All Things Baby Henry Part II

Be prepared for photos galore in this post! I've been meaning to get to this post for over a month now, and I finally have time to do it. I've finished up work things and told everyone that I'm done until further notice. That hasn't stopped people from asking, but with only 2 weeks to go until my due date I don't feel bad at all saying "no". People are starting to ask how I feel and if I'm ready. The answer to question A is: I feel like I swallowed a watermelon whole, and as with every one of my pregnancies (except Jonas because he was born before it started) I have a compressed nerve that really gets on my nerves. I can barely bend over, squat or put on socks. None of those things are pretty, and last night I told Henry that I feel like a Penske truck trying to drive a road course meant for a Porche. I'm carrying him sooo low, lower than any of the others, that my pants really will not stay up. I'm so thankful for over the belly pants, the Bella Band, and long long shirts. On the up side of things, I've only gained about 32 pounds and most of it is belly with a little spread to my rear end. I like to think of the wide load in my aft end as a counter weight to balance out the extreme load in the front. :D OK, question B, am I ready? I'm not sure you're ever really ready. You can make plans and read books and pack bags and do stretches and relaxation things (all of which I'm/we're doing), but the actual act of hours of labor and then birth... face it, you can be prepared, but you are never "ready". :-P All that being said I'm really looking forward to meeting little Henry, probably more than any of my other babies. I think that comes from being in a different place in life and I'm sure that age and mindset are playing a role in that too. It is not saddening at all to know that he is the last one. I've probably enjoyed being pregnant the least out of all the times. I think that's because we have more existing kids and there's more to do which is obviously complicated by the whole beach ball belly thing. Some of you are probably thinking "well if things are that bad, why did you do it?". Things aren't horrible even though I'm really uncomfortable physically. I'm excited to have him on the way, but I'll be glad to put this phase behind me and move on. ON TO THE PICTURES!! :D

 I have this cube thing in the baby's room to store toys or blankets or whatever else needs to be stashed at the time. I recovered the top of it with minky dot when I did the room for Kinsley. It was cute enough but I felt like it needed something. I had some awesome appliques that I thought would look great on them. I stitched them out on felt and glued them to each side of the cube. I think it adds a little whimsy to the boring cube.

I also took the time to make Henry some burp cloths. I saw the designs maybe before I even knew what we were having and I immediately purchased them after I found out.  

The font for this one is called "boots and bows" Luckily his name doesn't have any of the letters that had the bows, but if you look closely you can see the boots on the "H" and "R" as well as the cute little smiley face in the "d".

 Here is a close-up of the little fox and his fringy tail. It cracks me up because his little tail is so fluffy. I was dying to try a fringe design and this provided the opportunity. I'm gonna talk shop here for a sec and explain sorta how this works. You will see that the body of the fox is stitched flat in what's called a fill pattern. The tail is stitched with a different type of stitch that tacks town the top of long stitches really well to prevent them from coming out when you clip the bottom of those long stitches and fluff them up creating the fringe look. I feel like such a geek for being so psyched about this, but it's what I do and now you know. :-P

While I was in the mode of making things, I made all of this stuff from fabrics that I think I may have featured in a previous post. I even bought most of this fabric before I even knew what I was going to do with it. I saw it, I loved it, I had to have it, I had coupons!!!



Top left is 2 flannel crib sheets. I learned alot about elastic on that project...
Bottom left: 2 sheets (1 cotton, 1 flannel) for the pack and play  that he'll sleep in in our room until he sleeps long enough periods to go to his room.
Top right: Boppy covers, 1 entirely flannel, 1 entirely cotton, and 1 half and half, but to add a twist I made it a solid circle instead of the "U" shape, thus mimicking that new Boppy Nest thing that they have out.



So here's the blanket that I made him. It's fleece, and it's printed in these cute little blocks, I didn't put them together like a quilt. He will use this blanket in his pack and play, as well as chilling in the house when he gets older. All of my kids have a special monogrammed blanket, and the boys still tote theirs around. Below you'll see a close-up of the monogram on the left. On the right, you'll see these adorable animals that I ordered from Etsy. I had been eying that fox since I got on Etsy and didn't have a reason to get one. The raccoon was originally a different version of the fox, but I had her morph it for me.

 Here are the little shoes that I bought him, all also from Etsy. The pair in the middle is a pair of hand-made leather "cruising shoes". The girl that makes them gets the leather as scraps from a furniture upholsterer so you get super high quality leather that's so soft and pretty. They even have little cotton faux laces. The booties on either side of the tennis shoes were hand crocheted in Italy by a French woman. I find humor in that. Anyway, they are so cute and tiny. He'll hopefully wear the brown ones for Thanksgiving and the striped ones for Christmas.

Speaking of things from afar, I got this little pillow from a fellow embroideress that I'm on a forum with. We've become long distance friends and we have lots of fun talking shop. She lives in Brazil and makes some of the most awesome stuff. She's a workhorse, and I'm a little jealous of her talents. :) Anyway, she made this cute little pillow for him.

Last but not least, we bought him this cute little coming home outfit. We searched and searched to find something we liked. We wound up having to order it online because we couldn't find the correct size in the store. We also ordered him 2 "babies" right up front since Jonas only had 1 and we lost it all the time, and Kinsley started with 1 but we wound up getting another because washing it was an ordeal since she had to be without it for 2+ hours which inevitably interfered with nap.  His outfit has been packed up in a special box, the same box that has held the coming home outfit for each of my babies. It's lame, I know, but it's my thing. It's a very OCD thing because everything has to be folded perfectly and put in in a certain order. I always include 1 tiny diaper in addition to the outfit. The bow tying is also an ordeal because I'm terrible at tying bows so I have to do it multiple times to get it to my satisfaction.

 So here's the 3D ultrasound of his sweet little face. The pic is a little distorted because he honestly had/has no room in there. He was also moving around alot and it was super hard to get a still shot. The guy wound up replaying the video frame by frame several times to get an unobstructed view of his face that he could make into a still shot. It was so cute that during the ultrasound, we got to see him sucking his thumb for a few seconds. I plan to do at least one more post about him before he's born. Be on the lookout for that post which will include maternity pics that are anything but typical.

 -Kellie-