Sleep

The one piece of advice we seemed to hear alot prior to Harper's arrival was to get plenty of sleep, because that would be gone soon. Everyone was right on, and it isn't just because she is up crying in the middle of the night either. As a new parent, the slightest squeak makes you want to jump out of bed and check on her. We were also complicated by the fact that Harper didn't want us to put her down the first couple of days back from the hospital. She ended up sleeping on our chest in a chair for the first couple of nights, which makes for some great pictures, but not so great sleeping coniditions for the parents. But then on Saturday night Gina tried again, and as you can see from the picture, we weren't the only ones celebrating.

Making it work

So we have struggled a bit since we got home from the hospital and have been on our own with Harper. But that was to be expected as new parents. We had a doctor's appointment this morning and after that she slept for a good while and has been great since. So hopefully that is a sign of good things to come. She wasn't too happy that she was being compared to her dad though, by the look on her face in this picture. She does love sleeping on me and Gina though. And you can really tell that Shelby is doing ok with the new family member.

HOME

One of our biggest fears was coming home. Not only because we would no longer have the nurses around to assist, or the ability to send Harper to the nursery if we needed a break. Moreso because of our original 2 "children": Coal and Shelby. As we pulled into the driveway today, we discussed our strategy. In the end, we acted as if everything was normal and once we were in the house and settled, we let Shelby sniff Harper, and Coal just wanted to see her. So far, so good. Gina fed Harper, and they are now taking a nap. Shelby wanted to sleep in the bed too, but is now laying down on the couch. I just hope this new dynamic works for the animals.

Harper's first day

So it's been a crazy almost 48 hours now. It is just amazing that we now have this beautiful baby. The last time we left our house, there were 2 of us, and now we have a family. Harper has been wonderful with letting everyone hold her. And her eyes are so active, when she is awake, it is just unbelievable to watch. But right now she just loves to sleep, and we can't help but stare at her because we don't want to miss a thing. Thanks to everyone for all your well wishes and we can't wait to show her off to everyone.

Welcome to the world

Harper Grace was born at 8:07 pm last night, at 6lbs, 1oz, and is 18.75 inches long. Mom and baby are doing wonderful, although Gina is counting down the minutes until she can eat again.




Those are 2 very happy grandmothers!

Scared or excited

We had this conversation as we walked into the hospital last night. For the last time, we had walked out of our house as a couple, to return as a family. The mixed emotions of anticipating a child and all the excitement really starts to blend with a fear of having to take care of said child. I really think it is good that we are going into this with a sort of trepidation to temper the excitement.
So after getting settled in last night in our room, we were able to really look forward to today and welcoming our baby. The induction started around 730am, and we are just waiting for things to progress. Here is the last baby bump picture, taken right before we left the house last night. And the wonderful "bed" that I slept in, all 6 feet of it for my 6'4" body.

Ready

I wouldn't go that far, but we are getting close. Gina finished up Harper's room today, and it looks amazing.



And on the entry wall is an afghan that my grandmother made. Gina wanted to hang it from the wall, and ended up re-using an old frame, and it really stands out.

And the best 4D ultrasound image that we have received, Gina framed and put in Harper's bathroom, so I tried my best to get a good picture of it.

Catching up

A lot has happened since the last post. Mainly, the baby's room is finally coming together. We received a lot of great gifts at a shower that Lesley held for Gina. So I spent a weekend putting together the pack n play, a stroller, checking out the car seat, all that fun stuff. The next weekend our furniture arrived, so I picked that up from the store, but not without some drama about the coloring of one of the pieces. That same week Gina's office had a shower for her, and I headed down to her office for that. We got some great stuff there, and the baby will actually have clothes to wear now too. And just this past Saturday my sister had a couples shower for us, which turned out awesome. The first shower was women only, so I missed out on most of the food. The shower Saturday made up for that for me, because the food was amazing. And we still have some of the mini cakes left over, which is unbelievable b/c I could sit and eat them all at once. I don't have any pictures of the baby's room yet, but I will this week. We finally decided on a name, Harper Grace, so the room is getting the final touches. Once all of that is completed, I will photograph and post. In the meantime, here are some pictures from Lesley's shower, and a baby bump picture. Also, I can't believe I am going to be a dad in 3 weeks or less!!

Move the arm already ...

So everytime we go and get an ultrasound, our baby insists on hiding her face. She is camera shy already. Well 2 weeks ago the office received their new state of the art ultrasound machine, and the sales rep was in the office assisting with all the new technology. But again, even so, there was an arm in almost every picture. I didn't post any of those pictures b/c the print outs were too dark. Well this week the new machine paid off, as it has a TiVo like feature, which allowed the tech to rewind and get this great shot.

You can still see her hand on her cheek, but it is just far enough away to get a clear shot. In the next one you can see the pouty lower lip as she wasn't too happy about getting bumped around to try and make her move that arm.

Now that's a baby bump ...

We had our first "prepared childbirth" class last night, and I think it was more fun and not as boring as I had expected. I even made the mistake of volunteering, which had the entire class rolling, and G crying she was laughing so hard.

Sorry for the poor image quality, the teacher took the picture with an instant camera, and I had to scan it in. I was loaded up with a back-pack, and then she gradually added in several weighted bags of rice, until I was carrying 30 more pounds. I don't think pregnancy looks as good on me as it does on Gina though. Here she is at 33 weeks.

Home sweet home

So we are now in our new home, YEAH!!! I had every intention of spending the night of the 23rd in the house, since we closed that morning. But the weather did no cooperate, and i hardly had anything in the house that day. I managed to get most of the PODS unit unloaded on Christmas Eve, and even went back to the house to sleep in my own bed for the first time in 3 months. Then Gina called and sounded upset that I wasn't at her parents house to spend X-mas Eve with her, so I drove sleepy, which was probably worse than if I had been drunk. But eventually we finally slept in our own bed and got everything moved in to the house. It is still a work in progress, but livable and awesome. At some point we will have a get together for everyone to check it out.

On the pregnancy side of things, Gina wasn't allowed to lift a finger during the move and is now just about 8 weeks away from her due date. We think we have a name picked out, but I am wavering and lobbying for a different name. Since she is carrying our child, Gina gets final say. With the craziness of the holidays and the move, I haven't had a chance to upload the latest belly pics, or even take any the past week, so i will prioritize that this weekend and have another post.

Almost there ...

So 11 weeks to go as of yesterday. I took a baby bump picture last week and then never posted it. It was the same day as the latest ultrasound too. At that point she was about 2lbs, according to the weekly e-mail updates we receive from a baby website. Anyway, here they are:



We are also now 16 days away from closing on our new house. And we can't wait, even though we will be moving in on Christmas Eve. The seller is re-locating to Seattle and her company is paying for the move, and that is the earliest the corporate movers could do it. It will be nice to open that present early!

25 Weeks

Here is Gina at 25 weeks. I didn't note that she was at 19 weeks in the previous photo. I am going to try and do better to take these more often.


Yes, we are trying to get the animals used to having the baby around.

A house?

I have been putting off updating the blog because the house hunt has been so stressful. I took new baby bump pictures last week and have yet to even load them on the computer, but I do plan on taking care of that tonight.

So here is what has happened in the last 6 weeks:
We made an offer on a house, it was countered, and ridiculously so, we just walked away. Come to find out it was a good thing b/c we know one of the neighbors and after the fact they told us about flooding issues.
We made an offer on another house, they waited until the deadline and then stalled, then countered our offer. We find out the next day that they were waiting on a second bidder to make an offer, which they took, and angered me to no end. Then last week, the house I first posted about back in September that was our old house on steroids, we finally put an offer in on it. The family was afraid of being in our current position and asked if they could have an extra day to review and look at houses for themself. We gladly agreed b/c we loved the house. Well Saturday they called and said they wouldn't be forced to make a decision and were going to take as much time as they liked to review our offer. At this point, we just said sure, but warned them that we were going to start looking at other houses.
The next day we met with our agent at noon and at 1:30 found the perfect home. The couple that stalled planned to meet with their agent at 2pm to make a counter offer. We called and told them that wouldn't be necessary. And today offer #5 was accepted. The steroid house shouldn't have stalled b/c now they lost a sale, but in the end it seems to have worked out for us. I just hope I haven't jinxed us with this post.
This should be our new house, once we complete an inspection and all that other good stuff.

As promised ...

One baby bump picture, with more to come.

GIRL!!!!

So we went on Friday morning and had the ultra-sound and luckily the baby was cooperative and we could tell almost immediately that she is a girl. Now we really have to start thinking about names and we are already struggling and having nightmares about not being able to choose a name.

I did take a picture of the baby bump too, but unfortunately I can not find the cable to upload the images to the computer. And it didn't even dawn on me to take the memory card out and just put that into the laptop and upload the images. So I will try that tonight and hopefully have that up for everyone to see.

Baby bump

So I am in danger of failing in my first duty as a father, I have yet to take any pictures of the baby bump. But that is going to change this week. Our appointment to find out the gender is Friday morning, so I will promise to post an ultrasound picture and a baby bump picture this weekend.

Time to breathe

We officially moved out of our first home on Sunday and in with the in-laws. I can't tell you how nice it was to sleep in an actual bed for the first time in a week. I rented a PODS container and had most of the furniture out of the house last weekend, including the beds, so I was sleeping on a matress pad. I was staying at the house alone, so I didn't need too much in the way of furniture. I kept out one chair, my tv, and a desk I used as the tv stand. I am glad it is all over for now. I may change my mind, depending on how long it takes us to find a new home, but I think I will be paying someone to unload the PODS.

We are taking our time with the home search now and being extremely picky about what houses we even look at. Last Friday we found a great house, one I describe as our old house on steroids. The owners blew out the back wall of the house and added a breakfast room and great room. Of course, as nice as it is, the price is steep and the square footage is way too much. Yet we still really want it. If the market keeps going this way, we may just make a ridiculous offer to see if they would take it. Until then, we will keep looking.

Housing update

Wow, what a crazy 2 weeks it has been since the last post. The appraisal on our current house did not go as well as we had hoped, so we ended up having to re-work the contract. That was no easy task and at one point I called the sale off, at which point the buyers made some concessions and the deal was re-written and finalized. So on Friday we close on the sale of our house. As for our home search, we had a house, but the inspection was a nightmare. The amount of things wrong with the house was staggering, and many of them were major items. At that point we just voided the contract, not even bothering to submit a repair list. Now we are without a new house, so everything is being packed into a POD and we are moving in with the in-laws.

Hurdles

So we have a contract on our current house, scheduled to close on the 26th. And as of Saturday morning, we have a contract on a new house, also scheduled to close on the 26th. Now, all we have to do is clear a few hurdles. The first of which we should know about today. An appraiser came out to our house on Friday and we are supposed to find out the number today. Not only were we able to sell our house rather quickly, about 6 weeks, but we also sold it for a higher price than many of the comps in teh area, thus the concern about the appraisal value. If it doesn't meet the sales price, we could lose the sale. Once we get that number, and hopefully it meets or exceeds, we can then start the inspection and appraisal process on our new home. I am so ready for this to be over.