When will BabyBear be born?

Amazingly, we are now less than 10 weeks away from BabyBear making his major league debut! The doctors say he's due June 23, but they also say that something like 80% of babies either come earlier or later than that. (Not too much later, though -- Bethany says the doctor will probably induce if he hasn't come by July 7.) We want to know what your guess is -- when will BabyBear be called up?

I can't promise any prizes, but go ahead and make your pick. Leave a comment on this post, or e-mail me which day you want and I'll put you down for that date. First one to request the date gets the date. You can only enter once. First come, first served. I'll post the list below as the picks come in. (hat tip to Jeff Reed for the rules)

To kick things off:

Sunday, June 14 -- Poppa E.
Monday, June 15 -- Melissa P.
Tuesday, June 16 -- Bethany
Wednesday, June 17 -- Mom B.
Thursday, June 18 -- Amy
Friday, June 19 -- Sarah K.
Saturday, June 20 -- Aunt Sue
Sunday, June 21 -- Jacob
Monday, June 22 -- Zan
Tuesday, June 23 -- the doctors
Wednesday, June 24 -- Sister Kim
Thursday, June 25 -- Momma E.
Friday, June 26 -- Sarah N.
Saturday, June 27 -- Jim H.
Sunday, June 28 -- Diane E.
Monday, June 29 -- Jill
Tuesday, June 30 -- Jennessa
Wednesday, July 1 -- Courtney H.
Thursday, July 2 -- Margie
Saturday, July 4 -- Jeff (I think fireworks on every b'day would be fun, but Bethany doesn't want him to be that late.)
Sunday, July 5 -- Kim S.

Now make your pick!

Jeff, Bethany & BabyBear: Week 32

Eight more weeks to go until BabyBear is due to arrive! Wow, that sure doesn't sound like a very long time...

Jeff and I have been taking these childbirth classes at the hospital and last night was the hospital tour plus a "special activity" for the non-pregnant person of the pair attending the class. As usual, Jeff was a great sport about it and was happy to let me take a few pictures...

Here we are (the pregnant couple)!


Here is Jeff pregnant:


Here is the usual "BabyBear & I" picture at 32 weeks:


We're still working on getting the room organized and such (things have been really busy with work lately and sadly my motivation hasn't been what it once was), but when we get that done, we'll post more pictures. Hope y'all are having a great day!!

it really IS all inside!!

We had the privilege of having Auntie Diane visit this past week from Hawaii and during her time here, she played a bit with Orbit in this plastic bag (both parties, I think, enjoyed themselves). Orbit has been spending quite a bit of time in that bag since and I just thought this was a really funny and cute picture...

Have a great day!

Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day!

As a person who loves to be outside and enjoy nature, I do what I can to recycle and try my best to care for this Earth that we live on.

This day, in particular, always brings to mind an old hymn (I believe written by Folliott Sandford Pierpoint in 1864) that is a favorite of one of our dearest friends. Here is a video with that hymn sung by the group BarlowGirl (Click here if you can't view the video).

For The Beauty Of The Earth

For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies;
For the love which from our birth,
Over and around us lies;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

For the wonder of each hour,
Of the day and of the night;
Hill and vale and tree and flow'r,
Sun and moon, and stars of light;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind's delight;
For the mystic harmony,
Linking sense to sound and sight;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child;
Friends on Earth and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

Bethany and BabyBear: Week 30!!!

Yes, we're up to 30 weeks already! That means only 10 more to go (that is unless BabyBear decides to be early)! Personally, I'd be thrilled if he came two weeks or so early, but that's just me :) We'll see what happens!

Pardon the "less-than-ecstatic" look on my face...hey, it was morning...


For comparison, click here to see us at week 26. Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!!

A surprise e-mail

So I had just finished an interview at work today for my next feature and was checking my e-mail when I was surprised to find this in my inbox:

From: Orbit Brown
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 12:32 PM
Subject: Wishing you a day full of special things...
To: Jeff
Meow-lo!!!

Meow just wanted to say hi and tell you how much meow loves you. Meow have been keeping Bethany company and am breaking for lunch right now. The birds and squirrels are out and meow am enjoying watching them. Meow hope that you have a good view of birds and squirrels from your window.

Meow am so happy to have you as meow's favorite person. Meow love to wrestle, chase and curl up in your lap and meow wanted you to know you are very special to meow. Meow love it when you come home each day and meow love spending time with you. Meow know you are working way harder than meow today, so meow just wanted to say meow proud of you and meow love you very much!!

Love,
Orbit

And of course, he attached a photo of his day:


I bet YOUR cat doesn't send you e-mails!!

Happy Easter!

Enjoy!

Jesus' Easter Celebration! -- powered by flowgo.com

Newest Project: BabyBear's room: Rug!

I know, I know...I can hear you thinking...another one?! Does she really need one more project? Well, we needed a soft rug for BabyBear's room and all the ones I was finding were easily $150-$300, which I would rather not pay for (yes, I'll admit...I'm frugal). A dear friend told me they got a carpet remnant bound for $60, so I went to the place she did and they quoted me $250 for a bound $67 remnant with tax...not quite what I was hoping for. I went to another carpet store and they had some remnants that easily could have carpeted most of our house, but they were also in the $150-$300 range. The lady at that second carpet store told me that what I really was looking for could be found at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore here in town and that she had just sent a bunch of remnants over to that store over the weekend.

I didn't know we really had a ReStore here, and they weren't open on Mondays, so I went to check it out the next Tuesday. I found a 9x11 carpet remnant that looked like it would work well for $47 including tax and 100% of the money goes to Habitat! I think it was also one of the ones that the lady from the other carpet store sent over. So I wrestled it home (not my brightest moment, I admit) and into the garage and discovered that it's actually a bit bigger than 9x11. It's a really light beige color plush carpet with darker brown threads throughout. Here's a before pic in our garage:

It was new, but needed to be cleaned (lots of dust). We trimmed it down to 8'x10' with a utility knife (cutting on the wrong side of the carpet works better- thanks mom!). Then we stapled the dark brown vinyl fabric strips pretty side down on to the top of the carpet as the edge. Note, buying the cheapest staple gun from Walmart with the smallest staples will not work...you need something a bit heftier. From there, we flipped the edges over and used a hot glue gun to glue the rest of the vinyl strip to the bottom of the rug. Then we vaccuumed it several times and got it into BabyBear's room. We accomplished all of this while listening to Baylor Baseball beat Kansas on the radio, yay!

Here's the finished product:


Special thanks to Jeff for cutting the rug, helping staple and helping me move it around many different times (and for supporting me/not thinking I'm completely crazy in doing this!). Special thanks also to Randy and his family for letting us borrow their heftier staple gun and staples after finding out ours was not quite adequate. We're still debating about whether or not it needs a carpet pad underneath, but we're excited to have one more thing done!