He is here!

Karsten Brody Westlake has arrived - here are the stats pictures will come tomorrow. :)

• 17 hours of labor - no induction necessary (I will explain later)
• He was 7 pounds 8.5 ounces, 20 1/2 inches long, 10 fingers, 10 toes, 1 really cute smile
• His eyes are black right now (like mine were at birth)
• He has a darker version of my hair color right now, his is more brown but when he was first born it was sandy blonde with a little red
• He has Ryan's long arms, fingers, and legs
• He was born at 1:19pm on 7-15
• He has the cutest sneezes and yawns and doesn't cry very much yet unless you take him away from mommy, daddy, or his warmer...then it is on like donky kong - LOL

Late.....

Well my kid must take after me, he is late...we are still waiting. :)

I make the joke that the only thing I have been on-time for was my birth, after that I have pretty much been late for everything so perhaps there is hope for this kiddo.

1 Day left….hopefully

So today is officially the end of week 39; I am due tomorrow! Hopefully little Bean will decide to make his grand entrance soon. If he does not show up by Tuesday evening I am being induced so either way check back for updates.

Oh the Places You’ll go…when you are bored and waiting for a baby

Ryan recently finished his summer internship for school (Friday) so he has been home with me for a few days. We decided that we were very bored and Ryan had heard about this nice little “dirt” road that essentially goes from one reservoir over a mountain and down to another reservoir. The person who told Ryan about the road described it as a pleasant drive and saw nothing wrong with taking a pregnant woman on the drive. So we thought well we are super bored let’s plan a trip down to this dirt road and get out into nature for a few hours. Well we drove down about an hour to the turn off for the main road that leads to the dirt road…then we turned onto the dirt road, which is one path cut through the trees on the side of a mountain with a creek running beside it…did I mention it is part of the mountain so instead of dirt it was more like bumpy rocks for 2/3rds of the drive. As I was tossed around from side to side as well as up and down I think I can honestly say that I made Bean mad….but not mad enough to want out. The last 1/3rd of the drive was fairly smooth, this was when we reached the top then descended back down the mountain. Here are some pictures from our adventure…our 39 and a half week belly shot…HUGENESS, a little animal friend we met along the way, a shot of the “nice” part of our drive, and a view from the top of the mountain.

Movies and Dating

Ryan and I have recently been trying to spend as much time together as possible while we are still a family of 2. Yesterday we decided to watch a few movies together, Star Trek (in the theater) and Benjamin Button (rental).

So I admit that I really wasn’t too excited to see Star Trek. Growing up I occasionally watched the Star Trek show and I thought it was ridiculously cheesy (sorry if you liked it, it just wasn’t my thing). Any ways, I agreed to go to the show because so many people had said it was good…they were right. I was really surprised at how good the movie was; definitely worth seeing. My favorite part – the little kid Jim Kirk driving the car and singing the Beastie Boys song Sabotage “wahhhhha…. I can’t stand it, I know you planned it….” made me want to go speeding down the street in my car listening to that CD (yes I have the Beastie Boys Greatest hits CD…go ahead take in the shock).

Now Benjamin Button, wow I should have NEVER watched that movie while pregnant – those of you who have seen it probably know why. The movie I thought had great acting and a decent story line but it moved super slow. Ryan didn’t like it. I thought it was sad, Ryan thought it was depressing. We both agreed it moved very slow. I think if you want a sad love story and you have a lot of time on your hands it is great, otherwise probably not a movie I would suggest. I don’t suggest this movie for anyone who is pregnant.

14 Days and Counting….

It seems like just yesterday I found out I was pregnant, boy did that make me nervous and excited. Then we found out we were having a boy and we told pretty much everyone…again nervous and excited. Now that we are in the home stretch as my doctor likes to call it I can’t help but feeling an overwhelming sense of, you guessed it, nervous excitement!

I have been busy washing baby stuff, setting up his room, acquiring baby stuff (man this kid is going to have an awesome birthday), and I think attempting to eat my way into labor (I am so hungry…can’t eat all that much at once but boy do I like to eat, well at least most days lately).

Here’s a picture of my ever growing belly….yes it is HUGE but I guess that is what happens when you stick a bun in a 4 foot 11 oven….the only place it has to “rise” is out. Thankfully I have gained very little weight during my pregnancy, so hopefully my “massive bump” will recede quickly.
I have also planted a garden on our back porch recently…yes I know I am pregnant like I need anything else to take care of other than a baby. I have always wanted to try and grow veggies as well as some herbs and now that we have a place that actually gets sunlight where we are “allowed” to plant according to our lease, I thought I would try it out.

I planted:
Tomatoes
Zucchini
Basil
Cilantro
Banana Peppers
Green Bell Peppers
Paris Island Romaine Lettuce
Chocolate Bell Peppers (these are supposed to be sweet and gourmet quality…they are all the rage on the internet)

Of course right after I planted my little garden it started raining for weeks on end….argh. Good thing I planted in well drained containers. I did have to have Ryan drill into one of the potters to create more drainage (tomatoes) because the plant was being finicky. All the rain also brought bugs (only on two of the plants) and fungus (just on the tomatoes)…so I have had to learn a lot about natural ways to combat fungus and buggies from invading my garden. Hopefully the sun will decide to stay for a while…we had our first 3 days in a row with no rain this week (stopped today…it rained this morning – 3 days is a lot considering it has been raining every day for a month).

Here are some pictures of my meager garden; hopefully I can manage to grow something worth eating!
I also thought I would include a picture of what we see from our back porch, you can see the mountains in the background and some of the south-west part of the Salt Lake Valley as well as the Northern part of the Utah Valley. Out our front door we have mountains that are much closer, I will have to take a picture of those. We also have the mountain we live on that you can see the side of that has the hang gliding park on it if you turn the other direction from our porch or walk out our front door.
It also rained the other day (big surprise) and the clouds were pretty low, I missed the best pictures but I thought I would share a bit of the view from our window after the storm.

Let the Countdown Begin!

As of today I have 30 days left until my due date, I can hardly believe it! It is hard to really picture myself as a parent; perhaps it takes some time to get used to the idea that I will be someone’s mommy. I know this sounds weird but I just don’t feel old enough to be someone’s mom. Yes, I do know how absolutely ridiculous it sounds when I say I don’t feel old enough – I am plenty old enough to be a mom…of a few kids.
Well I am excited to see what this new adventure brings and I am very excited to start preparing more for Bean’s arrival.

Also worth mentioning, I have been taking this pre-natal water aerobics class and I love it! I highly recommend swimming and water aerobics to anyone who is pregnant! I feel so much lighter and like I am floating on air in the pool. Even on days when my back hurts, the baby is “on my nerves” literally, and I feel gross, I get in that warm pool and I feel like I can do anything! It is also super cool to feel the baby moving around while swimming, it is like he is trying to swim with me.

Crib!

Recently we moved into a larger place (right down the street from our last townhome). After moving in we decided to set up the crib, to see what it looks like and to make sure we had all the parts. We couldn’t have been more pleased with the way it turned out! We are excited to start putting the baby’s room together (now that we have a room for him).

Here some pictures of our crib assembly adventure.