Boyd's Big Debut

Tyler has been asking me daily when I'm going to do my birth story post and since, the bambino is over 2 weeks old, I guess the time is here!

So here is the scoop! Early Monday morning (Aug 13) I got up for my nightly potty break at about 12:45 am and as I was walking back to bed I had a sneaking suspicion that my water had broken. If you have had a baby you know what that means! I wasn't positive so I walked around a bit and waited for it to "happen again" before I woke Tyler up. Lo and behold it did happen again so I poked at Tyler and told him that there was a good chance that that today was the big day. I wasn't 100% positive but we decided it's better to be safe than sorry so we both took showers and headed to the hospital at about 2:00 am. We got checked in and I suited up, in my home made hospital gown of course, to find that my water had indeed broken and I was 2 cm and about 75% effaced.

 Tyler really wanted a fall risk bracelet too...

 Yes, I am posing. Go ahead, make fun, I already have.

Since I am a neurotic freak I brought 3 copies of my birth plan and thank goodness I did! Thanks to working on my birth plan with my doctor before the big day, I was able to negotiate with the doctor on call and he allowed me to be monitored in the bed for 45 minutes and walk around for 20 min. This REALLY helped when the contractions got a bit tougher plus I got to avoid the dreaded bed pan!

After 10 hours of labor I decided it was epidural time, I was 5 cm along so I knew the toughest was ahead of me and having the epidural really helped me to relax and rest before pushing time.

By 4:30 pm I had only progressed to 7 cm so they decided that I needed a little pitocin, which I was pretty against at first. However, it was either that or risk not delivering in 24 hours and having to have a c-section. I figured the pitocin was the lesser of the two evils. By about 8:30 pm I was ready to push. The pushing was not as bad as I expected, and about 45 minutes later out came a much bigger than expected baby boy with some very large feet!

Boyd Sutherland Caldwell joined us at 9:15 pm on Monday, August 13 and measured in at 8 lbs 12 oz and 19 inches long.

We are all doing great and Boyd has been a dream baby so far. At his 2 week check up he not only got back up to his birth weight but he gained 10 oz over and is now weighing in at 9 lbs 6 oz!! Yay for big babies who let their mommas sleep!!

More pictures to come!

The Big Nursery Reveal

Boyd's room is FINALLY finished! I guess that is what happens when you decide to DIY everything! Sewing his bedding and curtains was far easier than I had thought and I must say it was very fulfilling. Not to mention it kept me occupied on those freakishly hot days when going outside was not really an option!

Yes, I know, it kind of looks like a 30 year old woman should be living in his room but I'm not a "baby" person so we went with a more grown up style. And yes, I am aware that we are about to have baby but that doesn't mean that it has to look like Babies-R-Us threw up all over our house.

 We may not like "baby" stuff but we do like lambs! See, we are making progress!

 We used the same dresser that was already in the room and found this great map for FREE online!

Because every baby needs a stash of his very own personalized burp cloths! It's like the pocket square for babies!

The paddles came from my grandfather and we figured they made the room look a bit more manly!

In case you didn't know, his full name is Boyd Sutherland Caldwell. Both Boyd and Sutherland are family names of ours and good strong Scottish names each with their own tartan. The pillow on the chair is actually made from the official Sutherland tartan. What kid doesn't need his own fabric after all?! Here are some other variations of the Sutherland tartan and here is a picture of the Boyd tartan.

His stash of cloth diapers... that is an entire post of it's own!!

His giraffe was given to hin by my mom's youngest sister and her family. I.LOVE.IT!

Morbid Mexican postcards from our trip to Austin. Very appropriate for babies, right?! Can you see Tyler in the reflection!?

Strongbow patiently waiting for his brother to get here. He likes to tell me that he is breaking in the chair for us. What a giver!

One of my very imperfect preggo projects. Tyler is so thrilled that Boyd is now well stocked with dresses!

So there you have it, our low budget nursery fit for a 30 year old woman or a baby boy with impeccable taste!

Speaking of baby boys, I'm a few days shy of 39 weeks and dilated 2 cm in case you were curious. According to the good doc that translates to " any day now." Wish us luck!

** if you are interested in sewing your own baby bedding, PLEASE feel free to pick my mind. I am no expert but I can tell you about my experience. It was super easy and where there is a will there is a way!

Beeswax!

As some of you already know, we lost a beehive a few weeks ago and needless to say, I was one mad pregnant lady when it happened! Seeing my hard earned moola literally fly out of a white wooden box did not make me happy! However, after pulling myself together I decided to turn lemons into lemonade in the form of a big hunk of beeswax!

We left the frames outside so the remaining bees could clean them out and boy did they! They sucked out all of the remaining honey and left us with 4 frames of empty comb which we scraped off and melted down.

Yep, they left some nasty looking stuff in there but at least its all "organic" and "natural" right?!

In case you are wondering how we managed to remove all the bee butts, wings and other various nasty bits from the leftover wax, we melted it in boiling water so that the wax floated to the top. Then we let it harden up so we could scrape off the crud that settled to the bottom. After repeating this process a few times to remove the big pieces of debris we boiled it again in a double boiler and filtered it by pouring the liquid wax into a yogurt cup over some clean pantyhose.  

Voila!!! 4 oz of beautifully clean beeswax!

My goal is to turn this into homemade lip balm. I think this chunk should last me a while and since lip balm practically goes IN TO your mouth I have gotten kinda funny about all the chemical packed chap sticks that I find at the store.  All the recipes I have found make it look pretty easy so wish me luck and I'll keep you all posted on how it turns out!