Six weeks!

We have reached that "magic" week and everything is slowly coming into routine for us now in the Palmer house. I say it's a magic week because it seems that the majority of mother's return to work at this time as it is the standard amount of maternity leave. I could not imagine doing it. I've been nervous about this point because my sister, Kristen, returned to Boise this weekend and Sam is now back at work full time leaving me with Jack. It's not that I feel scared about taking care of the baby by myself-that I can handle. It's the fact that I'm used to talking to a variety of people at work all day and now I'm with someone who can't quite talk back yet. We will see how well this goes, luckily I have a very supportive husband and a long list of projects to complete.


Things seem to be going well, we are no longer walking around like zombies all sleep deprived. Jack has figured out that night is for sleeping. I'm very excited about that though I know that it could change at any night now. He is becoming more interactive as well, cooing and smiling reactively. Sam was impressed that he actually grabs at his little toy of the week and seems to enjoy it. Jack has a habit of being smiley and laughing for me but for some reason can't quite put it on for his daddy yet, which is upsetting to Sam. It's hard to believe that he is almost 2 months already, soon he will have to get his first set of shots!



This weekend was Jack's first big car trip. We decided that it was time for him to visit Grandma Rena and Papa Jerry. He did extremely well both there and back-slept the entire time. I guess that is what you expect from a baby his age. We enjoyed seeing everyone and Jack finally got to meet his Aunt Rhonda and cousin Sarah. Sarah seemed a little apprehensive about the baby at first, not really wanting to hold him. After watching everyone else take their turns and playing with him from afar, she finally got brave and decided to hold him. She washed her hands and climbed up on the couch, sat up straight and tall just like she was told. I lowered him into her awaiting arms and after about 5 seconds of this Jack began to go poo quite loudly and she yanked her hand away from his bottom faster than you would think possible. It was adorable. We also go to see Bailey, who is thriving there. She started jumping at the gate and whining for us to come play with her as soon as we got out of the car, which was nice to know she remembers us.


Here are some pictures of the little one, and you can see my chopped off hair if you haven't already.

A man and a woman had a little baby...

Presenting Jackson William Palmer:

At long last...

Sorry for being MIA in the blogging world, however I think Kristen is the only one that's been hurt by this.

I decided to post today because we have the nursery furniture in and everything is all set up, so I thought I would put up some pictures. We'll start with what we had to work with before:

This is not all that the room was prior to its makeover, however I forgot to take any pictures of that. Basically it was a home office, with junk galore piled everywhere. After about I would say 4 or 5 months of pregnancy I finally broke down and had a crying fit about how unprepared for baby we were, so my husband dutifully began the preparation to create a beautiful nursery for our little baby. It took a long time for our furniture to finally come in, but I think it was worth the wait.

This really doesn't do it justice, but it's a hard room to get a lot of good angles in.

We also have an adorable cradle/bassinet all ready to go. This is one that has been past down in Sam's family for quite some time. He's almost 30 and he slept in it as a baby, as did his brother who is 12 years older than him....I was nervous about it at first to say the least, but it is quite sturdy and safe. Here is Sam working so hard to get the darn thing back together after insisting it needed to be taken apart to travel in the car.

We've had two baby showers already, which provided us with a lot of adorable clothes and toys, as well as the little necessities like soap, lotion, butt balm and we are really appreciative of every one's generosity. I've actually kept up to date on my thank you notes for these. It's impressive when you think that it took me close to 5 months to finish my thanks you cards for the wedding. The one thing I have learned from the baby showers is that no matter how much you want to during your pregnancy don't buy a lot of diapers. I whined and whined because my crazy husband didn't want to buy anything for the first two trimesters until he broke down and let me buy them. Now after those two showers and the two packages I bought we have this in our baby's closet:

I know you can't really see the true extent of what is there and I thought about piling it up in the floor so that you could, but it took me forever to get them to stay in there. Mostly sized newborn and 1-2!! There's also enough wipes in there for I promise you 6 months at least. I know, I know- newborns go through a lot of diapers. They also outgrow them! I should have thought ahead and bought bigger sizes, luckily you can trade them in for different sizes at our Walmart-even without a receipt. I do feel extremely prepared in that front though.

Anyway, that's really all that's been going on is baby preparation, nothing to terribly exciting. With the exception of the very large fish that I caught recently while my husband remains getting his line caught up frequently. My belly and my dog continue to grow and look adorable. I also learned to make this incredibly delicious and not too fattening treat, isn't it pretty.

That's all I can think of for now . I was going to put pictures up of our trip to meet Alton Brown but for some reason can't get them from Sam's phone to the computer. Just remember Kristen, he wore a yellow sear sucker suit, he hugged me and it was awesome!!!

3D/4D baby

AHEC just updated their technology and got a 3D/4D capable ultrasound machine. So what does that mean for us? Free ultrasound with 3D imaging of course! someone has to be the guinea pig. I got to watch as my little baby yawned, kicked, hicupped and flip flopped in my tummy all in amazing 3D/4D quality. I am posting some of the pictures that the doctor burned to a disc for me.....only some because not all of them are exactly appropriate for web viewing. Hope you enjoy!! PS> it's still a little creepy looking because he does't have much fat on him. Oh yea, we settled on a brilliant name, Jackson William Palmer AKA Jack.

Baby furniture

We ordered our baby furniture!! I just thought I would post pictures of it so that everyone can see. I'm very excited about this step in preparation. Soon, I will be allowed to buy diapers. It's only a matter of time.

Now we just have to find a perfect rocker and table to go with it. and bedding, and curtains and everything else. One check mark to put on our progress list is that Sam finished painting the walls blue today! And I get to help do the white trim. I'm so excited!!!

23 weeks and getting bigger

I decided to give you some pictures of me as well, in case you couldn't see in the previous post how big I am. Oh yes...and I also just realized that we never posted with the sex of the baby. Probably obvious now-what with the color and theme, and the name poll- we are having a boy!! Currently name Jack...no middle name to speak of so for now just Jack. He's getting bigger and much more active. I've taken to putting things on my stomach and it dance around as he kicks at it.

This is me at 22 weeks but I'm not much bigger now, though I have broken down and bought maternity pants since then.

Also, we had a "big" snow storm a few weeks ago and Sam and Bailey had a blast. Here are my nut jobs playing in the snow. Doesn't Sam looking like a creepy psycho...

Banishment

After a few weeks of being stressed out about our lack of having anything for our baby on the way, my dear husband went in to go mode. All week he's been rummaging around in the "office", clearing out bookcases, closets and reminiscing over lego toys and Fraggle Rock stories on records. It wasn't until now I realized that I"m not the only one in this relationship that packed their whole life into boxes and kept every single momento or random piece of paper, because you just never know when you'll need it again. By yesterday afternoon I think he had enough and just started trying to through away everything. We moved furniture...correction I stood by and watched as Sam moved furniture because apparently its absurd for me to even touch heavy things, vacuumed closets and washed down walls until we were down to a bare room with a computer desk shoved into the very center of the room for lack of anywhere else to keep it right now. Finally we were ready to paint. I'm really excited about this part, though I'm not sure why. We went to Wal-Mart and debated over paint colors. For those of you who don't know the theme we are going with, I've decided to use a little pond/fishing theme. None of the cutsie bedding really fits, but I've somehow convinced Sam and Kristen into painting a mural for me. I have big plans for this mural-though I'm not at all artistic. Anyway, we decided after much deliberation that we would go with Scandanavian Sky Blue for the rest of the walls. Here comes the banishment part.. after we got home I convinced Sam to let me paint just one little section of a wall, that way I could at least say I contributed some. I even made sure that wall contained an open window, wore a mask and kept a fan going to blow out all the horrible toxic fumes you hear so much about. It was wonderful, I painted a whole wall and part of another- I had to use up all the paint in the pan , we couldn't waste it. Now, it's a new morning and my husband is not as easy to convince. He woke up, sore all over from his hard work yesterday and went straight away to painting that room. And BANISHED me to the living room, far far away so that our child would not be retarded. While I appreciate his concerns and begrudgingly admitt that he is right, we don't know what effects the fumes could have, it's torture. I'm stuck out here listening to the dog whine because she wants out so badly but won't stay out side for very long. I can't let her just run around though because that door is partially open so Sam doesn't suffocate and I can just see tiny blue paw prints all over my house. It's ok though, I will be able to contribute to all this work for our new child soon. There is so much still to do and this nesting period is no where near over. I've included pictures of the soon to be nursery so you can check out this beautiful color blue. Please if you feel that it just looks like baby blue or regular sky blue, don't tell me. I can't take it! It's a magnificent blue!!! p.s I'm completely hormonal..so overlook it if you can!