Eye Candy By Kacie

we got stones pictures done on saturday (finally), and it was quite the experience. i had fed him about an hour before we left, but he decided that he was hungry about halfway through the shoot, and would not stop screaming until he got a bottle (i'm not a mean mom...i just try to hold him off for at least 4 hours between feedings because he's eating 6 oz), but once we got more food in him he was a gem. kacie did a fantastic job (thanks for being so patient with us kacie!). if you want a preview go to http://eyecandybykacie.blogspot.com. take a look at the cute pics she did of stone and all the other awesome stuff she does! i'll be sure to post a few when i get them. thanks again kacie!

suggestions?

ok...so i have to start off by saying that stone is a FANTASTIC baby, but getting him to go to sleep at night sometimes proves to be just a little challenging (which i know is normal). he sleeps a lot during the day and then wants to be up at night. we have gotten better at keeping him up more during the day now...and so he falls asleep in my arms around 11...but as soon as i put him down he's awake again. i don't mind just letting him hang out in his crib alone and letting him falls asleep that way, he sleeps better and longer in the night if he is swaddled...but he HATES that. so i guess what i'm asking is..does anyone have any bed time suggestions? what worked for all of you pro mommies out there?

update

ok...so it's been just over two weeks since i posted last and a lot has happened. we have moved, settled into our rental house, had a baby, closed on our old home, been slightly sleep deprived, i turned 25, and we are getting used to being parents. i'll start at the beginning...

friday october 30th was the day that we decided to get moved out of our home. we recruited both of our families. the men moved all of the furniture, i packed things into boxes, my mother-in-law packed up the kitchen, and my mother was at the rental cleaning and unpacking. we got everything moved that afternoon and the rest of the day (and into the night) was spent unpacking and getting the nusery and everything else in living condition. that was the first night we spent in the rental home. the 31st was spent trying to get settled and getting ready to have a baby. that night we had my family come over for a halloween party.

sunday, november 1st we checked into the hospital at 6am and had our baby boy by 3:23pm that afternoon (for the full story go here). stone was perfectly healthy, but we were kept in the hospital until the 3rd because i had tested posotive for group b strep (staying an extra night sucked big time).

since then we have had lots and lots of visitors. i turned 25 on november 5th,stone and i on my birthday

and we closed on our old house on friday the 13th. i think we are getting the hang of being parents...the sleepless nights are hard on me and josh hates going to work and being away from us all day long, but other than those two things we have been loving this new adventure and we are coping well. i love the little sounds that stone makes in his sleep (he giggled in his sleep last night!), and his facial expressions just melt my heart. its amazing how much love i have for this litte man. it's been so fun to see josh interact with stone...he has been a fantastic daddy and is so sweet with our little boy.

so that's been our last few weeks. it's been crazy but i'm glad that everything happened the way that they did. and now we are just waiting on our new house. they still haven't started anything because the loan company is always wanting new things before they will ok the construction loan. it's frusterating but we are in a nice home for now and i'm spending all of my time caring for stone, so i'm not even really thinking about the new house, but i am thinking about how excited i am to see new moon! haha! i'm going on saturday morning. josh is watching the baby, and i'm having a girls morning. can't wait!

i'll be better at blogging now that i have a few things figured out. it feels great to be back into the blogging wold..i've missed you all!

Stone Joshua McGavin

our little one has arrived! it happened at 3:23 pm. he was 7lbs. 7oz. and 20 1/2 in long. Everything with labor and delivery went great (a little slow) and we are all doing fabulous (for the detailed story keep checking back to my baby blog). we are all exausted at the moment, but of course i'm not sleeping because i want to stay up and stare at and snuggle my new baby. here are a few pictures to hold you all over until i can post more of the story and other things that we have been up to:

last pregnancy shot... can you tell i'm a little nervous? happy after getting my epidural

just after delivery...amazed at my new little one

there he is! he is just perfect and i love every little ounce of him! i'll report more a little later on.

at the hospital

so we are at the hospital right now just waiting. we got here at 6 and they had me hooked up to everything and the "pit" started by 7:30. so far im feeling great, but they did have to shut the pit off because my body just wanted to keep contracting instead of giving stone a little break in between. we'll try to keep everyone updated..but by the end of the day we will have a sweet baby boy!!!

for anyone who's interested

there are pictures of our nursery posted on stone's baby blog if anyone is interested. it's not compleatly finished yet, but it's getting pretty darn close. go check it out if you want, and let me know what you think.

28 weeks

this is me at 28 weeks...i know i'm gonna get bigger, but i dunno how...i already feel HUGE! yes, those are a pair of my new maternity pants (which still don't seem to fit right) and one of my maternity shirts. i'm so glad that maternity wear has gotten cuter...even in the last 5 years since i had seth things are a lot more attractive. so far the pregnancy has gone great and i'm still feeling really good. only 82 days to go (but who's counting?)!

100 days

so as of today there are only 100 days till our little man arrives (i'm hoping for fewer days...but i guess it could be a few more too)! i can't wait! he's been moving like crazy in there and i love it.
i got my new maternity clothes that i ordered...and they all fit perfectly and are so comfy (100 bucks well spent)....i also went over to milan maternity this morning and ordered myself 3 basic tops to help get me through the summer (thanks for the tip natalie). the basic collection is very reasonably priced and there are some super cute stuff (i just hope it fits right)...i love that a lot of maternity stuff is so cute now.

ranting

ok...so i just have to rant for a sec. i've bought a few maternity items here in town, but there really isn't much to choose from (unless i wanna wear a tent), so i got online and ordered a few things because i'm getting too big for my regular stretchy stuff. i bought 4 items (a skirt and three shirts) and spent 100 bucks!!!!
i just think its crap that people charge so much for maternity stuff....things that will only be worn for 3 or 4 months! but i guess that since we have to have it they can charge whatever they want and we'll just have to suck it up. i will say tho that the few things i got are super cute (at least they look that way online), and i just hope they fit and i can get some good wear out of them. i just feel so bad spending that kind of money on maternity clothes when we need to be getting lots of baby stuff....but i guess this is all just part of the journey right?

24 weeks

24 weeks and i already feel huge! it's gonna be a long summer.
other than feeling big i've been doing pretty good. i have some back pain and some heartburn but nothing to complain about. i'm super lucky to be feeling great!

making summer pregnancies enjoyable

i know that being pregnant in the summer isn't going to be easy (especially when we only have a window unit for AC). i'm mentally preparing myself for the heat, the swelling, and feeling like i wanna stand in a cold shower all day long...thanks goodness it hasn't been too bad yet. what has helped me through a few of the warmer days lately are

otter pops (we always have a supply in the freezer), and my current craving....shaved ice!!! we have a sno shack just a few blocks from our house (you locals know how fantastic a good sno shack is), and last night josh informed me that he had some cash in his wallet (we don't usually carry cash) so that i could have my shaved ice fix (i'm to the point in my pregnancy that crunching on ice is fantastic). so we went out last night after dinner, got us each some shaved ice (i tried the melon ice flavor.....delish), came home, and spent the rest of the evening watching star trek enterprise (i realize that this makes us sound totally lame but it's our new fave) in shorts and tank tops. we are going to enjoy this last "lazy" summer before our little stone arrives.

thank you otter pops and sno shack for making summer pregnancies much more enjoyable!

first baby items

so today i bought our first actual baby items (i have bought a blanket..but thats it)...stones bedding! you would think that i would want to get a big ticket item first...you know like a crib or changeing table...or car seat, but nope...i HAD to get the bedding first. i wanted to match the crib to the bedding instead of trying to find bedding that i loved that would match a crib. see...at first i had invisioned that i would get a black crib..not matter what gender our baby was, but im glad that i held off, because now that i found the bedding that i like a black crib would not have matched. this is what i settled on
simple, clean, and classy. i'm not one of the cutesy nursery types...i didn't want baby animals, or airplanes, or baseballs....i just wanted something modern and simple..and i found it! i think it will be perfect because i didn't wanna walk into that room and be overwhelmed with pattern (which some of the bedding i initally liked would have done) because the room is fairly small. i got the curtains too...we have french doors in the nursery that go out into the backyard so i was thrilled to find the curtains. now i can start finding a crib that i like.

what do you think of?

so what or who do you think of when you hear the name Stone? i think of stone phillips, stone gossard, stone cold, or actual stones...and it looks like someone else thinks around the same lines as i do.....
we recieved this little gift in the mail this afternoon (thanks christin....you are too sweet!). they are custom screen printed onsies with stone phillips, stones, and stone gossard on them. we laughed so hard...and we are so grateful that we have such thoughtful people in our lives. thanks again christin. go ahead and think whatever you want when you hear the name stone.... i do. but it's our sons name and its perfect!

a few details

i know i set up our baby blog so that i wouldn't overwhelm this one with baby stuff (and so far i think i've done pretty good), but i just wanted to post a few details about yesterday for those who don't read the other blog.
the ultrasound was amazing, and it was so fun to see out little boy in there moving around (and being quite flexible i might add), he was so squirmy! seeing him really made the fact that we are having a baby more real, and i think it was the first time that josh maybe felt bonded to our little peanut. it was so cute to watch josh be so interested and amazed at what was going on inside of me. i cried a little bit seeing my wonderful husbands heart grow just a little bit more in that moment (wow that was cheesy).
you might all be wondering about the name "stone"....well josh always wanted a son named stone (after one of the guitarists in his favorite band pearl jam...suprised?), and there was no budging him. so we agreed that if we had a boy he could pick the name (i was sick of arguing about it), and if it was a girl i got to pick. i do have to admit that the name has grown on me (since josh has been calling him stone all along), but it still doesn't sound like a name....but i'm sure it will fit him to a T. so now we are wondering if it should be Stone Joshua McGavin (it sounds good but josh feels like thats glorifying himself) or Stone James McGavin (James is the name of one of josh's uncles that passed away from cancer and josh was very close with). we tried putting our dads names with stone....but they just don't sound right...what do you all think? ....we need help!
so there you have it...that's our ultrasound story, and if you wanna see a picture of stone's first baby gift and a picture of baby's first blanket head over to the baby blog.

little man

we're having a boy! Stone (Joshua or James) McGavin. more details to come.

FANTASTIC day

so my new toy didn't come yesterday. i was soooo sad (i was so looking forward to having clean carpets and rugs again), stupid amazon (no really it was our fault...we didn't order it till saturday and we thought that putting it on overnight delivery would get it to us monday...duh). according to amazon it will be here today tho, which makes today a FANTASTIC day because we find out the sex of the baby at 4, and then i get to go home and play with my new toy, then we are going shopping for girl or boy things, then we are meeting with our families for dinner and a celebration at brownstone (yum). like i said...FANTASTIC day.

questions

so i got home from work last night and josh was on the phone to an old friend of his. they hadn't talked in forever so they were catching up. josh had told the friend that we were expecting and the friend told him congrats and then proceeded to tell my husband how much the first year sucks and how once the baby arrives, the husband is pretty much pushed to the side and forgotten by the wife (thanks "friend" awesome encouragement)!

after the phone conversation josh came into the bedroom where i was laying on the bed, and cuddled up next to me and started telling me about the conversation. he "jokingly" told me that if that was the way this was all gonna be then he had changed his mind about the baby. i tried to tell him that the first few months are gonna be really hard, and that it wasn't fair for him to think that all women would "forget" about their husbands once the baby came (i tell myself that i will NEVER be that woman). but is there some truth to the horror stories that people tell AFTER you are already pregnant?

i'm no idiot....i know that it's gonna be hard at times (it can't all be fun and games), i know there will be a lot of sleepless nights, and days when the baby just wants to cry and we won't know why, and i even know that there will be times when i want to give josh my full attention and something with the baby will come up and he may feel a little ignored. i'm ok with learning how to work through all that, but what about the men? is it really as hellish on them as all their friends tell them it will be? as the wife..what can i do to make sure josh doesn't feel like he isn't as important to me anymore?

if anyone has any advise or tips or anything i would love to hear it. i just really don't want josh to not love this part of our life, and i need to know what i can do to make it easier on him.

checkup: week 14

i just got back from the doctor and everything is looking great! i've gained a whopping 2 lbs so far, but the dr. said that as long as i was measuring where i should be then she's ok with that...and i'm measuring right on! i heard the baby's heartbeat again today (call me stupid but i had no idea i would get to hear it every time....they didn't do that with seth), and it's in the 150's...strong and healthy! i was also told that we should start feeling the baby move anytime within the next few weeks (so excited)! i scheduled our ultrasound for june 9th at 4:00 pm...i can't wait to find out what we are having! i love the second trimester! it's when all the exciting stuff happens.

i know i want a baby but....

i did not ask for acne....even drier skin than normal...and new moles and freckles (i'm a redhead...i have enough freckles already)! i know i shouldn't complain because i have felt mostly great so far....no morning sickness, very little heartburn, i'm sleeping like a champ (of course that comes with the exaustion), and i've had no cramping, and no major aversion to foods or smells (some cravings....yes). i'm very lucky (please don't hate me), but over the weekend i noticed a new mole...on my face (at least it's not on my nose or my chin or right between my eyes though)!!!! i had to ask josh if i was crazy or if the mole had been there forever. he comfirmed that it is new, and then he looked worried, because not only is it new, but it hurts when i touch it. i told him that we didn't need to worry because this kind of thing happens with pregnancy, but talk about weird! in a way this pregnancy feels just like it did when i was pregnant with seth, but at the same time it feels COMPLEATLY different. i don't remember having ANY symptoms with seth...none at all, but maybe that's because i was younger and my body could handle it better, or maybe because god knew what i would be going through after seth was born so he decided to take it easy. really im not complaining, because so far i've loved being pregnant, i just find it very odd the things that pop up when you least expect them. it will be totally worth it tho...i'm so excited!

heartbeat

i just got back from the doctor. we got to hear the heartbeat today! at first they had a hard time finding it so that scared us a bit...but they finally found it and then our little one didn't want to sit still long enough to hear a full min. so they had to keep chasing him/her around and starting over. we finally got a full min count in and the nurse said it was 160 beats per min. it was so great to hear that sound, it just really drives home the fact that there is a baby growing and living in there.