Introducing...

Elijah Robert Bailey!

Born January 12, 2012 at 10:52 pm
Weighing 6 lb, 15 oz
19.5 inches long

This little guy has come into our lives and changed them in a huge way.




He loves his baths.


He loves his daddy (and his daddy is such a natural!).


He has wonderfully curly hair when it's wet (thanks to his daddy).


All in all...

We think he's a keeper!

34-35 Weeks

Just a quick post with a few updates. Life was a little crazy wrapping up the semester and getting into Advent, so we missed the 33 week picture...but here's one from 34 and 35 weeks.

During my birthday weekend (34 weeks) two of my college roommates and very bestest friends came and we had a great time! Jess brought her husband Josh so he and Jon got to hang out while we had some great girl time to relax on Saturday. We lazed around the house Saturday morning watching movies and baked a cake. In the afternoon we went out for pedicures-it was seriously the best pedicure ever! and met some of Jess's other friends in Lincoln for coffee.

Ready to go out to eat!

We came home and iced the cake, then got ready for an amazing dinner at Fireworks in Lincoln, a delicious restaurant where everything's cooked on a wood fire grill. This is why in the cake pictures I'm in my pajamas-when we got home elastic-waisted pants were definitely on the docket for everyone!

The BEAUTIFUL cake we made :) it was chocolate with mocha buttercream!


Blowing out the candles

It was so fun to celebrate my birthday with Jon AND friends-it's usually just the two of us, which is great! but it was fun to have a few things to do with friends, take time to relax, and celebrate with a group.

I must say, it was a little surreal thinking about this as my last birthday pre-mom. But 28 was great!


We had our 34 week appointment on Wednesday, which is actually when I was 35 weeks. During the ultrasound our doctor said he looks to be about 5 pounds or a little bigger. She pointed out some fuzziness around his head that is most likely hair. And, I'm dilated 2 cm...our doctor is pretty confident we won't make it the full 40 weeks. Which, on the one hand, is super exciting-we can't wait to meet him! On the other hand, it made us realize how much we have left to do! I'm waiting until after Christmas to do a few things, and the big stuff's pretty much ready to go...but it was definitely a reality check!

In the meantime, we're just trying to enjoy our time together during the holidays and our last Christmas before our family grows. Merry Christmas and happy new year to you and yours!

This is where the baby lives

Or, this is where the baby will live, once he's a) out here in the world and b) ready to sleep in his own room :)

My amazing mom made our nursery bedding, curtains, etc. It was super fun picking out the fabric-though I have to be honest and tell you it took us awhile for Jon and I to agree on fabric :) the first time we went to the fabric store, we started in the baby section, and I'm just not a big fan of pastels and stuff that says baby all over it. Jon preferred a lot of that stuff, because you know, it's a baby...but I felt like I didn't need fabric to tell me there was a baby around our house :) I feel like I did some convincing to get Jon on board with this fabric, but from the beginning we both really liked argyle as a pattern, so I think he's happy with it! But overall, I wanted more bold colors and fun patterns, and I think we achieved that! We've also gotten some really awesome custom gifts which I have yet to take pictures of but it's just so fun that everything goes together without paying a ton for it!

First, an overall shot:

This is standing in the doorway looking in. The only thing you can't see in this picture is the dresser far off to the left and the bookshelf which I'm standing beside.

Now, some detail shots. First, the crib:

We love love love this crib! and, it's convertible, so it will transform (I'll probably make Jon make transformer noises while he's putting it together) into a toddler bed and then a full size bed. The kid better like it, cause it's sticking with him for life! My mom made the crib skirt, crib sheet (there are also a couple of solid colors that match), and the pillows:


I totally stole the idea for these pillows from my friend Leanne's blog-so thanks for that :) And no, they won't be in the crib with the baby...they'll be like floor pillows or maybe one will go on the rocker (when it gets here in January-wheeee!!).


This is our main shelf, we will get some tubs and things for the toys. But look at that totally cute lampshade my mom made!! You can also see some of the curtains. Here's a close-up of the detail:

The buttons match the polkadots, which you can't really see in this picture. There are also tiebacks coming made out of the striped fabric.

Here's the dresser (amidst a pile of stuff we still have to put away, from the very generous shower thrown by Jon's youth and church!):


And, just because I love it so much, one more shot of the crib:



So there you have it! All the big pieces are in place...for my birthday/Christmas Jon got me the rocker/glider I have been dreaming of, and it should be delivered mid-January, hopefully before the baby comes! I've been doing lots of laundry to be able to put clothes away, and over the next few weeks we'll get a few more decorations up. After we sort through/put away the rest of the shower stuff, that room will be ready to go! It's been so much fun putting it all together, and I'm so grateful for my mom's great sewing skills to make it all happen!

The long lost update

It's been so long, I can't even tell you what weeks these pictures are from. I can tell you they're in order...not that it's all that helpful. I'm disappointed I didn't do better keeping up with the updates, not just for my few loyal readers but for myself!! A few of these I do know-I'll label those :)

Week 25
These next two are from our first baby shower, put together by my friends Liz and Carla-yes, I know that's deserving of a whole other post...maybe I'll get there :)

26 weeks- this is with my mom and her sisters, who were all able to attend the shower! Sorry Linda, this isn't a great picture of you...


These are the Baileys who were at the shower-Jon's grandma Donna, my sister in law Angela, and my mother in law Nancy! It was so great to have them there!

Can't tell you what week this is...can tell you I was on the phone with my mom :) I want to say this is week 28? I vaguely remember wearing this outfit for a meeting I was at that night...

And, I think this is week 30. Either way, this is around the time that everyone in the office started saying I was noticeably bigger-and I think that's totally true.

And, this is 32 weeks. I'm 33 weeks tomorrow, so this is a pretty accurate depiction of how I feel-which is huge. My face has really filled out-yuck :)

I'm still feeling decent, all things considered...more uncomfortable than comfortable, but I wouldn't say I'm sick of being pregnant or anything like that-aside from being anxious to meet our baby, I'm still grateful for the time we have left to continue preparations! My biggest "symptoms" now are swollen feet, especially if I'm on them too much, and pretty horrible sleeping patterns (getting up at least twice a night to use the bathroom, and general discomfort sleeping on my sides or being too hot). I'm working on a post to show you all the great nursery that's coming together so that'll be up next!!

An Apple a Day...

The first Saturday in October Jon and I headed over to Nebraska City to check out all the fall fun. We spent the morning at Arbor Day Farm exploring their trails (although enjoyable, definitely kid-oriented) and picking our own apples. We then headed into town for lunch, and spent some time window shopping in all their antique shops. It was a fun fall getaway, and a great way to spend a Saturday together! On the way home we picked up a pumpkin so Jon could make his favorite fall treat-roasted pumpkin seeds-and I roasted the pumpkin with the delicious result of spicy pumpkin soup that we enjoyed later in the week.


Having fun along the trail...


ready to pick some apples!


sometimes you have to reach up high to get the best apples...


Success!


We had to test a few along the way. They were delicious :)


Love this picture!

Teamwork!

Weeks 21-24

Minus week 22, because we forgot to take a picture :(

This was taken the same night as the reveal party...since Carla knew before the rest of us what we were having she brought us a little bag of newborn boy stuff from Evan, so that's a blue and white striped onesie sitting on my belly :) Not sure why I grabbed the baseball-we aren't too crazy about gender-specific stereotypes, but baseball is one of the things my dad loves, and if I had to choose a favorite sport, it'd be that one!

Another long day but definitely getting bigger :)

Jon had a little fun with this photo shoot :)

Things are getting really fun in pregnancy, because it's pretty obvious that I'm pregnant :) I'm getting lots of "I know I shouldn't ask this, but are you expecting?" questions. The little guy is moving around a ton...I always feel movement in the mornings right when I wake up, and almost always in the evenings, either after dinner or as we are going to bed. He's working on sleep cycles in the womb right now, sleeping about 12-14 hours at a time, and there's definitely a more distinguished pattern to the movement! Since the movement is more increased, Jon gets to feel more...one time in bed he was laying with his head on my belly and got kicked in the ear :)

We're working on nursery colors and names now that we know what we are having. And no, we aren't sharing names until the baby's born, sorry everybody! I can tell you that the middle name is definite (I thought of it-and it is SO PERFECT!-the night we found out we were having a boy) and we're still deciding between two names for the first name.

Overall I'm still feeling pretty great, even on the days when I don't sleep well the night before I still seem to have this unexplained energy source, I can only hope that keeps up since our semester isn't quite halfway over! And, it's CRAZY to think about...but we're only a few weeks away from starting the third trimester! I'm beginning to feel what I'm sure will be more discomfort during that time-lots of back pain, difficulty getting comfortable while I sleep, and needing to get up and stretch lots when I have to sit for longer periods of time. Oh yeah, and less and less room in my belly, especially when I try to eat something resembling a full meal :)

It's a...

In case you're entirely disconnected from me in any other way (facebook, email, or the good ol' telephone) then I guess this is news to you...It's a boy! Sorry I've taken so long to put this up, but here's some fun pictures and an update about our reveal party from a few weeks back.

First, the logistics: I guess the reveal party was my idea, but Jon went along with it :) I thought it would be a little more fun to be able to share the news alongside our parents and the friends that could gather, rather than finding out at our appointment and then calling/texting everyone with the results. It definitely built up the anticipation, too!

When we decided to do this, I talked with my friend Carla who bakes some awesome cakes to see if she would be willing to bake us a cake so that we could find out what we're having when we cut into the cake (the color of the frosting on the inside would tell us if we were having a boy or a girl...we were praying it wouldn't be purple or orange, or something like that!). She did an AMAZING job with the cake:

In case you can't read it, it says "What will baby Bailey bee?" And, my friend Liz brought Mounds and Almond Joy...because sometimes your kids have nuts, and sometimes they don't :)

We had the gathering at my parent's house, and Jon's parents were able to be there, too, along with some of our Des Moines-area friends Dan and Rebecca (newlyweds!), Liz and Eric, Carla, Eric, and Evan, and some good neighbor friends I've known Forever-Libbey and Emily. We also skyped my sister in since she's hanging out in Brussels all year. We enjoyed some dinner, talked and hung out/caught up on life a bit, and then it was time for the big reveal...

(I upped the saturation A LOT so it was a little more obvious what's on the inside, our camera colors were a little out of whack that night!)

We were both shocked! For whatever reason, we'd both really been thinking girl, so when we pulled out the piece of cake with blue frosting, it really took us both by surprise! Someone else has some really fun pictures of me cutting into the cake, and there's a video of Jon's wonderfully shocked face when we found out-but uploading has not been our friend with that one!

It was so fun to be able to share this moment with everyone who was there. Here's some more pictures from the night:

Jon and his dad, anxiously awaiting the results (and Chip gettin' some lovin...)

one of the cuties my little boy gets to grow up with and call "friend"

My mom and Nancy-Binnie obviously has something REALLY EXCITING to say :)

So again, this picture would be way cooler if the color on our camera had been behaving (ok, really it's just us still learning how to use it...) but maybe someday I can get in there with Photoshop and make that frosting more brilliant! But...here's our happily ever after picture :)