The Remaking of a Cradle

As I previously reported on this here blog, my mom reupholstered the inside of a cradle made by her father. It was originally upholstered by her mother and given to my parents for me to use when I was born.

I want to use the cradle for Baby S, and the upholstery had seen better days, so my sweet Mama set out to re-do it. Here are some photos of her work. I tried to do this post a week or so ago but I couldn't narrate the photos without her help. Now she is down at my house, helping me through this last week, keeping me resting, and helping me prepare for baby. So, I asked for her help in narrating this post for you!

In the photo above, she used the old upholstery, which had the diamond pattern on it, to measure out the new fabric.

Following are some photos of the fabric measuring and cutting:

Clearly, here we have the four new fabric pieces.


Then she lined the empty cradle with the new padding for the sides.



Then, she glued that padding in place.


She laid the cradle on its side to start the fabric installation process.

Incidentally, the fabric is called, "baby dry." Catchy, no?

Then she cut a length of tack strip to be just a bit longer than each side of the cradle.

The tack strip goes on the wrong side of the fabric, so the fabric then folds around it to make a crisp edge that can be stapled without tearing the fabric.

Preparing to put the fabric in place.

And before the fabric was put in place, she added another layer of quilt batting to the sides.

You can see the tack strip, ready to be stapled.




Stapling fabric through tack strip to the side of the cradle.


So then, she staple the bottom of the fabric to the
bottom of the cradle so it wouldn't ride up.




And voila! Newly upholstered.

The mattress is four inch foam, cut with an electric knife to size and upholstered snugly in the same "baby dry" fabric. The new mattress fits tightly in the bottom of the cradle.

It is so incredibly well done. Baby S will sleep soundly from birth, I am sure, because of the comfort of his bed. Thanks Mom, for taking the time to prepare the cradle for our use! And, thanks for being here this week to help me make it through. I couldn't do it without you!

See you soon.

S had a Baby Shower!

Last week S's workplace threw him a surprise baby shower! And it was quite an event. I learned about it a week beforehand, and had made plans to attend. However, baby S had other plans. He decided we needed to instead spend the day under the supervision of medical professionals watching my blood pressure. So we missed it. But, these thoughtful people took photos and video for me and sent it along so I could see the party and tell you about it here. They even sent along some eclairs which of course helped the blood pressure stay nice and low.

S works for an event rental company, so they know a thing or two about parties. There was the cutest tablecloth and napkins to match the nursery colors and of course decadent treats fashionably splayed for people to partake of their yumminess.

S was the center of attention as he opened one thoughtful and generous gift after another. Baby S will be well dressed, have many new toys, stay warm, easily eat and be carried around because of their gifts. In addition, there were some very generous gift cards given so we could go purchase items we have yet to receive. S really wants to purchase a particular car seat for his car, and I think we will use these gift cards for that purchase.

This is one video of S opening presents.


And here is another...if the embedding links work!

I wish I could have been at the party, but I am glad I got to see the photos and video at least. And, with the lady with the belly not in attendance, it left S as the guest of honor, which I think is really sweet too. Dads need some excitement in preparation for baby as well! It was such a wonderfully sweet and generous thing they did, and S was completely overwhelmed, surprised and amazed. It really meant a lot to him they thought of him in this way.

So there is more to share this final week - I'll be back with more soon!

A Baby Shower for Brooke

Last weekend S and I had plans to go to Fort Worth - as far as I could travel - to spend a couple of days at a swanky hotel to celebrate our 11th anniversary and just get away one last time before baby arrived. But, as you know, the blood pressure went all haywire and we had to cancel that trip.

One thing I was going to miss by being in sunny Fort Worth (where the hotel had an indoor pool...ahhh) was attending my sister-in-law Brooke's baby shower. We had scheduled the time away before I knew it conflicted with this event. But, since we canceled the "out of town travel" my mother-in-law picked me up and took me to Brooke's shower. When I arrived at the shower, should my doctor be reading this blog, I sat down and lounged for the whole party. I promise I stayed down on a couch even for the shower!

Anyway, it was a lovely affair, full of babies and pregnant women. Boy oh boy, there is something in the water wherever Brooke's friends gather! Funny thing was, of all the babies in the room, newly born or gestating, my baby was the ONLY boy. Girls abounded! (Brooke's son Andrew was with his dad over at my in-laws, so even he wasn't there to raise the boy quotient!)

My friend Deborah was in attendance - you remember she helped host a shower for me back in May and gave birth to her own little girl on June 1 - because she and Brooke attend the same church and are in the same Mommy and Me group. Strange confluence of known circles there, but it was great to see her too, and her little one!

Here are some photos of the action for you of the event. All photos were a little dark...I am going to blame it on the camera. I have a new camera coming this week (with video on it!) in anticipation of our baby's big arrival - of course, if the photos are crappy after we get the new camera, what will be my excuse! Anyhoo, here they are:

That's Brooke on the left, welcoming her guests.



Sister-in-law Kim made this diaper cake for Brooke.


Miss Sophia was there and was all smiles!


More little girls played in the toy room.






See, there I am, on the couch!
Mother-in-law and mother are behind the couch.


Girly things!


We totally oohed and aahed over this homemade gift.


Gratuitous shot of Sophia.


A family heirloom handed down to the next generation.


Baby girls love these soft babies.

So there you go! You can see once again a lovely baby shower was had by all in attendance, even if the photos are a bit dark. We talked about getting another photo of the three sisters-in-law since I'll be "on the other side" by the next time we're all together, but we forgot. Imagine - three pregnant/new mom women forgetting something! Go figure! We'll get to meet this little one in mid-September. Babies everywhere!

See you soon.

The Final Week

So, a lot has happened since the birthday post. Namely, my blood pressure has gotten more squirrely than before. So, I spent some time being monitored for blood pressure last week, and they decided it was time to move the birth date up a week. They have determined the baby is ready to come on out if he needs to. They estimate he'll be 7 and a half pounds. And, we'll have him on July 23rd instead of July 30th to alleviate any more strain on this old pregnant body. I will have made it to 38 weeks, which is considered full term.

That means suddenly we are in the final week! So, my parents and S's parents had to rearrange all of their plans to make the 23rd work. I feel a little guilty about that, but babies seem to have their own timetables, even when we're scheduling them! I am starting to get the picture that my scheduling days are over...

And I still have so much to tell you! Since all I am supposed to be doing these days is lying around, I hope to get it all said. Here comes a flurry of blog posts to you. Today's post - a recap of my final baby shower, comprised of people I work with or used to work with, given by my good friends Errika and Amanda.

That is Amanda passing out photos to color.


And there's Errika, thinking about what colors to choose.

These ladies really put on a "themed" event. The theme was photography - my photography hobby. They went onto my Flickr page and downloaded photos for several reasons. First, they chose some of their favorites to turn into photo magnets, and those were the "prizes" given out to the game winners. Also, one of the games was to "color" some of my photos they had printed off to look like coloring book pages. I chose the winner.

Misty and Rondi checking out each others coloring skills.
Rondi, the costume designer, won.


The food table.


The petit fours.
I know, not photo themed, but OH SO CUTE!

Then, the food table, full of some of my favorite foods, also had photo frames on it. And they had collected several photo frames to give to the guests as favors to the shower.

For example, I didn't get this photo.
It was adorable though!


That photo there was of my mother-in-law.
Even that one stumped me for a second.

Lastly, they had each shower attendee include a photo frame as part of their present, and put a photo of themselves as a baby in it. Then, I had to guess who the gift was from from their photo. I was really, really bad at that part. Really, I missed several of them horribly. But, it was fun to see the baby pictures and try to guess!

I received several wonderful and generous gifts for baby S, of course.

And it was a fun time to visit with my work colleagues new and old. It was a sweet and thoughtfully planned event and I am once again grateful for the enormous amount of energy put into it by wonderful friends. Thanks ladies, it was fabulous!

I will be back with more posts on house progress, baby progress, baby showers of various sorts, and whatever else I feel I must get in before the end of the week. See you soon!

Birthday Update

My birthday passed by last weekend, right on the day I turned 35 weeks pregnant on this crazy baby journey. It was a fabulous day. S brought me breakfast in bed. Yes, that's right. You read that correctly. I got BREAKFAST IN BED on my birthday. And, said breakfast was this delicious granola berry crisp that my friend Karen had given me. It was fabulous.

Then, we moved slowly all morning, reading the New York Times from cover to cover and taking it easy. Once we got ready to go we ran a couple of errands and then went to my in-laws for an early dinner. It was delicious - brisket, cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole, fruit, and of course...birthday cake! As you can see, the birthday was ostensibly all about the food. Ahem.

I received lots of wonderful birthday greetings from family and friends and some nice gifts, and we capped the evening off by watching the nearby fireworks from our front yard. It was a good day.

On that day, I asked my mother-in-law to take a couple of photos of S and me together. It dawned on me I was pretty sure we didn't have any photos of the two of us together while I've been pregnant. Or at least not recently! So, in this post are some of those photos. Also in the post are photos taken by S of me, on my birthday, 35 weeks pregnant.

A signature S photo.

Let me also tell you what's going on with my 35-almost-36 week pregnant body. Apparently, I have pregnancy induced high blood pressure. It spikes high every once in a while, but I have none of the other signs of hypertension or preclampsia. Which is good. But, my doctor has asked me to basically rest in bed except for going to work. So I am trying hard to do that, and doing a pretty good job of it. S has really been taking good care of me so I can do this. I guess if I start having other signs, I will have to do other things, but for now the blood pressure has stayed in check. I am hoping this stays the case as I really don't want to go on full time bed rest or anything else. I mean, really people, I have three weeks to go. 21 days. Surely we can all get along between now and then! I'm taking one day at a time.

Last weekend S and his dad finished painting the baby's room. So, all we have left to do in there is hang the art and some shelves and it will be officially complete. I did go online the other day to order our bedding using gift cards we have received and was dismayed to learn the bedding is back ordered. They are to email me when it is back in stock. It is available on other sites online, so hopefully this will be soon.

We have been enjoying the Wii we received from Kay at the last baby shower. And, an added bonus we recently learned about - we can stream Netflix instant movies to our television via the Wii! How cool is that? Hours and hours of entertainment.

This weekend we are taking a baby care/baby CPR class where I can stay seated with my feet up so no worries there. And, Sunday I will have my final shower filled with people from my work. I am sure they will let me lounge there too, so I will honor my resting commitment, even though it is a lot of activity. After that, I have really nothing that has to be done so I can lay around and rest. I'll rest up now since I'll be sleep deprived for weeks later!

I think that's about it for now. Just a little update for you - won't you be glad when this baby is here so you can stop looking at photos of me!

See you soon.