Bailey is One!

On July 1st Bailey had his first birthday. For a special treat he got his favorite meal for dinner- brown rice and shredded chicken breast. The pictures below show a comparison between when we first got him, and how big he's grown.

A smiling dog with green "socks" after playing outside in the recently cut lawn...

Bailey and Christine the first day home...

And now (we've both grown a bit).

Bailey and Reed playing the first few days home...

And now posing for the camera.

Time to shower baby!

We are approaching 32 weeks (on Friday June 20th) and closing in on two months until Avery hopefully arrives. This past weekend we attended a weekend childbirth class series, and feel a bit more educated and prepared for her birth.

As we continue to get ready, we have been blessed to have friends and family plan four baby showers for baby Avery. There was one shower on May 18th and one on June 7th, the other two are scheduled for June. Below are some pictures from each of the showers.

3/4 of the way there!

Our last appointment was a few days over 28 weeks, and everything looks very normal. I am measuring right on track- one centimeter per week along. Baby girl's heartbeat was a strong 145 beats/minute and she has already moved into a head down position with her bottom up near my ribs. I am scheduled for my next follow-up at 32 weeks which will be the last monthly appointment. After that I'll be seen every other week until 36 weeks, and every week after that until her debut. We have started taking some baby-prep classes and are amazed to think how fast time is going by.

Our preparations continue and things are continuing to come along with Avery's bedroom. Below are the most recent pictures of her room and a curent "profile" picture.

A bed near the window with Reed's old friend George keeping watch for the time being.

Dresser/changing table with a china doll my grandma gave me when I was a little girl.
Bookcase with baby's first books and some bins for toys.
30 weeks and counting.

Talk about a heat wave

Today hit record temperatures in the Seattle area. While driving back home around 3 pm, the car registered 93* outside!!! We spent the morning at the University Ave street fair, and Bailey met several other dogs. He however did not like the heat- nor did I, as my hands swelled up like sausages and I had to take off all my rings.

After the street fair Reed & Bailey went to the Bellevue park to sit in the shade and play with other small dogs while I looked around at the mall for some more warm weather maternity clothes. While leaving the park Bailey took an unexpected "dip" in the water fountain- head first. Luckily Reed was standing right next to him and was able to grab him out of the water before he realized what happened. Although he was startled, the water helped to cool Bailey off a little bit. Below is a picture of him relaxing in front of the fan, trying to keep cool.

Below is a picture of me at 27 weeks, also trying to keep cool. It's amazing to think that in about 3 months baby Avery will be here. We are still working on the nursery and will be taking our first baby-prep class in a few weeks.

A Spring snow, a crib, and a growing belly.

For those of you that don't know, it snowed in the Puget Sound area on April 18th. Yes, April 18th...almost a month after Spring started. We actually got snow on the 20th as well. Here is a picture of the snow coming down. After it was all done we had over 3 inches. It was terrible.

We have been working hard on baby Avery's room. We painted it, put together a bookcase, hung some shelves, put some wall decorations on the wall, put together a crib, took apart and sent back a crib because a screw was loose, and put together another crib. Here is a picture of the crib: Also here is a picture of Christine at week 24:
Lastly, a picture of what happens when you leave a 14 lb dog outside without supervision for 60 minutes, may this be your lesson from us to you, we obviously didn't learn the first time.

How cool is this....

On Thursday Christine and I went to Siemens Ultrasound to get another look at baby Avery Baker. Thanks to our friends the Van Gorkoms, who told us about Siemens Ultrasound, we got some great 3D pictures of her. Siemens pays you a little bit of money to come in and get an ultrasound done so then if the pictures are good, they can use the shots in their marketing material. We saw her heart beating, the blood flowing through it, saw her hiccup and she saw her moving her legs around all over the place. Here are pictures of the baby:

Her right arm is on the left and her face is in the center. You can see her eyes, nose, and mouth.

This is another picture of her face also in this shot is the unbilical cord (it's across her chin) she was playing with it when she wasn't playing with her toes.

This one is of her left arm and her leg. Check our that calf muscle!

Lastly, a short clip of Avery moving her fingers and giving you a sneak peek of her little chin and mouth.

Over half way there!

Baby Avery has now grown to about 10 1/2 inches - or the length of a carrot. She is moving around quite a bit more - sometimes I can feel her in a few places at once.

Here's a little perspective on the growth to date. The picture below was taken at my sister's birthday party the end of January.

This picture was just taken at 21 weeks 3 days. What a difference a few months makes!

We've started getting the nursery ready for baby's arrival in August. Yeah- that is still a long ways away, but considering we're over halfway there, we wanted to get started now and take our time. The bedding and colors we are using to decorate are pink, brown and white. The replacement crib is scheduled to be delivered on April 25th - the first one we got had a problem with the slider on the drop side (the taken apart crib is in the closet of the picture).

This past weekend we (ok, really Reed) painted the nursery. See the "in process" picture below.