wow! the 2 1/2 year old was a pistol. I don't think he sat in one place for 30 seconds. We grilled some food and then played some on the PS3. Chris is not so good at letting the kid win. Oh well, something he will have to learn. We had a good time with them. They live pretty close to us so we will have to get together more often. We didn't get to bed until pretty late that night and had a full day the next day. The next day was a party at our friend's house in Newmarket that Chris met disc golfing. He made a turkey on his outdoor cooker. It was really yummy. I did some errands in the am and then we headed over there after lunch. We also had another party to go to that same day. Our friend that works for Normandeau bought a house in Deerfield in October and he had a housewarming party. We made it over there about 7-8pm. It is a beautiful house with a large lot. He has done a lot of really nice things to the house. We were there until pretty late. Again we went to bed really late. Next day was Chris' coworker Al's daughter's graduation party. We have been there several times and know a lot of their family and friends. It was hot!!!! We spent the afternoon there. It was fun to see all of them again. Monday Chris went up to the disc golf course in Maine and dove in their ponds. He found another 500 discs including his that he lost. He was very excited to finally find it. Apparently people just love throwing their discs in those ponds. I hung out with my friend Paula for the day. We had manis and pedis. That was oh so nice. During the pedi we sat in these massaging chairs. It felt so good. May have to do that again. Then we went to Calef's in Barrington to walk around their shops and have some lunch. It was a nice relaxing day. Then I had to gear up for my 3 hour glucose test. That is the next story.
I had the 1 hour glucose test a couple of weeks before and thought I was all set. But then I heard from the doctor's that I had failed and had to do the 3 hour one. That one you had to eat extra carbs 3 days prior to the test. The night before the test you had to fast from 10 pm on. Doesn't sound so bad. The next day you go in at 8. Get blood drawn from the fasting and then drink the drink. The 1 hr test was like flat orange soda. This one was super sweet fruit punch koolaid. Nasty!!! Once you drank the drink then you got blood drawn every hour after for 3 times. My poor arms. There were 5 people doing it that day. The phlebotomist had never seen it like that. I also had my appt during that time. She said my weight gain was good and normal. Better than last time. Everything measured well and the heart beat was good. She also thinks that her head is down now. Good thing. Had a friend that was 33 weeks and head was up so she had to do some exercises to try to flip her over. I survived the 3 hr test and found out the next day that I passed. Thank you Thank you sugar gods. I really did not want to have to go through all that stuff for the last 10 weeks.

I think that is all the things that have happened since I last blogged. Heart burn has been killer these past few weeks. I really am ready to be done with that. That is part of my problem when I am sleeping. I have graduated from Tums to Pepcid AC and that seems to help a bit. I am really hoping the chiropractor can help with some of the pain I have been experiencing. I am really not sure if it is due to the ankle sprain or the pregnancy or both.
Here is the 7 month photo:

Here is our latest purchase. It is the bar that allows you to put the car seat securely on the stroller. We had this on our registry but we noticed it was going to be shipped in 1-3 months so we thought we should order it now. Luckily it did not take that long. It is just waiting for the baby so Chris can take her disc golfing. Here it is all set up:

And here is an updated photo of fluffy:

He is a little sleepy. Had a raucous weekend for the bachelor party. Then got home and worked 32 hours from Monday to Tuesday. We had our last child birth class Tuesday night. Then he got up at 3:30 am Wed morning and drove to New York to work in the hot hot weather. Then they drove to New Jersey and worked some more on Thursday and then came home about 4:30 today. He has had a rough week.

28 weeks - 12 to go.

2011-05-18T17:56:00.000-04:00

I would like to preface this story to say that baby and mama are doing fine. Much better so don't get excited.

This past week has been very eventful for the Baker family. It all started Wednesday afternoon. Chris was playing disc golf at Bellamy in Dover. I have been trying to get exercise in the form of walks. I decided that night that I would multitask. I would take a walk to the grocery store because I had to pick up a few things. Hannafords is not too far away so that is where I was headed. I also went to Ace Hardware to pick up a dandelion picker - probably not what this tool was intended for but it works great. I got done with my errands and headed back home. Chris called on the way to say that he was going to be a little late and we needed another alternative for dinner. I was prepared. I got to Walgreens and was about to cross the street to the other side because that is where the sidewalk was. I was waiting to cross the street in their little grassy area and as I was about to go, I stepped in hole that didn't appear to be there before - it was covered in grass. My ankle went one way and I went down to my knees but popped right back up. I thought, hmm that kind of hurt but I have to get home which is about a half mile. I started walking and it really hurt. I did eventually make it home. I just kept thinking, birth is going to be way worse than this so just breathe. I got home and put my feet up on the bed. I texted Chris about the fact that my foot hurt so I probably wasn't going to be able to make dinner so to stop somewhere and pick something up. I also called him a couple of times. Now before you think badly of him, at the time, I didn't think it was all that bad. He did call back and asked if I had put any ice on it. I said no and that I would go get some. I tried to take one step on that bad foot and could not so I called him again and told him he should probably come home and take me to the ER. So that is what he did. We got there and had to park kind of far away. He got me a wheel chair - so ridiculous - and wheeled me in to the ER. They must have been slow that evening because I checked in and didn't even get to finish before they triaged me. The nurse who did that ended up being the sister of a former co worker who we had met before at another friend's house. What a coincidence. She was super nice. Then she wheeled me down to one of the rooms. There the RN came in and did an evaluation of my foot. He felt a couple of key bones and because they didn't really hurt, he said we wouldn't have to do an X-ray because it wasn't broken. Just a bad sprain. He decided to call the OB GYN on call at Garrison and let them know what had happened and they suggested I go upstairs to get a non-stress test. While this was happening, one of the other nurse assistants tried to find the baby's heart beat with the doppler monitor. The first one they used was not really supposed to be used for fetal heart rates because the tip was so small and localized. They found the other one, but that one apparently did not work because you couldn't hear anything. Finally they found an old school one and the instant she put it on my belly there she was. I wasn't really worried about this because I had felt her move earlier after I had gotten back home. Poor Chris was not too happy about all of that. I was then fitted with an air cast and crutches (crutches have to be the worst thing to use in this world). Chris wheeled me up to the Labor and Delivery area. I was put in a bed and strapped up to a fetal monitor. The monitor indicated I had a contraction. They gave me some toast and some water and came back about 10 minutes later and found that I had more contractions. Not good. I also mentioned the fact that I hadn't really eaten or drank anything since about 3 ish that afternoon and it was about 8 ish. They said that they were going to put me on iv to get some fluids and if that calmed it down ten I would be ok. If not then they would have to monitor me for the next 4-24 hours. Chris did not like the sound of that. They also gave me some toast with peanut butter and because we were going to be there a while, Chris found some hospital food to heat up. While all this was going on, he had to call his co worker Al to see if he could work for him that night. He thought he might be able to make it but when this all came about he realized he better get a replacement. Thanks so much to Al for helping us out.
The IV took about an hour to go through. In the middle I had to use the bathroom. That was fun with all the wires and being attached to the iv. Chris is such a good husband putting up with all of this with me. Finally the nurse came in and said "do you guys want to go home?" I said YES!!!! She showed us the printout from the monitor. At the beginning there were a lot of spikes but as the fluid got into me, it basically went down to a flat line which is what they wanted to see. They also said the baby was doing fabulously so that is the best news. Chris wheeled me out to the car and we went home. Also, while I was in the hospital, I realized that I was not going to be able to drive my car to work since I had a standard and the left ankle was the issue. So I called my director and asked if she could pick me up. She is awesome and picked me up Thursday and dropped me off after work. Chris was able to do it on Friday. Thursday I used the crutches all day although, my other coworker Cathy was super good to me and would get my clients and most everything else I needed. Cathy asked the maintenance guy, Burt, as a joke, if they had a wheelchair. He said they did and if I wanted to use it. I told him that Friday I would because Cathy would be out. He brought it up towards the end of the day and I started using it. It was soo much nicer having that. Friday I used it all day. I think it was much better for my feet.

Friday night, we were having a relaxing night at home. Well at least I was. Chris was doing the laundry and other stuff around the house that I couldn't really do. We were watching a dvd and all of a sudden I heard a rush of water. I told Chris to pause the dvd and he ran downstairs. The week before I had been gardening and my gloves got really muddy. I rinsed them off in the sink downstairs and left them on the side to dry and so that I could wash them later. Our washing machine has a pipe that empties into this sink and the water gets pretty high. It sucked one of the gloves down and clogged the sink. Chris had to mop it up with about 18 towels. Sorry Chris. As if I wasn't a pain in the butt already. He has been soo helpful to me through this time. There were some times when I thought he was going to get really frustrated but he powered through what I asked of him which I hope wasn't too much. He is the greatest!!!

Saturday was the baby shower at the Alton house. My parents were coming up and they were nice enough to let me borrow their car for the week - automatic - and take the dog for the week because Chris was going to NJ for the week. We headed up early because my dad absolutely loves the Olde Bay Diner with their homemade toast so we had breakfast there. Then we headed to the Alton house. The shower was AWESOME!!! Thanks so much to Jean and Dan for going crazy on the food and doing such a wonderful job of it. I really loved it all. We had all sorts of food including BBQ chicken, hot dogs, 2 kinds of chicken sausage, pasta salad, quinoa salad, potato salad and soo much more. Then for dessert we had strawberry shortcake, keylime poundcake, lemon squares and brownies. It was all really good. We had about 25 people there. We got a lot of good stuff. Diaper cake, diaper bag with essentials, tons of clothes - not all pink yeah! - sound machine, humidifier, floor gym, towels, cloths, receiving blankets, and soo much more. I finally have gone through it all so thank you cards will be going out soon. Thanks to Sarah Buchanan for writing it all down for me so that it is much easier when I go to write these.

I think my favorite gift was the crab hooded towel. I saw that in Target when I registered and just had to have that. A lot of stuff went with our underwater theme of the room so that was really cool. I have awesome friends and family and they were all really generous. Thanks everyone. We all had a great day even though it was super cold out. At least it didn't rain like it has since that day and will until the end of time it seems like. Maybe hopefully we will have some sunshine on the weekend.

Here are some pics of the party...

This is before I started opening presents.

This is me opening the crab hooded towel. Don't worry there are more of him. That's my mother-in-law Jean in the background.

More crab towel. It is sooo cute!!!!

Paula and Jess are on the left. I used to work with them in Rochester. Chad - boyfriend of Jess and plays disc golf with Chris. Lena, my boss, is on the right.

This was the first of the super cute outfits that we got.

That says "Little B Princess" B standing for Boston Red Sox. Chris loved this one.

This was a cute one that had ruffles on the butt from Beth. She made this really cool present that was all in this pink basket. Very creative. She also made a photo album for us. Love it!!!

crab onesie to go with the crab hooded towel of course

The cutest diaper cake ever. Thanks Abby!!!

Here is the pink tutu outfit from Brian and Kirsten.

My ergo baby carrier. I will need to check out the directions on how to use it but my friends rave about it. Thanks mom and dad.

Another pic of the crab towel because I love it soo much

Had my prenatal appointment yesterday. This was the one where I got to drink the orange sugary soda thing and get blood drawn to see if I had gestational diabetes. It wasn't bad to start off with but it was disgusting by the time I was done. It did not make me feel great. I haven't heard anything today so must mean I passed. Good thing. I guess I have gained a little too much weight but that could be because of being off my feet for the past week. On the other hand I have been having some pretty terrible heartburn and so haven't been able to eat much because of this. I think I am retaining a lot of water due to the injury. My right foot on Saturday was enormous. I tried on 2 pairs of shoes that I just couldn't fit into so finally got into one pair. It was disgusting. It has been getting a little bit better. Saturday night I was able to start walking without crutches although it is tender. Today was the first day without the cast on. I don't think that thing was treating the rest of my leg well. It is steadily getting better. Going down stairs is still difficult and if I move my foot to the side or walk on uneven stuff it is still a little painful. Most of the swelling has gone down so that is good. Must be better by Saturday because I head out to Westmoreland to get the dog and switch cars back. I am so thankful for my parents for doing this for me.

Hope this blog post wasn't too long but there is a lot going on here in Dover. Can't go too long without excitement around here. Hopefully it will calm down in the next few weeks. Have my next appt on 5/31. Will update again then.

Take care.

27 weeks tomorrow

2011-05-09T19:51:00.000-04:00

Here is the 6 month photo. After this week I will officially be in the 3rd trimester. We took advantage of the beautiful crab apple tree that is out front of our house. The flowers are really coming out nice.
Here is an up close one of the flowers on the tree.

We also took some pictures of the dog, of course. He isn't the easiest subject to work with, but we got some good ones of him.

This one is just hilarious. Chris was taking photos pretty quickly of him and he got this one as he was turning his head.

We started our childbirth class last week. Another one tomorrow. It is pretty good so far. Chris said he even learned some things. I am also doing prenatal yoga. It is very relaxing and they say it improves the birth experience because you are able to relax.

For my almost mother's day, Chris took me out to dinner. We went to a local Dover restaurant named Cartelli's. They have italian and sushi all in the same place. We just had italian and dessert of course.

I am doing well. Very tired by the end of the day but we are getting through it. My favorite part of the day is just before bed because I will lay in bed and kind of poke a bit at the belly and she kicks back. It is pretty cool. She is a very active girl.

Hope this all finds you well. Will update more in a couple of weeks after I have my diabetes test. I get to drink a sugary soda and then get blood taken.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!

2011-05-08T09:44:00.000-04:00

Happy Mother's day to all of you that have made your children's lives the happiest ever. We may not always express appreciation for what you do but we all love you. You guys are awesome!!! There should be more days to celebrate you.

Spring is finally here!!!

2011-05-01T20:55:00.000-04:00

Spring has sprung in Dover. We have had some really nice days here in the past couple of weeks. I have enjoyed several days of coming home for lunch and lounging out on the porch with the dog. He really likes the nice weather too. He LOVES sun. It is just about his favorite thing other than sleeping. Many of the flowers have started to bloom including some of the bulbs that I planted last fall. I had one daffodil and some hyacinths along with the rhododendron and the other flowers below. Not sure what they are. We have several lilies growing everywhere as well. Our forsythia is in full bloom but it is behind the deck so you can't see it. I have grand plans to take a sawzall to the ugly green thing out front that the City of Dover Community Services so nicely started for me and possibly replant the forsythia out there. So much nicer when you can actually see it. We will see how that goes. Can you just imagine a 7 month or so pregnant woman with a sawzall cackling as she cuts down this ugly thing? Just wait, it is going to happen. Here are some photos of the nice plants that we are going to keep.

Chris also had to mow the front lawn for the first time on Friday because it was going crazy. It is really fluffing out and looks really nice. I am still working on raking the back lawn. We have definitely had a lot of rain and yeah, we are going to be getting more. But, it is really helping the grass to get really green.

Chris has also been working on many projects that he has planned for the house. He and his friend Drew decided to make adirondack chairs themselves. They came out beautifully and they are really comfortable to sit in. Always a good thing. Here is a picture of them.

See, I told you the dog loves the sun.

He also started staining the deck. We really needed a new patio set because last year, I broke ours. We had gotten a table and umbrella from Chris' parents that they had at their house in Londonderry for about 20+ years. It was a good little table until I left the umbrella up on a particularly windy day. The umbrella blew over taking the table with it and bending it so badly that you couldn't really put it up any more. It lasted us through the summer which was good. We have been searching for a new patio set but they are really expensive. Finally we found one at Home Depot that was cheap yet comfortable. So, to get the deck looking nice, he started to stain it. The bulk of it is finished except for the some of the slats and a second coat on some areas but it looks fabulous. He actually used the same color stain on the deck that he did on the chairs but because the deck has not been stained since it was built about 8-10 years ago, it looks a little different on the old wood. Love it. Have spent tons of time out there already and plan to for the rest of the summer.

He also started putting walls around our "bathroom" downstairs. We thought with the addition to our family, that it might be nice to have a second bath downstairs and he wanted to make it a bit more private. He got an old door and some hardware at the Habitat for Humanity Restore down the road for cheap. Just needs some drywall. Very exciting. Will show pics when it is done. The windows in the other room upstairs are put in. Just has to do some finishing touches on those. Next on the list is a new planter for me outside, finishing up the changing table, and covers for the radiators. It is a crazy time in the Baker household for projects. We would love to get everything done before the kid is here so that we don't have to worry about them after. I am sure more will come up later though.

I would like to give a big Thanks to my sister-in-law Christina for sending me up some of Kellan's gender neutral clothes. There are some really cute things in there. She also put in some toys and a couple of receiving blankets. Love them. So helpful to get that stuff.
Also, I would like to thank my friend Shannon for some of the same things. She has a mom's group that gave her some of their girl clothes as well as maternity clothes. I have so much to wear now, I don't know what to do. This kid is going to be one well clothed kid as well. Thanks guys.

We also got the crib It came in the mail a couple of weeks ago. Chris and I put it together. Very interesting at first. They do not make those things easy. After we got the first bolt screwed in, it didn't take any time at all. It looks really nice. There is a ban or something on the cribs with pull down sides so instead the mattress moves up and down depending on the age of the child. Bob and Christina have the same one and they really like it. Kellan is about 15 months now and he still can't get himself out of it which is something I read a lot about on the other cribs. It is a nice dark wood which I like.

I started a prenatal yoga class. I have been going to an expecting mom's group in Portsmouth and one of the people that talks there is a post partum doula as well as a yoga teacher and she teaches right here in Dover. It was really nice to relax. They also say that doing yoga while your pregnant really makes the birth a lot better because you are able to relax and center yourself and really listen to what your body is telling you.

Chris and I start our first childbirth class on Tuesday at the hospital. He is dreaming up ways to get out of it but I think that by the time we actually do the class, he will get more excited. We will see. Will let you know more on that later.

As for me, I am doing well. This kid is kicking my butt. I am writing this at about quarter of 9 and am totally beat. By the end of the day, my back and stomach are hurting and I am wiped out. The last doctor's appt went well. I am measuring where I am supposed to be. I have gained a lot of weight to me but they didn't seem all that concerned. Baby's heartbeat and my stuff was normal. Next appt is checking for diabetes. I get to drink a yummy sugary soda and then get my blood drawn after an hour. Hoping that one goes well. We will have to put up a new baby bump photo next time. Right now I am 25 1/2 weeks. So about 6 months.

The dog and Chris are well. Hoping that this finds all of you well. Enjoy the lovely weather.

Chris held a baby!!!

2011-04-03T11:29:00.001-04:00

Our friend that we met playing disc golf, Nate and his wife Sarah, had a baby last Monday 3.28. His name is Teddy. Cute as a button. We went over yesterday to visit. He was tiny but I guess not really since he was 9 + lbs coming out. Au Naturale for Sarah. Way to go!!! I held him first and then persuaded Chris to hold him. Now for some of those who know Chris the last time he was asked to hold a baby, he almost passed out. We had visited our friends, Cheriene and Doug, in the hospital a couple of days after Maddie was born and Doug asked if Chris wanted to hold her. He says he almost blacked out but he did't. I held her though. This time, he was sitting on the couch next to me while I held Teddy and I said come on you can do it. I passed the baby off and he held him for like 20 minutes. Good for you Chris!!! It wasn't so bad. He was sleeping most of the time. He was also swaddled up pretty tight so didn't move much. Congrats to Nate and Sarah.
The other thing we did at Nate and Sarah's was to see how their pack and play was set up. I don't have a lot of experience with newborns so I didn't realize that you could use the pack and play for them. I had only really seen them used for older babies. But Nate and Sarah had theirs set up in their living room and there is a nice changing table attachment that goes on the top. We don't have that but look for it on my registry which should be coming soon. When I had set up the pack and play before, there was this extra stuff that we had but didn't know what to do with. After we got back from Nate and Sarah's, we set it up again and put the mattress up where it is supposed to be. We didn't really want to have the baby in the room with us for the first couple of weeks and the idea of me getting up 20 times a night to walk up the stairs to her room to feed her did not sound fun for me. Now, we can use the pack and play at least for the first couple of weeks so that I don't have to go up and down stairs and she won't be in the room with us. Genius!!! Some of these things you just have to see them used in real life in order for things to click for you. Here is a picture of the way the pack and play is supposed to be set up...

We also did some more painting in the kid's room. We have some more to do but they look so cute so far. Chris did all of the free hand stuff since my stick figure is terrible. I am good at the stenciling. I am so excited that it is coming along so well. She is going to love it.
Oh, also she has been moving a lot lately and Chris felt his first kick. Yeah!!!
Here are some pics of the room so far...

Hope the weather is treating all of you a little better. We got about 2 inches of wet slushy snow and it is mostly gone now. Hopefully that was the last of it but you know New England...

Chris' beard

2011-03-28T19:12:00.000-04:00

Here is a photo of Chris' beard. He is growing it for a race he is doing at the end of June. They have a best beard contest. He is going to either dye it jet black or red white and blue.

Here are the ultra sound photos. 3 profiles and a foot. That was basically all the tech could get because she moved around so much.

It's A Girl!!

2011-03-28T18:34:00.000-04:00

Today was the ultrasound appointment. We got a couple of good profile pictures which I will post later but couldn't figure out how to use the scanner. Will make Chris do it later. Everything measured well and right on target for being 21 weeks tomorrow. Halfway through - yikes!!!

We have been busy. We did some work on the room yesterday. I painted some waves - don't worry the room was well ventalated and Chris painted some seaweed and coral. We have to get some better paint to do the stencils of the fish and other sea life. These pictures came out a little better so you can actually see the colors. The girl will have to get used to the blue and green.

As for mama, I am doing well. Have started to feel some kicks. I wouldn't really describe them as kicks per se but more like muscle spasms. When they were doing the ultra sound, she was moving around a lot and at one point her knee was hitting her head. She is very active already.
The heart burn has come on full force which is lovely. Have 3 bottles of Tums - 1 in the bedroom, 1 at work and 1 in my purse. That is helping a bit. Last night it woke me up which was fun.
Here is the 5 month photo:

I look fat. No more old pants. I tried the bella band but just felt like my pants were falling down so my parents came up a couple of weekends ago and we went to Savers - kind of a big huge Goodwill - and got some pants. Shirts I am ok with because some of the ones I own are already good for the baby bump. Also, I have a few tank tops that I can put underneath the shirts so it covers everything.

My friend and I went to a pregnant mom's group where they talked about clothing and right now the style is really geared towards empire waist shirts and things which is nice. I pulled all of my summer things up from the basement and pulled out what I thought I could wear. There wasn't much. Luckily I have a lot of elastic waist skirts so that is helpful. A lot of stuff went back down stairs though. Oh well, can't wait for warm weather to actually stick around so that I don't have to worry.

Speaking of weather here. We had a 60+ day last week and then it was pretty nice that weekend then we proceeded to have flurries for the rest of the week. Thankfully whatever did arrive left by the end of the day. At least the sun has been out warming us that way. Now we have the wind and it is chilly. Hopefully by the end of this week it will turn around just in time for April. I am really itching to get out and do some gardening and clean up the lawn.

Also this last week, Chris was sick throwing up and other stuff earlier in the week, we lost our power - during my shower - nothing major on that though just a problem with one of the main power boxes. Then Friday am we woke up to no heat. It was Chris' fault - just kidding. I had him take my clothes down Thurs night and apparently he hit a box that is on the wall going down the stairs. Unbeknownst to us, it was powered the furnace. Now we know after having someone come to look at it. It is a good thing they did because now that will be the first thing we check. It was a crazy week both home and at work. Glad that is over with.

We did get a new baby thing - thanks to the Baker grandparents. A pack and play. I have put it together and back down again and it is super easy. Here is a pic.

Well that is all for now. Rocky is doing well. Had some shots last week and he is still the same weight. Goooo Rocky!!!! Not sure how you keep that svelt figure since you just lay around all day. Oh well, we love you. Hope this finds you all well.

update

2011-03-12T13:18:00.000-05:00

A lot of things have been happening in the Baker household. The weather is finally warming up a bit. Today I took my first walk outside since fall. It was nice when the sun was out but got a bit windy and chilly when the sun went behind the clouds, which there seemed to be a lot of. It was nice to be able to be outside. The snow is almost gone. YEAH!!!!! Tomorrow we set our clocks forward for daylight savings time and in the next couple of weeks we will have the first official day of spring. Can't wait. Love the change in the weather.

You can actually see grass. Love this!!
Also, a change for me is I am noticing that a lot of my pants are not fitting quite like I had hoped. Things are sticking out and it is making it difficult to button pants. The other day I had an urge to go see what I could find for cheap pants. Luckily I have found some. They feel much better.
No pictures of that, sorry. At the end of the month I will show the 5 month photo.

Courtesy of the Rancourt grandparents, we have ourselves a car seat. I searched through a lot of them on Amazon and found that the Chicco brand was highly recommended. I know a lot of friends that have this one too. Thanks mom and dad for this. Next up is the extra base for Chris' car and the adapter for the stroller. Putting a picture of that here which I realized I haven't done before. It's a BOB stroller that is off road. Chris wanted an off road stroller for disc golfing and this thing new is really expensive. He did some research on Craigslist and found someone selling it cheap. It was obviously really popular because if he hadn't been the first to see it, he wouldn't have gotten it. Good thing we got it when we did because we haven't seen anything as cheap as we got it for.

The second photo is of the rain fly that usually doesn't come with the stroller but the lady we were buying from sold it with it.

Chris has been busy in the kids room making a lot of changes. He got the painting mostly done. He just has to add waves to the top of the blue. It looks really nice. I even had him paint the doors because I thought it would look weird with 2 white doors in the middle of the room. He also replaced the windows. He had done one and you could see the difference it made. The old one was all foggy and definitely was letting in some drafts. The new ones fit perfectly and look so much nicer in the room. Also they easily open and close. That is soooo great.
He also put in a light switch. The only way to turn on the light before was by a pull chain in the middle of the room. This would have been very inconvenient. But with a little ingenuity and some of his dad's help, he put in a light switch without burning down the house. He did get a few cob webs in the beard though. Oh yeah, he is growing a beard for a race that he is doing at the end of June. They are having a best beard contest. Not a big fan of it myself but he wants to do it so I let him. Ha ha!! Will show you a picture of it next blog.

That's all for now. Will leave you with a much neglected photo of the dog. I haven't posted one since I started the baby stuff. Sorry Rocky. He is doing well as are the rest of us.

prenatal

2011-03-04T07:36:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, we had a prenatal appt. Everything is normal. No protiens or sugars in my urine, blood pressure within range and heartbeat at about 136-140 beats per minute. The only bad thing for me but I guess good thing for the kid is that I have gained 8 pounds. Not what I was hoping for but I have been sick the last few days so haven't been that active. I guess it is normal since from the first time I found out to the previous appt in Feb I hadn't gained any weight. Oh well, will try to do better with excercising.
I also had blood drawn to check for down's syndrome and other birth defects. It was only blood so I thought it couldn't hurt.
When the doctor was checking the baby's heart beat with the doppler machine, she thought it might be a boy. I guess there is an old wive's tale out there that says that boys heart beats tend to be a little slower and girl's a little higher. Who knows? We will find out at the end of this month for my next appt what we will be having and we will break the big news.

As you know we bought the paint for the kids room. Chris got really gung ho last weekend and painted the whole room. The bottom is blue and the top is green. We searched around for a cool stencil of a wave and found one that we both really liked and he is going to be doing that either today or tomorrow. We have some stencils of fish and other life so we are going to be putting those on the wall as well. We just have to get some better paint for those. It is coming along really well and it is very exciting.
Car seat is on the way and the next thing is to find a good crib to order. After we find out what we are having it is off to the store to register for some goodies.

Hope all are doing well. We are good over here. Can't wait for spring in a couple of weeks and day light savings time next week. Yahoo!!!

4 months ish

2011-02-26T20:30:00.000-05:00

Well, I had planned on posting a photo of my belly every month to show the progress. 4 months was this past Tuesday so I am a little late. Things have been going pretty good. Some minor annoyances but other than that not so bad.

Not much has changed since the last time I posted. Our snow melted so we could see the grass but then we got some more so we can't see the grass anymore. Plus to add to my joy, we will be getting more snow tonight. Love it!!! Not really. Oh, well at least Tuesday is March 1. Yahoo! We are waiting for you spring.
Today, we used the Lowe's card that my parents gave us for Christmas. We got some supplies for making radiator covers (something you need to do if you are going to have a toddler crawling around, those things are scorching), some paint for the kid's room and a rug. We have been wanting a rug for a while, but they are soooo expensive. We took a look at what they had, and decided that we wanted a rug with minimal pattern as the walls would have enough pattern. We also liked to try and match the glider with its fairly neutral color. They had these shag rugs. I was going for the one called Shaggedy Shag and Chris was going for the Wooly Bully. Of course, the one that Chris wanted was more expensive. He said he wanted it so I said ok. It is pretty cushy and will keep the kid nice and warm in the winter time from the wood flooring. Congrats kid, you finally got something that wasn't bought off of Craigslist. A brand spanky new rug.

We have also picked up some cute wall hangings to go along with our ocean theme.

Here are the two colors we chose for the room. The blue is going on the bottom for the ocean and the green will be at the top. This picture does not really do the colors justice as they are not really that pastelly. They are very warm colors and we think that they will look super cool in the room.

I also bought some maternity clothes as it seems that some of my pants are getting a little tight. I tried to get things that would go with a lot of other things that I had and some that I could even wear after. I am trying not to go too overboard on the clothes and I did get some from a few of my friends. They have more for me to borrow which is great. It is helpful being the last of my hometown friends to have a kid. Everyone can hand me down things.
Congrats to the newest edition to our friend clan. My really good friend Hailey had her baby last Sunday. She had a boy named Levi. Love it. Can't wait to see them both.

photos

2011-02-05T15:41:00.000-05:00

Here are some photos that I wanted to post.
First is of the ultrasound we had on 1/19. Basically you can see a head. Don't worry about the rest. It is really weird to look at these things when you weren't there. I know because so many people have shown me these things, and I am like what the heck is that. It was the size of a plum and about 2 1/2 inches long so that is why you can't see much.

Next couple are the baby room. Now I know it looks messy now, but you should have seen it before. That is where all the boxes went that we weren't really sure what to do with them. So it is much better now. Once we get a few things, I will be able to get rid of the rest of the clutter. Some of it is trash and I just haven't brought it down stairs yet. Trust me it looks way better than it did and now it has some furniture.

The room is also going to be painted in an underwater theme. The cradle in the second one is one that was made for me when I was born by my mother's coworker. Those are some of the toys that I had as a child.

These next couple are of the spare room/craft room. It also needs a few things (Chris needs to build me a book shelf for my craft books. hint hint.)

The last few are of the snow banks in our yard. The ones at the end of the driveway are literally higher than my car so when we drive out it is very difficult to see anything. Fun stuff. Oh and currently it is snowing again and we are expected to get about 6 inches of snow. What fun. Hope all of you reading this from warm places are jealous.

13 weeks 2 days

2011-02-03T17:47:00.000-05:00

Had a prenatal appt today. Went well. Heard the baby's heart beat on the doppler monitor. It was 130 beats/minute, which is good. All my blood work came back normal for all the stuff they tested for. Apparently I am not anemic and the doctor told me to keep doing what I am doing. Super! Not sure what that is though. I thought I had gained weight with the ice cream and pizza we had but I have not gained a pound. Love to hear that.
Yesterday had a bit of an episode. We had the day off because of the ridiculous amount of snow. Will take some pictures to attach here to show all of you. Chris' parents came up over the weekend and said that we had more snow than they had in Alton. I was so mad because for the last 5 years of living in Alton Bay, we got slammed with snow and had crazy winters and Dover had pretty mild ones. The first winter we move here and we get more snow. Thanks Mother Nature for that. Last week when we had the last snow storm (was it just last week) I looked out the window and saw Chris looking like he was in pain from shoveling. I decided, against the wishes of my doctor, to go out and help him. I was always out there before and I felt really bad. I was really careful for all of you who just thought that. It was pretty light snow so it was easy to do. My dad had gotten us this electric shovel thing that only works in about 4-5 inches of snow so I used that to help him out too. I just felt bad. The snow piles are higher than my car so it was hard for him to shovel and get it over his head so that it just didn't come back on the driveway. This week, in anticipation of the ridiculous snow storm, he decided to check Craigslist (our favorite place, even the dog was purchased off of Craiglist) for a snow blower. He found one and bought it Monday night. Just in time. He said he went out Tuesday and after about 10 minutes he was all done. Sweet!!!
So anyway back to my episode. We watched a movie about 4ish and I had an apple at the start of it. By the end of the movie I was starving, so I started cooking dinner. I pretty much had it done and then I got this sensation that I was going to pass out. I ran into the room and laid down. I felt better. Chris brought my dinner in to me and I started to eat. I felt a lot better after that. I mentioned that to the doctor and she said that pregnancy sometimes causes you to be hypo glycemic so to keep snacking every couple of hours. I have been pretty good at this at work but sometimes I slack off on the weekends or when I have a day off in the middle of the week. Will try to be more careful with that. I have also been trying to drink more water. It is not too bad for me since I used to drink so much before.
I also asked the doctor about when I might start to show. On my 12 week day, I was going to take a picture of my belly to see the changes every month but I just felt like I was fat because as some of you may have noticed, I was not the skinniest of people before I got pregnant. I was working on that but oh well not any more. So I just felt like I would just look fat. She said that around 16-20 weeks is when your uterus moves up to your belly button area so then it will look like I am showing. So I will start taking pictures starting week 16 and post them up here.
I have my next appt next month when I will be 17 weeks and then probably the one after that I will have the ultrasound to find out what it is.
Hope this finds all of you well.

We're Pregnant!!!

2011-01-25T12:46:00.000-05:00

So it has been officially announced. Chris and I are pregnant. Today is actually the 12 week or 3 month mark. We are really excited for this and really scared. Some of you may be shocked as we were the couple that said kids, no way!! But things have finally fallen into place and we both feel that it is a good time to start a family. 2010 has been a big year. We finally moved out of Alton Bay and bought our awesome house in Dover. The dog turned 6 - big milestone because I can't leave him out of this. I changed jobs to Dover City Welfare which I love immensely. And we found out that we are expecting with a due date of August 9th 2011.
My pregnancy hasn't been too bad so far. I had a bit of nausea first off but haven't had anything in over a week (knock on wood). We had a bit of a scare last week but had an ultrasound and the kid has a very healthy heartbeat, two arms, two legs, a body and a head. Not much more is know as it is about the size of a plum. I have a wonderful center that I am going to that was highly recommended by a lot of friends who had babies in the area. It is about a mile from the house and is directly across from the Wentworth Douglass Hospital. Very convenient for us. I am not showing all that much that I can see and have only gained a pound so that is good I guess.
We have 2 rooms upstairs that we are getting ready. One is going to be the baby's room and have already gotten a stroller, a dresser and a glider rocker. All on craigslist of course. Sorry kid not much new stuff from these parents. Even your dog was bought on craigslist. My parents have also brought up the cradle that was made for me when I was born by one of my mom's coworkers at the Dept of Transportation. Love that we are using stuff that is being handed down. We bought new windows for the rooms upstairs which will be installed by my handyman husband some time this spring. We are also thinking of possibly refinishing the floors up there and definitely painting in a underwater fish theme.

So I am kind of terrible at keeping up with the whole blog thing but I am going to try especially for those of you who we might not see as often. My sister in law is really good at this and it is such a wonderful way to keep in contact with her family. She posts a lot of pictures and videos of her son. Pass it on to whoever would be interested. And please get after me if I am slacking on this. I am going to try to take pictures of myself (not my favorite thing to do) to show my progress throughout the pregnancy to keep all of you updated. We would love to hear from everyone and hope this blog finds you all well.

update

2009-01-10T12:51:00.004-05:00

yet again, I say not a good blogger. there are some things I need to talk about because a lot has changed since September. I changed jobs. Now, I know it is not a surprise to hear me say that (or write it) but I am still working for the state and I just moved up in the place. I now work for the Division of Family Assistance as a Family Services Specialist. That is a nice way of saying I interview people who come in to apply for benefits like food stamps. It is much more challenging than being a secretary. I like it so far.
Also, we found out that our renter's are moving out asap. That was a blow. They had originally signed a 2 year lease to purchase agreement and separate 1 year long leases. All I will say about that is that we are pursuing that through our lawyer. I feel so grown up saying that.
After we found out about that, we immediately got four real estate agents in there to evaluate the place and see what they would suggest listing it at. 2 said you're in a sucky market and it won't go for more than 169. 2 said I think you can sell it at 199. That is a 30 thousand dollar difference. So we are going with the guy that said 199 and maybe listing it in the middle. Hint Hint - if you have any friends who want to buy a house in Wolfeboro let us know. It is nice. If you go to Chris Baker's facebook page and look at before and after picture you will agree.

Also, Chris had surgery on Jan. 5. He had surgery on his sinuses. It was a planned surgery and it went well. He is still very uncomfortable and would like to be able to breath out of his nose. But thanks to pain killers and antibiotics, he is doing really well. He is actually a good patient.

Well, that is the crazy stuff. Other than that our families are relatively healthy, the dog too. Life kind of throws crap at you all at once some of the time but maybe it is all for the best. We can possibly sell this house and at the very least have it on the market at a more desirable time (summer) than what we had thought. Then maybe we can move out of Wolfeboro and take advantage of the down market and buy something cheap off of somebody else in a similar situation. We will see and hopefully I will keep you more updated than every 3+ months.

sigur ros

2008-09-20T13:38:00.004-04:00

I am a terrible journal writer. I was never that good at it.

We (husband and two friends and I) went to see Sigur Ros, an Icelandic band, last night. Wow, they put on a fantastic concert. Their music is hard to describe. The lead singer has a haunting high voice and plays the guitar with a violin bow. They have a piano player, drummer, and bass player. They use all sorts of different types of instruments including an organ and a xylophone. It is just a great sound. Very mellow but some of it is really intense. We saw them at the Bank of America Pavillion in East Boston. If you have ever been there, then you know it is outside. Wooh!!! it is a bit chilly in September when it gets down to 50 degrees. I think it is better to see them in an indoor facility but this was pretty cool. They are a mesmerising band. If you check out Youtube and search for Sigur Ros track 8, you will get some crappy recordings but you can kind of see what it is like and how they sound. That is the best song and they leave it to the last and it is phenomenal because it starts off slow and then you get the drummer going with this really cool beat and the intensity rises and they just go all out. It is awesome for lack of a better word. Check em out.
ps I just found a really cool version on youtube. It is from their documentary. Sigur Ros Heima Popplagio is the header. Check it out, there are some weird parts from Iceland but listen to the music. It is great.

xb rocks

2008-08-23T08:52:00.003-04:00

Picking up the new car today. I am so excited. Yesterday when I got home, Chris suggested that we just go and pick it up last night. But since it was brand spanking new, we decided to do all the paperwork last night and then pick it up in the morning. Then they can detail it, put a radio in, and inspect it. I can't believe that after 10 years of driving the standby escort, I am going to be getting a brand new car that no one has ever owned. Wow!!! Although the payment thing is a little scary seeing as it has been over 5 years since I had a car payment. Oh, well most people have these things.

weather

2008-08-10T19:49:00.004-04:00

I just want to let everyone know that we had an entire weekend of nice weather. Isn't that amazing especially this summer. Although there is some nasty stuff heading towards some areas of NH.

As to the continuing saga of buying a car, I am one step closer because I cleaned and vacuumed the old car today, so it is ready. Can't wait to get the Scion xB and get rid of the scort.