One Month Old Already

Baby Brooke.wmv

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Brooke's Baby Shower

(forgive me for copying from the Bliven blog...)

Last weekend my sister organized a baby shower for me and Brooke. Since I have so many clothes and "essentials" already, the theme was bows and books! A little girl can never have too many bows and we definitely needed to add some "girlie" books to her reading! Amazingly, there were NO repeat gifts! Brooke has tons to read and accessorize with now!

Baby blanket that my mom knitted for Brooke. Will be treasured forever!

Cute personalized bloomers from Megan with "Brooke" on the butt!

My amazingly creative sister MADE this bow holder and some of the bows on it for her favorite new niece.

I am so blessed!

The Closet is FULL!

We are pretty crazy organized when it comes to closets in our house. We don't live in an enormous house with tons of storage space, so we need to make the most of the space that we have. I'm sure that I learned the "clean closet" from my dad (especially if you have seen those pictures), but Brooke's closet looks pretty impressive now that it is complete and full.

Each set of hangers on the right of the tower holds a different set of months. 3-6 on the top, 0-3 in the middle (easily accessible), and 6-9 on the bottom, larger sizes are on the left. Each rack is organized by sleeve length so I can make sure that I get through all the clothes at least once before she grows out of them. Blankets and towels are on the shelves with socks, shoes, and hats in the pink canvas boxes. The top drawer holds bathing suits and coverups and the bottom drawer contains bibs and burp cloths. Diapers are on the bottom shelf with blanket to play on the floor on in the bottom pull out bin.

Remember...these are only the hanging clothes. All onesies and sleepers are housed in the dresser on the other side of the room. We're hoping to have the nursery completely decorated and organized in time for my shower this weekend, so I will post pictures when we are even more complete!

Thanks to Sophia for being born in April, and thanks to Susie for saving, organizing, and storing all the clothes for two years for them to finally be used again.

Closet and Clothes!!! Oh My!

Over Winter Break I washed, hung, and folded almost all of the clothes that I got from Susie. I also washed blankets, towels, burp clothes, bibs, and liners to baby gear. I am so tired of doing laundry. While I was doing all the laundry, Brad was busy building out a closet system to house the massive amount of clothes that we have. I will post pictures shortly! I still can't believe that I have three more months to wait...I am ready for her any day now!

Now I have to start preparing mentally for labor and preparing for the hospital stay and contacting my insurance company and all that fun paperwork. I am also debating whether or not to bank this baby's cord blood. We did not bank Brady's, but now there is so much that can be done with stem cells. I would hate for one of my babies to get sick and have the doctor tell me that it would have been easy to fix if we had cord blood to harvest stem cells from. Not to mention that Brad and I could benefit from it as well as all of our nieces and nephews if they got sick. ...just one more thing to figure out before the big day!

Three more months!

Baby Bedding

The bedding for Brooke's room was delivered yesterday, and the nursery is really coming along. I have washed all the newborn and 0-3 month clothes that Susie sent over (my goodness there are a ton...no new clothes needed!), and Brad is in the process of ripping out the old closet, painting the closet, and installing a new closet system. When the closet system is done I will probably be able to put away all the clothes up to 18 months (seriously!). Today we are going to head out to get a couple hundred hangers and canvas boxes from Pottery Barn. I can't wait for everything to be done so I can start organizing and putting away! ...only 14 more weeks to go!

It's a Girl!

Okay, so I have zero willpower. We knew that we were returning to the doctor on Tuesday for another ultrasound so they could get measurements that they couldn't get the first time. We had decided that we wanted to know the gender and we wanted to have the tech put the results in an envelope for us to open on Christmas....great plan right?!?!?

Well, Brady ended up having a 2 hour delay that morning, and the timing of our appointment meant that he had to come with us. So Brad, Brady, and I were all there when she asked if we wanted to know. So, I figured that God put all of us there at that point so that we could find out together.

When the technician said that she thinks that it is a GIRL. I didn't react the way I thought that I would. After having Brady, I was always so jealous of everyone that was getting pregnant and especially those pregnant with girls. I really thought that if I found out I was having a girl that I would be elated, crying for joy. Instead, I was shell shocked. I really thought that we were having a boy, and even if, for a moment, I considered the thought of a girl, it didn't stick around for long. I was so excited to meet our new baby boy and after snuggling with our new nephew and Godson, Maxson, I couldn't imagine anything better than another little boy. It took a few days for "girl" to sink in. I still can't really imagine life with another girl in the house, so that is a little unsettling, but we are excited nonetheless.

Susie is packing up all of Sophia's baby clothes so I can get a jump on cleaning and organizing the nursery over break. Now that we know a baby girl is on her way, there all of a sudden seem to be so many things that I now need to do to get ready.


...and we are naming her Brooke Eileen!