Hi Gang,

Hope everyone is doing well. Mion and I are doing really well, steadily inching towards our big day! (BTW, 7 weeks from Monday!!!) We have another appointment w/ Dr. Parker on the 19th to see if Beck has turned. As our last appointment, he is still sitting totally upright and indian style. As far as I can tell he has made no movement to turn. Sometimes I can feel his little head up by my rib cage and can just about cup it with my hand. Pretty awesome feeling!

XO!!
KCH & Beck

Quite a bit has happened since last time I posted. Last week Mion and I have ordered our first shipment of cloth hybrid diapers and today we ordered our car seat and stroller.

-Did you know that it takes at least 500 years for a disposable diaper to completely biodegrade and that Americans put as many as 50 million diapers into landfills each day? I didn't either but when I found that out I, personally had no choice but to start researching my diapering options. In one of my many sessions of scouring the Internet I came across what I think is the most amazing invention for the diapering world EVER! They are called gDiapers. They where invented by a mom in Australia and are now headquartered in Portland Oregon. gDiapers are able to combine the convenience of a disposable diaper and the reusable aspect of the cloth diaper. A gDiaper insert will fully biodegrade in between 30-50 days. You are able to flush the gDiaper insert down the toilet, throw it in the trash or compost it in your compost pile. The cloth outer portion is very chic, it's kind of like a t-shirt material. The gDiaper marketing team calls them Hybrid Diapers. FYI: gdiapers are also a Carbon Neutral product. Hang on a second while I climb down off of my soap box and I'll tell you all about our car seat and stroller...

Ahem... Thanks for waiting.

As you all know I drive the smallest cars on the road...Mini Cooper S. And so our selection of car seat and stroller have been very stressful for me. I just knew I didn't have to give up my Mini Cooper just so I could have the ridiculously huge Graco travel system and Beck in the car at the same time. Again, after many session of scouring the Internet I was able to locate 2 companies in the UK that sells in the US. The reason I ended up with a British company is because, well, the Mini is British and from all I found they really do have a better handle to traveling light then we Americans do. And since we are going to have a new baby and the 100 pounds of his gear to haul around, I figured I would try and get an edge where I can. The stroller is made by Quinny and the model we chose is the Zapp in Lime. It is the smallest folding stroller on the market to date. It's small enough, once folded, to put into an overhead compartment on an airplane. Our car seat is made by Maxi Cosi and we chose the Cabriofix in Lemonade. There's not a whole lot that is revolutionary about the car seat just that it is made to go with the stroller we really wanted.

XO!

KCH

Nursery

Here are some pictures of the nursery. Mion has painted and assembled the crib and it looks phenomenal!

Here is a picture of the lamp we bought for the baby room. The lampshade we got on Ebay and the lantern base we found at Target. I just love the night light feature!! I know, I know! I'm a total nerd!

Sorry it's been so long

24 weeks 4 days...which means that this week has been the end of my 6th month. Super exciteg and yet super overwhelming as well. I never thought it would go this fast.

Since I last logged in Mion and I have purchased a crib, I was able to find exactly what I wanted and we are now in the process of prepping it for paint. After seeing the picture of our bedding in the pottery barn catalogue I just couldn't picture anything but a RED crib...So that's what were doing. We picked out a color called Heirloom Red at Lowe's, it's a really hearty brick red. Perfect for our bouncing baby boy.

We had our 6 month appointment on Thursday and all is still well. Par for the course we are still Mr. Man continues to stay just a little bit ahead of all the measurements. Even thought we moved my due date up to match him last month, this month he is measuring about 2 weeks ahead again. According to the Fundal (the top of the uterus) Height he is at 27 weeks. (Dad, sounds like the nickname "Moose" was spot on!) Chances are that we are just at the tale end of a big growth spurt. We'll see what our next appointment holds. If "Moose" continues to measure that far ahead we may indeed tweak the date again. Let's hope not, I'm not at all prepared for an August delivery. YIKES!!!

I'm two days into a 6 day vacation. I'm really just taking some time to get some things in order. Plus Monday is Mion and my 3rd anniversary so we are going to try and head south to the cold springs in Sulfur. All I want to do is find a rock by the water so that I can put my toes in the water and lay in the sun like a little prego lizard...But much cuter!

Mion and I have settled on a first name and are working on a middle....No, I'm not announcing it here...You all get your own private announcement. :)

XO!
KCH

23 weeks

This is a picture of the nursery bedding we picked out. I just got the bumper pad this afternoon, and if you can belive it, it's even cuter in person!!! :) I found it on the Pottery Barn Kids website on clearance. And since it was on clearance some of the essential pieces where sold out. But we were able to find them all on EBAY. We got the Quilt, Bumperpad, Duvet Cover, Sham, Crib skirt & lamp shade for under $300.

XO!

KCH

I KNEW IT!!!

Well like most of you know I was totally right!!! It's a little boy! Mion and I are very excited and are starting to work on names. It's really tough! I thought I had a pretty good idea of what kind of names we would like and even had a few front runners.....WRONG! Now that we are picturing a little curly headed toddler running around Grandpa Don's barn we are back to the drawing board.

XO!
KCH, MSH +1

IT'S A BOY!!!
pictures to follow

XO!
KCH