Grandma Borup is here

It is so nice to have my mom here!!!!!!

And she brought some amazing homemade gifts. This diaper bag.And this amazing quilt for Creed. It has nursery rhymes embroidered around the border. IT's one of those gifts that I'm afraid to use because it's so nice.

Life changes

Like father like son. A third pile of laundry!

And Creed discovered his thumb!

Strike a pose!

Candice posted a few pictures from our shoot yesterday on her blog, but incase you don't read it, I thought I would post copies here too. She is such an amazing photographer!

We need some sleep!

Things I have learned in the last 48 hours:
1. When people say that the first night home from the hospital is difficult, they are not exaggerating. I'll spare you the details, but I was having a difficult time feeding Creed so there wasn't much sleeping, but there was a lot of crying on my part and Creed's. Fortunately things have been getting better.
2. Creed is freakishly strong; He can push himself away from me when I'm trying to feed him and things are not going the way he wants, he can hold his head up and look around, and he can roll over! Newborns are not supposed to be able to roll over and the first time it happened it startled me. Now we have to really keep a close eye one him wherever we put him down.
3. I'm not a good baby photographer, but Candice is. Her pictures are so adorable, and I can't wait to get the edited copies so I can share them with you! She's really busy getting her CKU classes together, but she came all the way up here with her family just for the day so she could take pictures of Creed for us and she's going to design his birth announcement.
4. I never knew what a difference a homemade meal or a short visit could make in someone else's life. I'm in love with Creed, but feeling a little inadequite and overwhelmed at times, and and the support of our friends and family has meant so much to me and Larry. When life gets a little more settled I vow to be more thoughtful of ways I can serve my friends.
5. I knew Larry traveling to interviews over the next few months was going to be difficult, but I thought that I could handle it. Yah, I'm rethinking that one and coming up with a new plan.
6. I've never wanted to see my mom as much as I do right now. She arrives tomorrow and I'm incredibly excited to introduce her to Creed.
7. I think Larry and I each fall a little more in love with Creed everytime we look at him. Things have not been easy, but I know it will get better and in the meantime it's worth it because he's so sweet and perfect.

Today was a big day for Creed. He got to meet two of his three cousins.

He spent hours posing for pictures.
And he attend the awards ceremony for his cousins being the best older cousin and second oldest cousin Creed has. One of them wasn't thrilled with all of the attention the new baby was betting so Larry decided they both deserved a little special attention (ok, maybe the medals are left over from winning Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on the cruise we went on so they have big boats on the medal, but they didn't seem to notice)

Creed Atticus takes a trip home

Well, we officially named the baby Creed Atticus. He's lost a little weight, but we were able to go home today and we're all doing pretty well (although we could all use a nap).

Candice is coming to take some pictures of Creed on Monday, but in the meantime here are a few more that we took. Here's our first family photo from Thursday night.

Here I am celebrating the end of gestational diabetes. I can't tell you how long I've been dying to have a bowl of Honeynut Cheerios so Larry had them ready and waiting to motivate me through Creed's birth.
Here's Creed on his second day.
Here's Creed this morning is his first outfit getting ready to go home. Here's Larry trying to figure out the carseat.
Even with the infant headrests, he's pretty small for the carseat. And he finally made it in so we could head home!

Our new arrival!

My water broke last night around 10 p.m. while I was sitting on my couch talking to Jessica. Since I wasn't due until April 1st, I was totally surprised and Jessica helped me throw together a hospital bag as Larry drove home from his shift at the hospital to pick me up. More later, but the baby arrived at 8:03 a.m. 8 pounds even, 20 inches long and we're both doing well. I think we'll be heading home from the hospital on Saturday.

I know I'm biased, but I think he's adorable and I was so excited to see that he has my dimples.

Easter is in the air

The end of an era

Thursday was my last day of work. I guess it's time to throw out my business cards.
I've worked full-time the whole time Larry and I have been married, and back in college I worked about thirty hours a week so I'm not sure I'll know what to do with myself (although the baby will solve that problem when he arrives). So far I just feel like I had a long weekend but it will probably sink in soon.

These are a few of my favorite things

We've received some really amazing handmade gifts for the baby and I had to post them here so you can see them too.

Larry's Aunt Nadine made this beautiful blanket (it's folded in half here). It's so soft and cuddly, and I almost feel like it's too precious to use with the baby.

Cat made this hoodie with a block O in scarlet and gray since Larry and I are both OSU alumni. She designed it to zip up the back so we can put it on the baby without pulling it over his head. I cannot wait for it to fit the baby!
And last, but not least, Jessica, who hosted my baby shower, made all of these! There's Wadsworth the Duck and Sheldon the Turtle (his shell even comes off) and a matching blanket and hat. Jessica amazes me with all of the things she makes.Don't these gifts made you want to learn how to knit and crochet? Cat taught me how to knit well enough to make a scarf for Marissa, but it did not come naturally to me and these gifts are way beyond my skill level. I guess it's a good thing I have friends and family with skills!

Happy Birthday Dad!

My dad's birthday was this weekend and I had to tell you what Larry, Marissa, Mike and I got him, a pair of these:

Heelys! My dad saw some kids wearing them on our cruise in December and commented that he would love to have a pair and he thought it would be really cool to wear them on campus and skate into class to give his lectures (he's not your typical professor). The image that left in my head was too good to resist so I hope that he enjoys them! Keep practicing dad!

Celebrate good times

Friday night we took advantage of what might be our last chance for a date in awhile and went to see Ballet Met's Whodunit? I loved it, but Larry just wanted the characters to start talking. Truthfully the plot could have used a little more development, but the concept was so fun and each suspect was characterized so well through their style of movement. And can you really go wrong when you only paid $5 for your ticket? The marketing department is genius and they included quiz questions in the program so if you paid close attention to the performance you could enter your answers in their website afterwards for a chance to win tickets to their next performance.

Saturday I THOUGHT that we were going to Cat's for a Saint Patrick's Day lunch (she said her kids couldn't do it next weekend and I totally bought her story). Instead she surprised me with a baby shower with my friends from my old job at Columbus Commercial Realty. It was good to see some old friends that I haven't seen in awhile. It made me really miss working in a bigger office with a lot of women.

I think this was the first baby shower that Larry has ever been to and of course he enjoyed it since it involved presents and a lot of good food.

We went to Target Saturday night to pick up a few things that we absolutely have to have when the baby comes so even though we still need a lot of things, I think we both feel a little more prepared. Larry worked Sunday night but they weren't busy so I stopped by and we took the maternity tour. Up until that point I thought I was pretty ready to have this baby, but it scared me a little and if he wants to wait to arrive closer to his due date, that's just fine with me!

I have three days of work left. Training my replacement has been going well so now I just need to find enough to keep us both busy for the next few days. I had another ultrasound today and we were hoping it would help us predict an arrive date, but it was no help at all. His head was too low to be able to accurately measure it, but my doctor is guessing he is about 6 1/2 lbs. She thinks he'll be about 8 lbs if I make it to my due date. I'm still not dilated AT ALL, but she said since his head is so low that doesn't mean anything. He could arrive tonight or wait three weeks and there's really no way to make an accurate predictions. I guess we'll just have to wait to find out!

The rest of the weekend

After the baby shower Candice, Marissa and I browsed some fun shops in old Powell. I let Candice use my camera since she forgot hers so you can see pictures there. Then it was home for pizza with the boys and all of us headed to Jeni's ice cream so Marissa had a chance to experience it for the first time (where else can you find vanilla orchid orange flower or cassis ice cream?). I couldn't have any obviously so I can wait to head back post baby.

After church on Sunday, Candice, Marissa, & Grant decorated onesies left over from the shower.

You can't see it in this picture but inside of that circle under the rainbow it says, "I'm glad we have a new boy." Ya gotta love it!

All the grown ups napped for the next three hours while I was left to entertain the boys. I pulled out every kitchen trick I could think of to keep them busy. Their favorite was the homemade ice cream that you make by putting milk, sugar, and vanilla in a ziplock bag and then putting it in a bigger bag or jar full of ice and rock salt and letting them shake away.

Larry has been taking monthly pictures of my pregnant profile and hopefully this is the last one. Doesn't my stomach look fake? I keep thinking there's no more room, but the baby keeps getting bigger.

Best weekend ever!

So I knew my sister Candice was coming up with her kids to spend the weekend with me so she could come to my baby shower on Saturday, what I didn't know was that she convinced my little sister, Marissa, to fly in from Las Vegas so we could all spend the weekend together. I was totally surprised. We haven't been all together since about a year and a half ago and that was for Marrisa's wedding so it was a little chaotic. Thanks to Larry baby-sitting the boys, we were able to have our first girls' weekend in a REALLY long time.

Candice took pictures at my shower since I was a little busy. My friends did such a great job planning everything. Katherine made assignments and made all of the invitations by hand (and did I mention that she had a baby a week ago and she was still there to make sure things went well?).

Rachel made food assignments and was totally thoughtful to include lots of things that I could eat (I love this picture that Candice took of her).

I'm sad that I missed a picture of Jessica, but she was busy being a wonderful hostess. She provided onesies and fabric markers so the guests could decorate them and she had an old fashioned pram to display all the gifts.

Thanks to everyone who made the day so special. It was one of those days that I just felt really lucky to know so many great people!

It's March and you know what that means . . .

I'm due soon! I'm tempted to start telling people that I'm due on March 31st instead of April 1st because it sounds so much sooner! I had a doctors appointment today and it looks like the baby wants out. My doctor couldn't believe how low his head is, but alas, I am not the least bit dilated. She's going to do another ultrasound next week to check his size again because his head is so low, but his legs and bottom are still crammed up in my ribs so who knows how big he is. Let's hope not so big.

I've been pining away over upholstered rocking chairs and I finally found one that I could afford with the Visa gift certificate I got from my office for Christmas. It arrived this week and I'm so excited to get it set up in the nursery. When it's unpacked and set up, it should look like this

Not much else is going on. Larry has started another crazy rotation, and he's getting ready to interview for a fellowship position at OSU on Monday. I've been working on finger puppets for my quiet book exchange group. I'm almost done with the chickens.And I plan to start on Penguins next.