Vera Helen

Little Miss Vera Helen arrived on Wednesday morning at 10:35 after a (thankfully) easy and quick labor! She weighed an even 8 pounds and was 21 inches long. She is doing great and is a healthy, beautiful little girl! Thanks for all of your prayers! We are back at home (got home yesterday) and re-adjusting to life with a newborn! Oh those joys of sleepless nights! Ha!

Here are some pictures...mostly from the hospital.
Notice Grady-man had to come visit his sister with his bat bag! Of course! He was ready to teach her how to "pitch." IN THE HOSPITAL ROOM!

My friend Leigh Ann has three boys and she suggested the idea to me of getting Grady a "big brother" present FROM Vera to give to him at the hospital. Great idea... Here he is opening his gift from baby sister.

A new special big boy night light...since he is giving his old one to Vera!

Grady has done so much better than Josh and I would have ever dreamed. We weren't really sure how he'd react to not being the center of attention, or adjusting to a new little person in his world. But he has been GREAT with Vera and loves her to death! He is so sweet and gentle and when he talks to her, he does so just like the rest of us...in a sweet little high-pitched voice! It's too funny!

Somebody has her dad wrapped around her little finger already! Josh is just crazy about his little girl!

This is one of my favorites...

I promise to post more pictures soon! Thanks for all of your prayers for our family!

Updates...

Grady learned to blow dandelions this weekend in Grana and Pops' backyard! We managed to only get a few seedlings in our mouth during the event, but he was fascinated with dandelions! Faye took this picture and sent it to me. I thought it was precious! He is growing up way too fast!
And speaking of growing, our little girl is growing like a weed, too! Went to the doctor today and she was measuring anywhere between 8 lb. 6 oz. to 8 lb. 12 oz. I am 38 weeks today, so according to due date (April 2nd), we still have two weeks to go! Thankfully, my doctor is going to induce on WEDNESDAY of this week to prevent me from having a 10 pounder! ha! So in just two more days, our little family of three is about to get a bit bigger! Will keep you posted!

Vera's room

Here are some pictures of our finished...(YEA, FINISHED)... nursery! People have asked me what color we painted the nursery, and when I reply, "a kind of bluey-turquoise color", I've gotten a few strange looks... ha. I know it's not the "normal" color for a baby girl room, but if you know me well, you know that I am most DEFINITELY not a "pink" person! The thought of painting a room pink makes me cringe. I'm not sure why, but pink has just never really been my favorite. Don't get me wrong... I am so very excited about having a little girl, but I just didn't feel like covering everything from wall to wall in pink. I actually had a really hard time trying to decide on bedding and decor for her room. Grady's was much easier for me to decide on. Her bedding is called "Lullabye Breeze" and Josh's sweet Aunt Viola made the beautiful afghan you see on the rocking chair to match it. Such a sweet gift! The rocking chair was also in Grady's nursery. It was Faye's and she used it to rock Josh when he was a baby. I love that!
I ordered the vintagey letters above her bed from Land of Nod, where I got Grady's as well. I loved that they were SO cheap and so easy to hang! Grady is always practicing spelling his sister's name when he goes in her room!

This was Grady's cousin Grayson's chair when she was little! It goes great with her bedding...and is SO soft! Grady has to sit in "Vera's chair" every time he goes in the room... THANK YOU, SUSAN and GRAYSON! :)

Saw some cute shadow boxes on different websites and liked the idea, so I decided to try and make one. Used different scrapbooking paper that I liked and just painted the frame and the back of the frame to match her room.

Also saw an idea for a ribbon wreath... WHEW! What a project this turned out to be! Began it one weekend and finished it about a month later! AGH! It took a LOT more ribbon than I thought it would, and so it turned out costing me a lot more than I thought it would... but oh well, I liked the end result! It's hanging on her door right now. I was going to try and figure out a way to put her "birth stats" on it and have it as our hospital door hanger, but I kind of just like it the way it is. So I will probably leave it as is. Faye found this wooden V a long time ago, and I liked it in the center rather than a "stats" thing in the center...

I ordered these mesh sequined butterflies from this neat website called Butterfly Craze. We have several hanging from the ceiling and then some attached to the curtains.

I have the most wonderful set of classroom parents this year! They all got together and threw a surprise baby shower for me on Valentine's Day at school. The kids knew all about it and totally kept it a secret from me. It was so sweet. One of the moms of one of my students painted this for Vera's room. So sweet!

More random creations that I came up with from ideas I saw on the internet and scrapbook paper that I liked... I thought the birds were cute. Grady points to each one and says "This one is dad, this one is mom, this one is me, and that one is Vera." Can't believe we will soon have FOUR people living here! :)

And this one is just Mom and Vera!

The diaper cake was from my surprise shower at school, and Faye made the stork/basket. I hate taking these things apart! They are too cute to take apart!

So I guess all we need now is a little girl to put in the room! ha! She will be here before we know it.

Melted Hearts

When I picked Grady up from school on Wednesday, he wasn't feeling well. He had a fever that night, but no other symptoms of a cold or stomach bug or anything like that. Thursday, Josh stayed at home with him because he still had a fever and we let him sleep in late. Thought he was better last night, but then fever went back up to 102. SO, I stayed at home with him today. He is acting like his normal self with no fever... so I do not know what the deal is...maybe a fever virus, or cutting molars???

ANYWAY, I guess if I had to take the day off, at least I didn't have to spend it cleaning up throw-up or visiting the doctor. Glad he is feeling better and hope we are good to go now! Today, Grady and I have worked on his valentines for his friends at school. Saw this idea the other day and wanted to make them...but honestly, if I hadn't had the time to do them today, he'd probably have had to just have Toy Story valentines from Walmart. This was so much fun instead!

First, peeled tons of crayons...

Broke them into little pieces and put into silicon heart baking molds...
Baked them in the oven for 15 minutes... They came out all melted and weird-looking on the bottoms...

But after they cooled and we flipped them out of the molds, they looked really neat on the tops!

Found some cellophane bags in my random craft box and used cardstock to make a little label for each child in his class...

Yes, they are kind of cheesy, but it's for 2 year olds... How cute are these!??!

Grady's Room Makeover!

The "before" picture...

As you can tell, he had TOTALLY outgrown this crib-converted-to-toddler-day-bed! Look how long he is! No wonder he woke up every single night and wanted to come get in our great big bed with us! He was more than happy to give this bed to Vera!
Saying bye-bye to the baby bed...

Mom and Dad took Grady to the beach for a few days. So while he was out of our hair, we re-did the room. Faye and Josh painted the rooms (Grady's AND Vera's). I was not allowed to paint, so I just worked on "choo choo train art" at Grady's request.

The "after" pictures...

His room sign...

Again, Grady's request was to have "choo choo's" on his walls and on his room sign!

I ordered his letters from Land of Nod.....also got his bedding there. Loved the little boy letters! Grady calls these his "ABC's". They had these vintage-y girly ones as well and I ordered them for Vera's room.

Our first experience with vinyl wall stickers. Josh hung them this morning. Took forever, but Grady loves them! They go all the way across his wall.

Sorry I didn't get an "after" picture of him in his new room. I had to clean it up and take a picture of it this afternoon while Josh and he were playing in the backyard. It doesn't always look this clean...especially if he is IN the room! ha! But he loves his new "big boy bed" and thankfully sleeps SO much better in it!

I promise to post pictures of the nursery soon!

Updates

I went to the doctor this past week for another ultrasound. My doctor wanted to see how big little miss Vera is at the moment. Or should I say BIG MISS VERA... She is already at 4 pounds and measures 2 weeks ahead of schedule if you look at all of her measurements...the femur bone, the head circumference, etc. So she will be like her big brother most likely. Every trip I've had to the doctor has been a good report so far. No problems with blood sugar, blood pressure, weight gain, anything... I just have big babies! Runs on both sides of the family, unfortunately. Josh was almost 10 pounds when he was born. I was 9. Grady-man was 12 days early and weighed 8 lb., 5 oz. So my doctor is really watching Vera because she doesn't want her to weigh 10 pounds... Neither do I! ha. She told me that she will most defnitely NOT let me go all the way until my due date (which is April 2nd), so it looks like we will have a little girl in March! WOW! That is just around the corner!

We have been working really hard trying to make room in our house for another little person...And with her arrival being practically a month and a half or so away, it's REALLY starting to sink in that things are about to change SO much around here! It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in just a few years of living in a house! Over the Christmas holidays, I parted with TONS of stuff... mainly school stuff from years of teaching Kindergarten. We cleaned out the "office" which is now Vera's room and totally re-did Grady's nursery to make it a "big boy" room. (pictures to follow in another post). We gave away furniture, packed up stuff to take to the GoodWill, and boxed up stuff for the attic. I gave an entire car load FULL of Kindergarten stuff to Grady's school. SO hard to let go of that stuff, but SO happy to walk in his classroom and see his teachers using it with the kiddos! :) Better than it sitting in the attic and getting no use whatsoever.

So needless to say, we have been pretty busy around here getting ready for Vera. Sorry for the lack of blog posts. I am going to post pictures of Grady's room in the next post. We completed it today! Vera's is still "in-the-process" as I am working on some artwork and we have a few things left to hang. Will post pictures of her nursery soon!

Christmas 2011

Making cookies for Santa at DeeDee's house on Christmas Eve...
(Note...next year, Julie will get slice and bake cookies, or ship Grady to Susan's house!!!)

thankfully Susan stepped in before I lost all of my patience!

the finished products...

Grady did MUCH better this year. Last year, he did not understand that the cookies were for Santa and freaked out when I wouldn't let him eat them. He ended up eating Santa's cookies, well...part of them. We had to put them on the plate with bites taken out of them. But this year, Grady understood WHO the cookies were for and he gladly fixed Santa's plate himself.

We continued the tradition of writing a letter to Santa on Christmas Eve. Grady helped me write his letter this year. He told me what to say and helped me write it...

here's his letter, complete with a "picture" he drew for Santa...

And on Christmas morning, he was excited to find that once again, Santa had written a letter back to him! AND complimented Grady on being a good cookie baker! :) He only left one bite on his plate.

Santa brought WOODY and BUZZ and Grady was all smiles! He is really into Toy Story right now! Buddy-the-Elf must have told Santa!

And the little cook got his own kitchen, too!

Grady got to open his stocking AND Vera's!

Hard to believe this was our last Christmas as a "family of three!" My, how things are about to change around here! Hope you and your family all had a wonderful Christmas!

Happy New Year!