B-boy's 1 Month Photos

I am so grateful to have a budding photographer in the family. Thank you to my patient husband for taking photos of Boyd for me!

Boyd is Ready for School!

 Sitting at home every day started taking it's toll on me so I decided it was time to do something productive. Yes, I know that keeping a baby alive is considered very productive but I needed more. So I figured it was a good time to whip out the ole sewing machine and make the little man a backpack! I mean, what 1 month old doesn't need a backpack, he will be walking himself to school in a few months right? Ok, ok maybe in a year ;). So until then I'm hoping we can use this as his school diaper bag; it could be too small but I guess I'll find out when he starts daycare in a few weeks.

Sorry for the poor picture quality but iPhone pictures sure are convenient!

1 Month Update

Today is Boyd's 1 month birthday and we marked the glorious occasion with a gruesome heel stick at the doc! I have such a lucky child! Big boy weighed in at 10 lbs 15 oz which is in the 80-85 percentile, he is 22.25 inches long (75th percentile) and is in the 85th percentile for head circumference! You know what they say about a huge head......huge brain! We are taking his 1 month pictures this weekend but in the meantime here are a few that Tyler took when he was a few days old.

The next 2 photos were taken on my great-grandfather Boyd's chair with a pillow made of Sutherland family tartan. Get it, Boyd Sutherland Caldwell?

A few fun facts about our boy:
- he eats like a champ and thanks to him our breast feeding experience has been flawless so far.
- his last feeding is at 10 pm and he let's us sleep until anywhere between 2 and 4 am.
- he loves baths!
- he loves laying on his activity mat with Strongbow while they watch The Today Show together.
- he finally fits into his cloth diapers so we are easing in slowly.
- he loves his BOB stroller. I started running again so this one makes me very happy!

That is about it for now but I'll be sure to post his 1 month pictures soon.

Our New Normal

It is so hard to believe that 3 and a half weeks have passed since we became a family of 4. Yes, Strongbow does count too! Here are a few pictures of our first few days at home.

 Headed home! Boyd made it very clear that he was not at all interested in dressing up in something fancy for the car ride home. He is a simple man who chooses comfort over style.

 Welcome to your new home kid...

 Strongbow's reaction to his little brother was priceless. He didn't notice him for about a solid hour and when he finally did, all he did was stare at him! Now he loves to give his brother kisses and sit with us when I feed him. I am probably a bit too lax on the licks to the face but I figure it is just building up his immune system.

The first bath went pretty well. I forced Tyler to watch some YouTube videos with me so we would know what to do! 

He has already grown so much and it is hard to believe that he will never be that small again! At our 2 week appointment we beat our birth weight by 10 oz. so I can't even guess how much he weighs now. All I know is that he can't fit into some of his newborn clothes anymore.

He is still eating and sleeping pretty well. His night time feedings are at 10:00 pm then again anytime between 2:00 and 4:00 am and he usually wakes up around 6:00 or 6:30 am. These last 2 days have been a little tricky because he refuses to go back to sleep after his 6:00 am feeding so he gets pretty fussy and I don't get my extra hour or two of sleep. I pray it's just a phase! My mom had to remind me that every day is different and now I totally believe her.

Keep us in your prayers, I fear that there is time for me to become an emotional train wreck but I'm hoping things continue to go as smoothly as they have been so far.

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!