Grandma Vivian's Visit

The White house is much quieter today as we said goodbye to Grandma Vivian yesterday and sent her on her way to Austin, TX for her next stop.  This was Grandma's 3rd winter visit since we've been married and by far the best time we've ever had.  Every winter Grandma Vivian packs her bags and leaves for a 2-3 month tour visiting granddaughters, daughters, nieces, sisters and their families scattered throughout the US.  This year's travels take her to parts of SD, KS, TN, TX, GA and MN.  Several things always mark Grandma's visits.  One is the fafamilybulous baking that takes place.  This year, with the help of several of my nieces and nephew and a family friend we manufactured several dozen cupcakes, lots of buns and love knots, a dozen kuchen, 3 dozen bread bowls, noodles and a batch of brushkas.  In the process we dirtied literally every single baking dish, utensil and prep bowl in my kitchen and ended up with almost as much flour on the floor as in the bread ;)

 Grandma with Jake and our friends' daughter, Abby Deering

With this being the first Grandma visit since Jake was born I wasn't really sure what to expect.  I  have to say I was surprised by how wonderful Grandma was with Jake and how much they enjoyed one another!  I knew Grandma likes to cuddle babies and Jacob isn't much of a cuddler so I didn't know how that would pan out.  She was GREAT!  They both spent a lot of time down on the ground hanging out, playing and reading books.  I don't know who was happier - Grandma or Jake :) He loved having the company and she won tons of smiles from him. 

It brought me so much joy to watch them together.  Somehow Grandma even managed to bounce/rock Jake to sleep one afternoon.  I still do not know how this happened.  She has the patience of a tortoise when it comes to her great grandbabies. 

Grandma sat like this for the better part of an hour before he fell asleep

Some of the other highlights of the week included taking her to the Grand Ole Opry (it was as much fun for us to watch her in awe the whole night as watching the performances), Chris trying to calculate how may kuchen she's made in her lifetime (an accurate estimate couldn't be made; our best guess is in the 100's of 1000's), taking walks around the neighborhood and watching Jake figure out how to crawl.

There is so much more I could say about the great time we had with her here.  We've always enjoyed her visiting but typically we (Chris and I) were worn out by the end and ready to send her on to the next stop.  That wasn't the case this year.  We were all truly sad to see her go.  She is a special lady and I am so blessed to have the opportunity to spend time with her, laugh with her, learn from her and be loved by her.  When I am a grandma one day I hope to be just like her.  Here's a link to a slide show of Grandma on the farm.  Our wedding photographer took these pictures and put this together almost 4 years ago now.  I think it captures her spirit so well.  We love you Grandma Vivian!

A Family of Three

Okay, so I know I may have lost all credibility in my blogging ability after such a long dry spell but I'm back at it now!  We are officially a family of 3 as of August 16th.  I was working on Jake's birth story and it was taking me way to long and then before I knew it he was a month old, then 2 months old and now almost 3 months old! We've had a whirlwind last month with a 9 day trip to SD and a long weekend with friends at Edisto Island.  I have tons to catch up on here and lots and lots of pictures to share but the weather has been just way too nice to be in the house when I have a few minutes to relax (today is rainy which is why this post is happening)*.  More to come.

*I wrote this one a couple weeks ago but forgot to publish it!  I promise there are more in the works!

The Tail End...

I can confidently say I am very excited I'm approaching the tail end of this pregnancy journey.  It’s really been a great experience.  And now I’m ready for the experience to wrap up and transition to motherhood.  I guess it’s a good thing that women get tired of being pregnant at the end since it actually makes the prospect of labor and birth a welcomed prospect rather than something scary.  You can tell me that I should enjoy these last days/weeks because it’s much easier when the baby is inside than outside, but it really doesn’t change the fact that we can’t wait to meet him!

Showered with Love

All of my wonderful Nashville and Miami based sister-in-laws (5) and mother-in-laws (2) planned and executed an absolutely incredible baby shower for me in July.  They put so much work, time and love it to it.  I’m so lucky to have such wonderful women in my life and unbelievably grateful for them and to be part of their families!  I would write more about the shower, but you’ll be better served by visiting Courtney’s (one of the sister-in-laws) blog post about it here. She’s a master-blogger so I’m totally stealing her masterfully written post rather than doing my own.  Besides, it gives you good reason to check out her blog.  Her cute family is so much fun to read about! 

Maternity Photos

A huge thank you goes out to our friends, Tim and Katie Walsh.  They're in our community group at church and I also work with Tim at Dave Ramsey’s office.  I could go on and on about how much we love this couple and their amazing talents.  One of those talents is photography!  Tim says he’s an amateur, but I think the photos below prove otherwise.  They were so sweet to offer to take some maternity photos for us and I am so glad they did!  I think I was about 35 weeks along in these shots.  The soccer ball shape in these pictures is now very basketball looking. 



Looks like I swallowed a soccer ball!





Family of three




Ultra-sound image from 18 weeks.  Such a cute little profile!




Can you tell we're excited about this baby?




These overalls were Chris' when he was just a wee boy. Can't wait to see our little guy in them!

  Thanks again Tim and Katie for blessing us with these captured memories!  We love you!

Blueberry Pancake Kind of Day

Today is a blueberry pancake kind of day.  We ran like crazy yesterday to get our weekend checklist done. Yes, for those of you wondering, living with my husband we have an actual checklist that is made every Saturday morning and hung on the fridge so we can check things off as we go.  If we happen to do something that is not on the checklist, it gets added and then crossed off. If only all of life was as easy to manage as the weekend checklist!  Anyway, so we ran like crazy yesterday to get everything done and today we have NOTHING left on the checklist except for church this evening. A true day of rest.  I think this is the first time since we've been married that we've had a whole weekend day to do whatever we want!  What makes us savor it even more is that we know these days will become pretty much non-existent once our bundle of joy arrives.  So we're making the most of it. We slept in, made blueberry pancakes and eggs for breakfast, we'll take naps, watch a movie, read a book, write a blog post, go for a walk, all of those gloriously wonderful things that always sound so great, but we rarely stop to do because life gets in the way.  We'll enjoy it today and get geared up for a busy few weeks...the next 5 nights in a row we have evening commitments.  We're packing everything in that we can while it's just the 2 of us...including a blueberry pancake kind of day!

Cloth Diapers

So the world of cloth diapers was a foreign land I'd only heard of in stories.  Then we started planning for a baby.  I figured being a responsible pre-motherhood adult, I should check into it.  Thus began my head-first dive into unknown territory to see what more I could find out. 

Who would've known the vast expanse of mommy bloggers that have an opinion on CDing! (BTW, that is how people in the "know" refer to cloth diapering.  You're welcome.)  Prefolds, All-in-ones (AIO), Pocket, One-Size (OS), cloth inserts, disposable inserts, snaps vs hooks vs velcro etc etc etc.  Enough to make your head spin! 

My take-aways:

1. Cloth diapers have come a long way
2. They definitely cut down on the cost of diapers your baby will wear
3. Get ready to do laundry
4. It's hard to know which brands, variety, type will be best for your baby until you've tried several out.

In conclusion, dear friends, we are going to take the trip to the land of CDing with our little guy.  I don't have the details figured out (I mean who really ever does in life?) but I am excited to learn more!  And don't worry, we'll keep some disposables around so if fate would have you watching our sweet man and cloth diapers freak you out, no fear!  Now on to bottles, carriers, vaccines, pediatricians....goodness we have a lot to learn about.

Update:  From the time I started this post until I got around to publishing it, I've made some more progress on determining how to tackle the start of this CDing adventure.  If you're interested in learning more or seeing what we're going with, check out http://www.cottonbabies.com/.  I'll let you know in 6 months how it's working out!