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!

DIY Hosptial Delivery Gown

I have really gotten dorky these days! I think being 37 weeks pregnant has made me a bit obsessive; so I have been safely taking out these obsessive tendencies on sewing projects. I have made outfits for Baby Boyd, embroidered his burp cloths (yes, I know that it's stupid to embroider things that the kid is going to barf all over but, hey, I get bored on Sundays), and to top it all off I decided that it would be a brilliant idea to make a hospital delivery gown so that I can look super preppy and way too excited on d-day. I had never even heard of this idea until Tyler and I went to Austin and saw a woman selling some super cute/super expensive ones at a street fair. I had found my next challenge.

When we got home I did a little googling and came across this pattern.  

 

Sorry for the not so flattering photo! I'm 9 months preggo, remember?!

I used the pattern but took everyone's advice and made the following alterations:

1. added 6 inches to the length
2. cut 2 "right sides" for the back instead of a left and right to make sure I had plenty of fabric to cover my rotund buttocks
3. used snap tape instead of buttons on the shoulder
4. used bias tape on all seams instead of hemming
5. skipped the pocket directions and added my own pocket below the hip 

It ties at the top, inside left, outside right, and bottom (not tied in this pic and probably not necessary).

 

Snaps at the shoulder for feedings..just like the normal hospital gowns.

 Here is the breakdown of materials:

2.75 yards fabric

3 packages of double fold bias tape

1 package of snap tape

2 rolls of ribbon (one thicker for around my waist and one thinner for ties)

 

The project took me about 2 days start to finish and is by no means perfect but it was fun to make. So thank you "uuber preppy, over the top, and far too brightly colored" hospital gown for taking my mind off of my impending life change for a few hours! It's all about the small things in life!  

Baby Bump update

Yes, I know, I have not been good about posting belly pics but I do have an excuse! My usual photographer, aka my husband, has a sick computer and the files are stuck in its belly!

Thankfully our friends Josh and Aubrie Moates were sweet enough to take a few shots for us. Josh is with Kim Box Photography and he and Kim actually shot our wedding so obviosuly we are fans of his work. Plus, Aubrie does FABULOUS work herself so check them both out if you want some amazing photos!!!

Josh, Aubrie and their 3 year budding photographer named Ever, along with our friends Erika and John Tracy and their son, Thomas, drove up to Chilton County and took some photographs in a peach orchard that is owned by a beekeeper friend of ours!

So....here I am at week 31! Eat your heart out! (we did, literally, on peaches that is!)

And last but not least, 3 year old Ever took this one and it just happens to be one of my favorites! Notice the slightly lower angle of the shot! Ha!

So I'm now at week 33 and still feeling great, thank goodness. The heat is pretty bad around these parts but that means that EVERYONE is hot, not just me. I'm drinking about 3-4 liters of water every day which is helping and I'm still excercising but I have now moved INDOORS!! Other than that, things are moving smoothly and we will see Baby Boyd in about 7 weeks!

Best Day EVER!!

Well Tyler and I took quite the field trip recently! We realized that we were ready for our second beehive so the president of our beekeepers association put us in contact with a man who sells nucs (small colonies of bees) up in Central, AL. So Tyler and I borrowed his Dad's pickup truck and drove north to pick up our girls. Side note: we decided that since our hives are mostly all girls that they needed sorority names so this new hive is named Beta Zeta, BZ, get it? bzzzzz! Anyway, when we got there we were amazed, this man had almost 60 hives that were all painted bright pastel colors like an basket full of Easter eggs! He also had a beautiful organic garden which almost completely feeds he and his wife, numerous fruit trees and bushes,  a slew of guinea hens and a wood shop that Tyler would die for. Needless to say, Tyler and I found our utopia!

More than anything else, this trip was a great learning experience for us. The man opened up many of his hives and explained exactly what was going on and what we were looking at. This kind of education my friends, is priceless for a novice beekeeper like myself!

We even got to assist him in catching a swarm. Not so scary looking huh? We had to get the queen in the box so that all her worker bees would follow. IT.WAS.AMAZING.

The bees were so preoccupied with what they were doing that they didn't even sting his bare hand when he stuck his finger in the clump to find the queen!

You can see her in the picture below with the little white dot on her back. He marks his queen with a paint pin so that he can spot her whenever he inspects his hives. Think Where's Waldo!

The picture below in no way does his garden justice! It's huge and beautiful and he practices only organic methods to support his whole food vegetarian lifestyle. It really is an inspiration to see!

Check out that Dinosaur Kale on the left! Yum!!!!

 Tyler and I came home on cloud 9 and can't wait to go back and visit him again! There really is something so amazing about seeing how things grow and produce!

And yes, I know I am a huge dork!