Baby Clothes

Here are some of the very cute clothes and blankets we have gotten so far.

Friends and family have been so nice as to send us stuff, and we picked up a few things ourselves.
We know 5 or 6 newborn babies, so once we find out what we are having I'm sure nothing will go to waste. Of course we did try and stay neutral in the beginning, but now we've thrown all caution to the wind and started buying whatever fun cute stuff we like.
Okay- what I like. Okay, I've been the one buying the baby clothes. I'm getting good deals though.
My mom bought the baby this cute little hoodie.
Love this.

I got this one for Chris. How cute is this?

Chris' mom made this beautiful blanket. Its super soft and we love it.


I won this onesie from a baby website and its so soft. We think it will be perfect for our little bilingual baby :)

Auntie Lindsay bought the baby this one. Its what inspired our color choices for the room if the baby is a boy.


Lyndsay got us this cute baby blanket when she came out to stay this summer! This baby now has 2 Colorado blankets (Chris' mom made us an adorable one) and a Colorado buffs hat just like dad. All you Sooner fans, we need to get into gear or this baby isn't going to have any outfits to wear when the Sooners play.

17 Weeks & Prepping the Room

Hello all. We are updating like crazy today, right?

We are officially at 17 weeks today and the bump is growing. Finally! The belly measured 1 inch more than last week.

I went maternity shopping last week. I decided to take the plunge into maternity wear. I got a bunch of pants and skirts, and am so happy for it. So much more comfortable. No more keeping my pants together with a hair tie or that belly band thing. I am still in the market for shirts and a pair of jeans, but no luck so far. I'm tall and I need 34 inch inseams, none of this 32 inch stuff they are selling in the stores. Still working on getting Chris on board with the 7's or True Religion's I've been eyeing....

While I was out I picked up a few things for Chris and a few things for baby. I bought the cutest leggings for a baby you have ever seen. We are talking seriously adorable. See for yourself.
(I would have picked up something for a baby boy, but cute boy clothes are hard to find...)


When I got home Friday I had 2 surprises. Sitting in the middle of the living room floor was a giant box from Emma. I must have pulled out 20 maternity shirts. Plus two really cute sweaters and tons of other stuff. thanks Emma! I was so excited.

And surprise number 2? My awesome husband left a sticky note on the box that said, "this is not your only surprise today, come upstairs." As I got to the top of the stairs, I turned the corner to our bedroom. The door was shut and the note on the door said, "Nope, not here." I headed down the hall to see the same signs on the laundry room door, the hall bathroom and the guest room. The room that is going to be the babies, the room that had red walls and tons of furniture in it when I left Friday morning, now had white primed walls and was empty! Ohh and flowers. I have nice husband.

It looked wonderful. Made it that much more real to me. We are having a baby! It gets to live here with us. Even though I live it every single day, feeling different and weird pains, and nothing fitting...it still seems surreal that this is actually happening.

I'm sure its only going to get more believable from here on out.

A Guest Post by Dad

Hi everybody, it’s about time that I do my part and write a post. Nicole has been doing a great job keeping you all informed of her pregnancy. I'm gonna tell you all what my experience has been thus far and what I have learned as a new-dad-to-be.

1) First off, it’s a lot fun to tell everyone the good news. I've never seen more smiles or heard more joy in my parent’s voices than when we told them about the baby. I'm sure not everyone gets to experience a fun phone call like that (like those kids on MTV's 16 and Pregnant) but just about everyone is excited about a new baby.

2) Its like taking High School health class all over again. Quick: What's the difference between the placenta and the amniotic sac? How early can you detect a fetal heartbeat? I feel like I'm half way to being done with med school.
But it’s cool though. All this new anatomy knowledge just makes this experience that much more miraculous! The complexity and elegance of creating a new person makes you scratch your head in amazement. Thanks be to God.

3) .....as amazing as a new baby is, it can be kind of unexciting at the same time. Even going to the doctor doesn't seem like a big deal. If they don't find anything abnormal, they don't really need to see you. Take a few measurements, give Nicole a once over and you're out the door. I'm sure Nicole might say otherwise, but making a baby seems pretty easy. Bake on 98.6 degrees for 9 months......call me when the timer goes off (only half-kidding Cola :)).

4. I'm pumped to be a new father. I get to decide the kid's name, I’ll have a say in how s/he dresses and get to raise him the way I think a kid should be raised. A few of our friends have had kids recently and it has gotten me really excited about having one of my own. It will be cool to have a little Chris (or Christina) running around here.

5. Everyone tells me that my life is going to be turned upside down come February. I can only half-imagine the work it takes to raise a child, so I’m sure my mind will be blown when the time comes. But that’s in February. For right now…..Nicole and I are going to enjoy this time in our life. It’s the last time it will be just the two of us. We have some trips planned to see family and friends which will be great and in between traveling we will be kicking it here with G_Lo enjoying our home and getting ready for baby.

Cheers.

Baksa Baby Heartbeat

Well folks, it's been a long time coming but here it is. We are finally posting the audio recording we took of the baby's heartbeat! I've (this is Chris btw) included the still images of the first ultrasound we had back in June too.

The heartbeat actually sounds like a "woosh-woosh-woosh" sound. I think the doc clocked it at 150-160 beats per minute. At the end of the recording you will hear the doctor making fun of my phone that I was using to record the sonogram (I was holding Nicole's rhine-stone-studded Blackberry at the time and he thought it was mine). The good doc likes making jokes about me everytime we visit. Enjoy the video.

Today

• today....i will gather supplies to make these, for the bedroom (thinking yellow and white)...for the kitchen (in red)...oooh and these would be really cool over our big tub....in a bunch of shades of blue (we need some color in there)...i reserve the right to go completely overboard with these because they are cheaply made....
  
• today...i will go see if this little laptop is my birthday hearts desire (28th birthday...gulp)
• 
• today....i will buy a new purse. Not sure which purse, but I've been wanting, "needing" something new for a while now. I'm thinking bright color. I'd love a canary yellow or purple, but a bright red would be more practical to transition into fall. Oh-a kelly green would be nice. Anyways, I will know it when I see it, and I hope to come home with something not grey or black.
• 
• today.....i will hunt for those prenatal vitamins that Lindsay gives me by the handfuls every time I see her...I know they are some where in this house.
• 
• today....i will say goodbye to the last house guests. The Baksa Bed & Breakfast is officially closed for the 2009 summer season. Its been fun, but I am more than ready to be able to go grab something from the kitchen without having to put pants on.
• today...i will have a good day.

nicole

IF, its a boy!

(from Little Apple Design)

Okay- if we have a boy we love this aqua/orange theme. See below for the details on what we would actually do to each of the #'s above.

1. Would love to use these colors for bedding and the curtains; also possibly a pillow for the chair.


2. I want an upholstered chair; probably in brown micro suede or maybe a white (afraid for its life though) that way it can go live in 0ur living room or office later.


3. Love the pillow


4. cute


5. I want to find a little side table for bottles and stuff to put next to the chair. I love this one. I'm hoping to find something at an antique store and paint it Aqua like this. We don't want all the furniture to be brown, brown, brown.


6. I want a shaggy rug like this, but I want it in orange and I want a big round circle for the middle of the room.


7. I think this is suppose to be the ottoman for the chair...kind of looks like a big bean bag. I want to get the ottoman that goes with the upholstered chair we are getting. I'll post pictures later.


8. So cool. I want to do a fun light fixture in the room. Probably will go with white so that if we decide to do a ceiling fan at some point I can use this fixture in another room easily enough.


9. The valance...I need to do curtains b/c that room gets crazy sunlight so we are going to invest in some light blocking curtains or shades or something.


10. Love the bench- This one looks like they made it. I want to try and pick something like this up from Ikea maybe. I'd love it to be orange, and I want it to have cubbies in the bottom for books and toys at the babies level.


11. ditto


12. I think this is wall art or something. Not sure I'm going to get all "animal prints" in here.


13. I think they are pointing to the city scape, which is really cool. I like that a lot. Chris had the idea of doing something with airplanes maybe. I don't know if I get why they have animals and the city scape but whatever. Silhouettes of animals walking along the orange road would be very cool.


14. ?


15. Cute art if we decide to do animals, which I think is a cute idea.


16. Love the white geometric mobile. Want it.


17. I LOVE the wall paint. I want to do the blue on the bottom half of the wall, a thick orange line about the height of the crib and then white above that. This way I have a lot of white wall for bright art and it keeps the room looking open and bigger, but there is still color on the wall, which is a big deal for me.


18. I'm guessing that this is the dresser, our pick is in the post with the crib below.


19. I so need to find out where this is from because I love it. I want to do a growth chart and we have the perfect wall for this giraffe. Plus it just looks cool. Its not too babyish and I really like the silhouette look.

20. See a few posts ago to see the crib we love.

Since our furniture is dark espresso and the chair will most likely be dark chocolate too, I really want to work to get the bright orange rug and some fun blue curtains so as to not let the brown take over.

What do you think?

Nicole

What we like, really really like

A few weeks back Chris and I went baby gear browsing. We did it all. Strollers, Car seats, Furniture, Bedding, and Chairs. We sat, we pushed, we (attempted to) fold strollers...

Here is what we came back loving.

The Crib. We both Love this crib. Of course it costs more than the perfectly nice crib that is in the #2 position, but I've been researching and we may find it a little more in budget. Why is it the things you love are never in budget. (like that wedding dress...)

Here it is in all its solid wood expresso glory:

And the dresser:

And the stroller that I almost couldn't bare to part with...

That bassinet part hooks on to the wheels of the stroller so you can change them out. How cute is that? We love the red too. I'm 100% sold, Chris is about at an 80 I'd say. I'm not too worried because this is coming home with us. You can even use the bassinet part in your house (it has a stand) to let the baby sleep in! That double-duty factor bought some extra points with Chris. He was like, "Wha? We could avoid buying ANOTHER bed for the baby to sleep in? Besides the other two beds we already have to buy! (crib and pack and play)" (try and put a hint of sarcastic disbelief on that "have", then you'll fully grasp that sentence)

We found some amazing bedding at one of the stores we went to, by Little Giraffe. I thought Chris was going to climb in that crib. It was silk on one side and super soft chenille on the other. I have to admit it was spectacular. Spectacularly $700. Ha Ha. So going to happen. We did have the idea that a certain very crafty mother-in-law might be so inclined to help us make this bedding though....maybe when we visit her in Colorado we'll happen to drop off a lot of silk and see what she thinks. :) Our original plan was that I was going to make the bedding, but lets face it, her final product would be way better.

Well I am off to lunch (so writing this at work). Stomach picture coming your way. I am going to try and get Chris to take it tonight. We can't tell much difference so we are going to take some good advice and start measuring the bump. We'll start taking the pictures closer to every week or every other week since we've been told I should start popping out sometime soon. Can't wait!

Love, Nicole

Next Doc. Visit: 9/9/09: Taking more blood (last time, they promised!) and testing

Vote!

Over there on your right is our little poll. It took me considerable time to locate this poll function, so be sure to vote on what you think we are having.

We are headed to the doctor in about an hour and then we'll find out what day we find out what the baby is. Reread that. We are not finding out the sex today. We are finding out the date we find out the sex. I've had numerous excited texts already. :)

When we get the date, I'll post it here. We are guessing it will be sometime before September 25th. I will be doing my best to convince them to do it on September 14th because I think that would be an awesome birthday present. Keep your fingers crossed.

nicole

Written...not yet posted.

Hello all-

We have not dropped off the face of the earth I assure you. Although Emma and Jen I did get both of your messages inquiring about this very thing, and I promise to call you both today to prove that we are alive and well. All three of us.

Yesterday this pregnancy officially moved into the second trimester as we are now 14 weeks. Fourteen. It doesn't seem real. We are SUPER behind on updating, but in our defense, not much has changed. Well a little.

After what has felt like, running around with our heads "cut off" all summer, I think we have gotten a handle on what needs to be done. Here's what we've come up with. Prepared to be "wowed" by our organizational skills.

• We have made a list of gigantic proportions of everything that has to be done at the house before this little baby is born. Preferably before I'm 8 months pregnant. This list consists of but is not limited to, painting the hall-me, building storage for the garage-chris, making curtains for the kitchen-me, pretty much reorganizing of all areas-us...there are 27 home "projects" in all. Oh my.
• We have planned a trip to Jacksonville to look at baby gear, and spent last Saturday testing strollers and furniture shopping. We came home with lots of great possibilities.
• We are finally going to take all that stuff in the garage to GoodWill. Thanks to the organizing talents of Chris Baksa, who spent all day Sunday digging around in the garage and convincing me that I didn't need those lights from Ikea I bought two years ago and never hung.
• Up with the bar, in with baby jail. :) We have decided that sometime in the future the bar will go upstairs in the office (along with the mini fridge) in order to clear some much needed space for the swing, the play mat thing I apparently have to have, the pack in play, ect. ect. This way we can have an area for the baby to roll around (safely- gated off) and it still doesn't take over our living room.
• We were very sadly told that we are not allowed to go, tear, anywhere for Christmas, so we will be in Savannah Georgia come December. It better be cold. If not, I'm cranking the AC up and getting that fake snow spray for the windows. Since we must see the families, we are going to be in Colorado in October (times to be determined) and Oklahoma in November. So if you have plans to be gone in one of those months, let me know so I can try and switch stuff around. Yes I mean you, Aunties Darcie and Maya. You too are always jetting off when I'm headed there :)

So we have many posts to put up, some of which are even written (Chris says he has something coming...) and we are going to get them up this week. Hopefully we can get the babies heartbeat here, so you can click and hear it, and I will post a picture of the stomach for all you who have been asking weekly if I'm, "finally showing yet?!". I tell you I'm at that stage of just looking fat. Its really not cool, but hey if you want to see it, that's what I'm here for.

So heartbeat, pictures and the furniture we LOVE, all to come this week. And maybe names....we'll see.

Love, nicole

Doctor Appt Update: We go to the doctor Aug 11th at 9:30am- we are hoping that the doctor tells us we get to find out the babies sex at our next appointment in September! Start putting in your bets. Baby Girl or Baby Boy Baksa?