Fall Weather Part 2 and a Baby Bump

Since I didn't have any pictures to go with the lentil soup recipe, I thought I'd post a few from yesterday when Lucy and I were out enjoying some beautiful fall weather:

And here's a shot of Lu admiring our fall porch decor, with our gigantic white pumpkin in the background:

Some pretty baby curls:

Dancing in the street with mama:

And, I actually snapped a shot of my baby belly! Okay it's not great and my face is hidden, but at this point it's better than nothing! This was 22 weeks. I promise I will get Joel to take a better one sometime in the near future. But now you know I'm not making this up! There really is a baby in there (and she's a kicker). 

Our Son

On January 25^th, 2012 our firstborn son, Christian Benedict, was born. He went to be with the Lord a few minutes later. I had been having chills and a bit of a fever for a few days before, which I thought were just flu symptoms but which I now know were signs of a septic abortion. I had an ultrasound that morning and everything looked wonderful. They saw that he was a boy and he kicked his feet and bounced his head around and I loved him.

But that afternoon I began having contractions, and they continued to get worse. Since nothing had been wrong that morning I didn’t go in to the doctor, and they just suggested pain medication and a warm bath. Soon they became so bad that I felt like I was in labor again, and it turns out that I was.

We knew something was seriously wrong, and Joel took Lucy over to a friend’s house so that we could go into the hospital. But it was right then, in the ten minutes that he was gone, that our son was born, with only me there to catch him on our bathroom floor.

When he came out he was still alive, just long enough for me to tell him that we loved him, and then our Heavenly Father took him out of my arms and gathered him into His infinitely more capable and tender arms.

This was a terrible, hard, painful experience, and one that we will never forget. But in the midst of our sorrows, we acknowledge that this hard providence was given to us for a reason by our God. And with this mindset we have come to take comfort in many things.

First, I know that we worship a living God, one who died and rose again. And because of that we have a son who died but lives on in heaven. He is absent from his body but he is present with the Lord. And while we may be grieving, he is not.

Second, I know that God works all things out for good for those who love Him. I had my hopes and plans for Christian as all mothers do: that he and Lucy would grow up thick as thieves, and that we could shower him with gifts and love. But even there God had better plans for him: And if we being sinful know how to give good gifts, how much more will our heavenly father give gifts to those who ask of him (Matt. 7:11). So I have asked, and I know Christian has already received more gifts and love than we could ever give Him.

Third, I know that God is not distant, and we are not alone. Even when I gave birth to Christian in the bathroom, my Father was with me, leading me through the valley of the shadow of death. His Spirit has brought Joel and I immense comfort in these past 24 hours, and confirmed for us that God will never give us more than we can handle.

So we named him Christian Benedict. He is our little Christian son who was blessed to go and be with the Lord straightaway, without the pain and trials of a life on this earth. He has traded corruptible flesh for incorruptible and sorrow for joy. We see what is to come through a mirror dimly, but he sees the glory face to face.

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. (2 Cor. 4:17-18).”

15 Weeks

Today I hit 15 weeks, and I thought I'd take a picture of the growing bump. Baby is now the size of an apple!

I only had a few seconds to snap it, so I didn't manage to get one with my face in it, but that's not really the point of a bump picture, is it? As you can see from Joel's two slippers and the doll scattered haphazardly around me, Lucy was running amok, and I had to go keep an eye on her.

And, if anyone cares, here I am at 14 weeks with Lucy. I'm even wearing the same shirt. It's deja vu!

Bugaboo Giveaway

So I don't usually use my blog for promotional purposes, but this one was too good to miss! Baby Gizmo is giving away a Bugaboo Donkey stroller (worth 1600 dollars) and I'm hoping to win it. :) And if you're like me and want to win it too, head on over to http://www.babygizmo.com/giveaways.php and enter!

What's the real reason I'm excited about this stroller? Well, because it converts into a double stroller, and I'm really going to need a double stroller come mid-July of this upcoming year! :)

Pretty Blue Eyes

I'll admit it. I spend a lot of time staring into Lucy's big blue eyes. How can I help it when they're so pretty?


I think Lucy was explaining something very important to me when this picture was taken.


I love my baby!

Pictures of our Baby Girl

In case some of you can't see the videos in the previous post, here are a few shots of our adorable Lucy!

Lucy Rose Cohen

Praise God for our beautiful healthy baby girl! Lucy Rose Cohen was born on October 15th at 1:27 a.m. weighing a hefty 8 pounds 4 oz and measuring at 20.5 inches. While the entire labor was only 15 hours long, the last 4 were pushing which made it quite the experience! Thankfully my sister was there and took some video footage of her first few minutes in the world.

Nursery Pictures

I suppose that being 4 days overdue has its pros. Like being able to crochet baby a Halloween pumpkin hat. And actually posting pictures of the nursery that we worked for so long on. So here they are! The long awaited nursery in its finished condition (ok, we're still shopping for a floor lamp to go behind the rocking chair, but besides that it's finished).

So first off, here's a picture of the nursery from standing in the doorway. I tried to get in as much of it as I could, what you're missing is the changing table and dresser and closet which are all on the right side of the picture.

And while the camera's flash might make everything nice and clear, it also tends to distort the colors so here's a more fuzzy shot of the room, but with the colors much softer and prettier than the first:

Here's a close-up of the crib, the canopy, and the dresser with its cute little stuffed animals and carrousel on it. The bassinet is only temporarily to be stored there, until baby graduates to her crib.

Next we have a shot of the rocking chair corner (imagine a really cute floor lamp that I'm going to find on sale somewhere).



These are the two cute animal prints that complete the set of three mom and I made for baby's room out of greeting cards. I love how they turned out!

And on the wall next to the rocking chair we have our fabulous craigslist bookshelf!



And I have to point out what mom and I have dubbed the frog-house.

We couldn't decide what to put on the top shelf, until mom came up with the brilliant idea of a bird-cage. So we spent an afternoon scouring all the stores in Moscow and Pullman looking for a bird-cage and we found the perfect one. For 70 dollars. So with that plan out the window we came to our last stop, the antique mall on Main/Washington street, and found this charming little house for only $20. Stick a couple of frogs on it and it becomes a frog-house. Ta-da!

These adorable elephants were giving to me by my friends Deborah and Lydia. They parade along the second shelf of baby's bookshelf and I can't wait until she's old enough to play with them. They're so cute!

And last we have the changing table side of the room. Please notice the lining on the baskets underneath the changing table are of the same fabric as the rocking chair pillow. That's because my mother very kindly made them for me after we could not find baskets with a lining that matched our color scheme.

Plus she also sewed the adorable banner that goes over the changing table so that we could stick with the fabric scheme we already had. Isn't she fabulous?

I love turning on the little frog light, it will make late-night diaper changes a little bit more enjoyable.

So there you have it! And the one thing we're still waiting on? Our beautiful baby girl. Any day now!

Fun in Fall

Fall soup: sausage and pasta with spinach, yum! Plus I made homemade buttermilk biscuits for the first time and they turned out wonderful!

Fall flowers from my friend and coworker Ellen to celebrate my last day of work (and baby's due date):

And a little bit of the fall decor around my house. I was in a hurry and only got these two shots but I also have some adorable mini pumpkins on the dining room table and various other fall items sitting around:

And of course, what makes this fall the most fun:

2 Random Comments

Yesterday Joel and I went to the Farmer's Market and picked up ingredients to make salsa. Joel is a salsa-making king, I could eat it non-stop! While at the Farmer's Market we also grabbed some honey crisp apples from another vendor, and they are delicious. The only problem is we can't finish one in a single sitting. To demonstrate how big they are I snapped a shot of a farmer's market apple next to a Winco one.

And I am also finally able to post a picture of the seat cushion I made for our rocking chair! I sewed up this pillow cover many weeks ago but never got around to hand-stitchin the back shut. So my mother graciously helped me out yesterday, and so that's one more nursery project down!

I think the back is particularly cute.

And in other exciting news, all except for finding one floor lamp to add a little more light, we are completely finished with the nursery!! Pictures are hung, curtains are up, bedding is washed and ready to be used, hurrah! So I plan on showing it off here in the next few days, I can't believe it's finally done!

Nursery Decor and a Baby Belly Shot

Here we are again, late with our 38 week shot. Oh well! Better late than never! But since it's almost Friday I decided to make it 38 1/2 weeks. It makes me feel better about the amount of time left before we see our little girl. We're both getting seriously antsy to see what she looks like and discover her personality.



And the nursery is ALMOST done! Now we're down to the decorating which is a good place to be. At least if she's born before we're done she has freshly washed clothes and a place to sleep. Here's a shot of our dresser with our most recent decor project: artwork.



Mom and I searched high and low for artwork for the baby's room. We were very picky about colors, not to mention what the artwork actually depicted. Finally we gave up on finding the perfect picture, and I decided to try another Young House Love idea: frame notecards. So while at the Fall Jolly this year we picked up three note-cards with three different animals on them. Then we went to Michaels and found this adorable card-stock that matched the nursery's color scheme. Throw in a few white frames from Walmart and there you go! Cheap and easy wall art.




Sorry about the picture quality, the lion is a little hard to see in that shot but here he is in a close-up:



Very fun, eh?

I'm still working on getting the other two pictures hung, but once I do I will show you our cute elephant and turtle frames as well.

The Fair!

Every year when the trailers and trucks roll into town towing the rides and booths that will make up that year's fair, Joel and I get practically giddy with excitement. What part of the fair do we like the best? The elephant ears? The dizzying rides (which I was forced to refrain from this year)? The bright, gaudy lights and music? The farm animals, some cute and little, some large and grotesque? It's really hard for us to choose (although if pressed I think Joel would land on the elephant ears).

We realized that this is the 5th year we've gone to the fair together. In fact, the fair was one of our very first dates and our first lesson in fair etiquette. We both ate an elephant ear and then decided to go on the spinning rides... the result was almost disastrous. Neither of us rediscovered our elephant ears, thankfully, but we were close. So in the years to come we've been much more careful.

This year as we toured the crafts section, I couldn't help thinking about pumpkins. I've always loved pumpkins, they are one of my favorite decorating pieces. But this year they're doubly special because that's what the baby books use to describe your baby at full term. One week she's a kumquat, the next thing you know, she's a full-out pumpkin. So here's our 37 week photo, posing next to what we hope will be nowhere near the size of our pumpkin. But she sure would win a prize, wouldn't she?

Artsy-Craftsy and Baby Update

Recently I've been thinking about changing tables (surprise, surprise) and how a lot of babies seem to need distraction while they're on them. And since I haven't been able to find a cute mobile to suspend over our little gal while she's being changed, I decided to go with a different form of visual stimulation to occupy her. My friend Kathryn was given a toy that has black and white images on it that she said her baby loved to stare at on the changing table. When I went searching online, the cheapest I could find them for was about $30 (like this one). So I went to Michaels and found a styrofoam bifold on sale and some great black, white and red stationery and made my own! And I think it turned out pretty cute.
Here's one side, laid flat:



And the other side when it's folded.



I'll probably buy some ribbon to attach it to the wall next to her changing table if I can't get it to stay up just being propped.

And once again we skipped a week, but we are now officially at 36 weeks!



I can't believe how soon this little girl will be here. Look how excited I am!!



And one more picture for you, yesterday we went to a luau at our friend's the Church's house. We had a fantastic time. Joel found a fabulous hawaiian t-shirt for the occasion. I could not fit in to the grass skirt we had at home, but my old navy dress was just as festive.

34 1/2 Weeks

Well we forgot 34 weeks, but since we remembered halfway through the week we thought we might as well do it then! Yesterday my good friend Kathryn came over to help me organize my baby room. This entailed moving furniture around for about an hour until we finally decided on the proper layout, and her standing precariously on top of books stacked on a chair to screw the canopy into the ceiling. But doesn't it look cute over baby's crib? Thanks Kathryn for the decorating tips! Once I've purchased the remaining items for her room I'll snap some photos of the whole deal!

33 Weeks

Happy 33 weeks to baby! Her favorite things right now are getting the hiccups at least three times a day, sticking her heel as far out of mom's right side as possible, and becoming very excited right when mom lays down to sleep at night. We're getting very excited to meet her, the end is in sight!