Countdown to Baby Reece!!

We have been getting ready for Baby Reece's arrival. On Saturday Nov 7 Grady went to the Tyke Hyke class at Women's Hospital it is a Sibling Preparation for 3 year olds. He learned how to hold the baby, help change a diaper, feed & burb the baby and saw pictures of the umbilical cord and that it was normal and would come off and become a belly button just like his. He also learned that he needs to wash his hands before helping with the baby. Then we went on a tour of the hospital to see where Mom, Dad and Baby Reece were going to stay, Grady paid special attention to the tour so he can show Grand-maw where to go when they come to see us.

These are some pictures of Baby Reece from our 36week visit. They thought the baby was about 6lbs then and the Dr thinks the baby will be 8lbs at birth. We will see!!

This is me at 38weeks 3days!!

We have a scheduled C-section for Monday Nov 16!! I made a countdown chain for Grady since he has been telling people the baby will be here in a couple weeks. So now every morning he takes off a link and we see how many days we have left.

We are taking them off from the bottom up, the first orange link is Monday when Baby Reece will be born. Then the second orange link is when Mom, Dad and Baby Reece will be coming home. My mom will be watching Grady at our house Monday - Wednesday and Wednesday night till we get home on Thursday Keith's Parent's and sister are going to stay with Grady.

We have a busy family fun weekend planned for this weekend for our last weekend as a family of 3.

Oh and if you have not already... Go Vote for if you think Reece will be a Boy or a Girl!!

http://www.expectnet.com/games/babyreecehoffman

Trick or Treating

We had a lot of fun for Halloween this year. Since LSU had a football game on Halloween night (Saturday) our subdivision decided to move Trick or Treating to Friday night. One of Grady's best friends and his family decided to join us since they are LSU season ticket holders.
The only problem was that it was raining most of the night. Here is Brookston as Handy Manny and Grady as a Cheeseburger trick or treating.
We had to walk with umbrellas but the boys had a lot of fun.
Then Saturday we went to Mandeville we needed to get a trundle bed and mattress from my Parents house to put under Grady's bed since we NO longer have a guest room. So Saturday night Grady got to go Trick or Treating again in my parents subdivision.
Then we hung out at the end of my parents street passing out candy with there neighbors.

Then at the park on Tuesday Grady started playing Trick or Treat with the Christmas decorations. He keep pretending that he was getting different colored suckers!

Getting Organized

I have been eyeing these organizer pouches thinking about how I will need to have a change of clothes for Baby Reece and for Grady in my diaper bag. Well at least till Grady is doing really good at potty training. He is doing good but I have a feeling he will regress once the baby gets here.

I was thinking about buying them. But the other day while buying the stuff for the Family Rules Canvas I decided to buy fabric and zippers to make my own bags. I have made two of these bags before one for my Rockin Baby Pouch and one for a friend. But this time I interfaced the fabric to make it more stiff. I am glad I decided to make them because once I looked at the measurements for the organizer pouches they were really bigger then I wanted.

Here is the link to the tutorial I used I just changed the measurements. I made these three today during the hour that Grady was napping.

Being Crafty

Here is the Fred Flintstone & Barney costume I made for a friend's kids! I also made a bag to go with Grady's Halloween costume, but having trouble finding an ink jet printer to print an iron transfer to finish the bag. So we will see if it is done for Halloween.

In March on one of the blogs I read (The Pleated Poppy) Lindsey had a guest blogger (Nicole) talk about a Family Rules Project she did. I thought it was really cool. Then in Sept she blogged about the Family Rules again and went into more details about how to do it. Again I really liked it but never was motivated enough to start it. Well on Saturday Lindsey blogged about finishing the Family Rules for her house. And for some reason at 36 weeks pregnant I decided this was the time to start making a Family Rules canvas for our house.

I went though and picked the rules I liked that Nicole and Lindsey used and some of the rules that her blog followers shared. I put them in a word document and picked a different fonts for each rule, because I hate my handwriting and would not have been able to make this look good without the computer.

I went to Hobby Lobby today for a canvas, paint and some pretty paper, it only cost me $8 for everything. I pretty much followed the directions that Lindsey had posted, but just printed my rules onto paper.

I am pretty happy with the results and it did not take long at all. I did not wait till the bottom layer of Mod Podge dried and started to add the top layer of Mod Podge to seal it and it started to bubble up. Oh Well, I will seal it with one more layer tomorrow, but I am very happy with Our Family Rules it is already hanging up in our kitchen.

UPDATE: I spoke to soon... after the Rules dried last night the bubbles went away, YEAH!! Here are some updated pictures.

H1N1 SCARE & Carving Pumpkin Heads!

After last weekends Playgroup Halloween Party we had 4 kids and 1 mom come down with the H1N1 virus. Keith started feeling sick on Tuesday and came home early from work (which means he must have been feeling REALLY bad b/c he does not do that). We were worried that he might have caught the H1N1 flu so he went to the Dr Wednesday morning to get tested but lucky it came back negative. Grady had been having little cough in the morning since the weekend so I brought him to the Dr to get tested too which also came back negative. Keith stayed home on Wednesday but was feeling a lot better. When he went back to work on Thursday he found out that a couple people at work had home sick too, so it looks like a 24 hour bug was going around his office. I decided to stay home last week and not go to any playdates just to make sure Grady was not sick. We are so ready to get out and see our friends again this week!

We all got our flu vaccinations last month and I have been meaning to get all of our H1N1 flu vaccines because I am very worried about getting it while being pregnant and then also worried about having a newborn during flu season. So after this scare Keith and I got our H1N1 vaccine and Grady is getting his Nov 2 the first available appointment the pediatrician had.

This weekend we decided to carve our pumpkin heads! Grady was really excited about getting the pumpkins but once we started getting out the guts Grady started to gag. That boy has a very active gag reflex.

He did help Keith and me pick out what to carve. And he LOVED the roasted pumpkin seeds.

Grady helped me carve the face... his name is Earl!! Keith did the tree by himself!

Halloween Parties!!

It is that time of year again, HALLOWEEN!! And that means lots of Halloween parties.

Saturday Oct 17 we had two Halloween parties to go to.

First was our Playgroups Halloween Party!

picture by: K Wittry!

And then Kevin and Andrea's Annual Costume Party!!

This year I was trying to find a costume that worked with a pregnant belly. So I can up with Juno.

Here is the movie poster for those of you that have not seen the movie. Mom :)

But we ended up having twins at the party. Cris is pregnant too but not showing that much so she had a pillow helping her out.

Toy Story's Woody and Bo Peep

Kanye West & Beyonce

We had a great time and Grady had a new babysitter that night and did great. Which is GREAT news for us, because we have been looking for a babysitter for a while.

Baby Shower!!

My Mom Group Friends threw me a Mom's Night Out Baby Shower Dinner. It was great to be out with the ladies, have a great dinner and to celebrate the arrival of Baby Reece. Yes for those of you that do not know Reece will be the baby's name if it is a boy or a girl!

The decorations were beautiful and Liz made super cute Reese's peanut butter cup cupcakes!!

I got a lot of wonderful gifts. We have so many talented moms in the group many of them made handmade gifts and I LOVE them all. It is just so nice thinking about the time they put into making it for the Baby!!

Thanks Ladies for joining me at my baby shower. I had a WONDERFUL night!