A present from Dee

This is a little care package I recieved from the Mathisons to help prepare me for one of the great challenges of having a baby, Diaper Changing. As you can see there are gloves, nose pins, goggles, and trash bags. I had already had some reservations about this facit of babies from our breast feeding class at the hospital. In this class the teacher, for some unknown reason, passed around a chart that showed the different colors of baby poo. To me it looked like some demented rainbow spectrum. After seeing that I did not want to even imagine what something like that would smell like. Now after getting this care package my mind is much more at ease. If all of these "tools" are necessary then my worst fears are confirmed and I have resolutely decided to go nowhere near those things when they are soiled. I owe a great thanks to the Mathisons for helping me towards my decision before the baby had arrived and before my sense of smell had been burned beyond recovery.

P.S. Erin will be calling you soon to vigorously dicuss my new decision and your part in it. Have a great day.

34 Weeks

Okay, it has been WAY too long since I've gotten around to taking some more belly pictures. I grown a bit since the last ones that we posted. So, here it is, 34 weeks pregnant.

Notice the little point where my belly button was. It is no longer a cute little "innie" belly button, it now regularly morphs from a pig snout (just the top sticking out) to an out right volcano. When I laugh, the pig snout oinks up and down. Thankfully when I laugh, the volcano doesn't actually errupt (but it does look like a cartoon volcano erupting). Of course this makes Ryan laugh hysterically everytime making me feel oh so much more self-conscious about my no longer cute little belly button.

Oh where has my "little" dog gone?

The other morning, I noticed that Lucy seemed to be missing. I knew that she was somewhere in the house, but I wasn't seeing her in any of her usual places. I looked on the floor in the nursery where she often likes to sleep and I didn't see her there. After looking around for a few minutes and not finding her, I looked in the nursery again and discovered her location.

This is actually a picture from the second time I found her under the crib that day. The first time I found her there, she was wedged under it even further and in a tighter little ball, but when I tried to take the picture the first time, here's what I got.

You have to be quick with the trigger for this little camera ham, otherwise she won't stay posed for a picture.

Crib Assembly

A few weeks ago, our nursery furniture arrived. Ryan actually put it together right away, but I'm just way behind on posting. We had a bit of a quality issue with the changing table, which we didn't notice until Ryan had it halfway assembled. It was quite an issue getting that resolved, but all the furniture is now in. The nursery is definately still a work in progress, so I don't have pictures of everything for you, but here are a few of Ryan assembling the furniture.

I took a look at the directions, just like every man does, to see how everything fit together.

I have my screwdriver in hand and everything is going smoothly.

Uh-Oh! Things have taken a turn for the worse as poor instructions and many bolts that look the same have gotten the best of me.



Erin walks in and asks if I am done yet. I do not reply.

But, she is a great wife and quickly returns with a peace offering. I gladly accept.

First Baby Shower

I was blessed with my first baby shower this past Saturday and the wonderful women who threw the shower went crazy with the details. I posted just a few pictures that I took and will post many more when I get the other pictures from Karen. I just wanted to give you a small sample of the detail that went into this shower. If you don't guess by the pictures, the theme was Nursery Rhymes.

Shannon made this amazing Humpty Dumpty and just to give you an idea of how big he is, you can see me standing next to him below.

The party favors.

If you can't read it, the tile says "And the dish ran away with the spoon..."


We were blessed beyond measure and thank you to everyone who was there. I was overwhelmed by so much love and generousity.

Visiting Ashley

We're a little behind on the blog, so I thought I give you a couple of quick updates. I (Erin) flew with my parents to visit Ashley in Viginia. It was amazingly beautiful there and it was so much fun to meet her co-workers. Ashley really has a gift for working with people with disabilities and I can't wait to see what else God has planned for her. Here are a couple of pictures from Innisfree.

Ashley at the free range chicken pen.

Ashley's house

Ashley's house from across the field.

Do Not Cross!

So Erin and I went to our first Bradley Method Birth class the other week. I learned that there is a lot of stuff to learn. We saw a video of a birth and also got a book that had some birthin' pictures in it. After our class I stopped at the store and picked up some of that giant sidewalk chalk. My plan is when we get to the delivery room I am going to draw a line across the room in line with Erin's belly button. This will be the official "Ryan Do Not Cross Line". This will remind me to stay behind that point so that I do not have to see in real life any of the stuff I saw in that video and book. It was grosse!