Baby Beatles & Sounds

Baby likes the Beatles, we've been playing all sorts of music for the baby. This morning I had Sgt. Pepper's on and Steph said that he was moving around and kicking within the first song. Also, we've noticed that when she comes into the garage and I'm playing around on the drums he also seems to push on her belly wall. Last weekend my nephew and I were playing around on the guitar and again the baby was moving around. We have found that the baby did not like our hammer sounds when we were working on the floors, so steph would go into the other room while I banged around. Testing out sounds!

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to you all! We had a great Christmas with my family in person and Alan's family via webcam. We were blessed with a lot of great presents for the baby. Alan's mom even said that we will get our presents later but that all the gifts she sent were for the baby! We love it! My parents got us all the baby bedding and Alan's parents sent us some beautiful hand knitted outfits and a baby blanket. My parents and sisters also bought me the glider rocker that I have been wanting. However, after Alan and Dad put it together, Alan sat down in it and didn't get up the rest of the evening. I think I will have to fight for it! :)

We are hoping to get this kid named by the middle of January so we can stop calling him "the baby" so help us out by voting on your favorite of our finalist names. I bet you can all guess who had the influence on the last of the three names. If you have other ideas, respond to this post with the ideas. We are still open!

Third Trimester: Jumping up and down

Our little man is very active now, moving all over and every once in awhile, moving so much that it feels like he does a flip!

We are finally in the third trimester. I say finally, but actually, the time has flown by. We are almost done with all the new hardwood floors that we are installing and just have a few more smaller projects to accomplish before the baby arrives. I am wanting to get as much done in the next month as possible, considering that February and March will not be months that I will want to do much. I have been nesting a bit and doing a ton of organizing in the house. I am realizing we have far too much junk. We have made several trips to make donations to the Disabled American Vet and the Goodwill stores and we are packing up other items to join the rest of the junk we have in the attic!

We hope everyone is doing well and we wish you all a very happy holiday season!

Nursery

Here is a picture of the nursery. We ripped up the carpet and replaced it with 3 1/4 inch cherry plank flooring that we love because it makes it looks so clean and bright. We also painted the walls a soft blue called Seaside. The little rocking chair in the room was mine (Steph's) when I was a little girl and when you rock in it, it plays music. When I was about 8 years old, my mom loaned it to a neighbor for their little boy and I was not happy, so my mom wrote on the bottom of the chair that it belongs to Stephanie Marie White and anyone else using it is just borrowing it! I have always been a bit of a princess :)

Leia Bell Print for Nursery

Alan ordered this Leia Bell Swimming Seals Print for our nursery. He is also planning on doing a sea turtle print himself for another wall. I LOVE it!!! To see all of Leia Bell's artwork, check out her website at www.leiabell.com.

new floors and guitars

We have been installing hardwood floors in the nursery this weekend and hope to be done tomorrow. It looks beautiful and I can't wait to have the nursery, living room and the dining room done. I am afraid that I will then want to finish the whole house! It is amazing how warm and nice the floors make the house look.

I am feeling really good still and getting a lot of my energy back. The baby is moving a lot now and Alan serenades the baby and me each night. My favorite songs that he plays are Pixies (Where is my mind) and various Lou Reed songs like Sweet Jane. We are hoping the baby will be a music lover like both of his parents. :)

Aunt Stacey's Comments on Aspera as a Middle Name

as for the baby names, i really like aspera. it has a great sound to it so i looked up all sorts of crap on it which you've probably already done and will be bored by here, but too bad.

in latin ad astra per aspera means "to the stars with difficulty/through troubles/ the hard way". i know all the other words so i figured aspera, at least in latin, means something challenging. not a bad name for a baby. infact, the latin dictionary says it means "rough". totally cool. i'm assuming if you're taking it from spanish it might have a different colloquial meaning, but i think you should go with the difficulty, challenge, struggle use when you tell the kid what his name means. naming a little boy aspera for a middle name is sort of like secretly naming him badass and that can only make you cooler when he's 14. besides, how many kids have a middle name that's a real latin word?

him- "yeah, my name is eli badass brady. you got a problem with that?"
all other teenage boys- "man, your parents are the coolest people on the whole planet!"
him- "duh!"
aotb- "so you are a badass, yet your name is latin so you are also deep. can you explain today's math assignment to us so that we may also be wise, o great badass?"
him- "sure, come on over to my house. my dad's making some sort of ridiculously tasty snack right now and there's enough for everyone!"
aotb- "hooray! truly your parents are the most perfect specimens of humanity ever!"
all- "to badass! to a clearer understanding of math! to snacks!"

Crib

We bought our crib this weekend at Nebraska Furniture Mart in KC. It is a dark cherry, solid wood crib that converts to a toddler bed, then full size bed. Now, we just have to get the floor done in the nursery so we can put the crib together! The picture is the crib we got, though we did not buy the matching shelving/drawer unit (it seemed a bit too pretentious for an infant!). But, at least the kid will have somewhere to sleep!

Names Names

Ok so we want a great name, good but not flashy one that fits and James Marshall Brady is out of the question, so is Jr. I love the name my parents gave me and I get a weird look from Steph when I suggest the name Stefano. So Jr is obiously out of the question, which leaves us with the choices that you have to your right. We have gone through the name books over and over. For some reason my wife loves Eli, I like the Spanish version of Alex which is Alejandro and if it where me the baby boy would be called Alejandro Francisco Brady or Alejandro Aspera Brady. But alas this is a balance of give and take, so we could have an Eli Aspera Brady or an Eli Francisco Brady. Steph chimes in that she likes Evan but we have a friend named Evan, Evan no insult to you, but she thinks that with one Evan in our life we couldn't possibly manage with two. Our names bounce in and out of favor, we have a responsibility to not name the kid Wolfgang or Grayson......or Alejandro Eli Brady. We'll find it, I'm sure the are better names than Pilot Inspektor Lee, Mr. Jason Lee.

Definite Parts!

It is definite, we have a boy! We had our ultrasound today and he seems very healthy, though he was asleep when we started the ultrasound and Kathy had to jiggle him around and I had to drink some caffeine to get him to wake up. But, when he did, he moved all over and showed us that he is definitely a boy. In fact, most of what we saw today was his belly and what appear to be very long legs. Alan says that he already looks like my dad with a big round belly and a bald head! He is 5 1/2 inches crown to rump right now (so that is without his legs) so I expect he is about 7 inches or so with his legs. Crazy! I will put some new pictures online when we convert them to the right format.

What is this thing in my stomach?!

I am really ready to start feeling the baby move. Right now, I feel like I have a brick or something foreign stuck in my stomach. It is very surreal. From what I have read and heard, I should start feeling real movement soon.

We go for our next ultrasound this Saturday and should be able to confirm the sex then. We still want some new ideas for names, so comment on this blog with name ideas--boy or girl!

Another Aunt Stacey Cartoon

In this cartoon, Alan has been worried that my prenatal massages might somehow squish the baby. Here, Stacey is showing the baby being popped out of me by my massage!

Doctor's Appointment

We had another doctor's appointment on September 26th and were told that everything is going very well. The baby's heartbeat was extremely strong and the baby is moving up in to my belly. They said we should anticipate him(?) growing a lot over the next few weeks as he starts doubling in size. Right now, he is supposed to be about 4 inches or so long and he is supposed to double quickly.

We need baby name ideas, so please send us some good ones! The poll is a few of our favorites (even though Alan keeps saying he does not like Elijah), but we need more. If you have a good one, we will add it to the poll!

Pregnancy Cartoons by Aunt Stacey (2)

In this cartoon, Stacey plays on my OCD tendencies and I must say, when I am in labor, hopefully I won't have to deal with a short nurse!! :)

Pregnancy Cartoons by Aunt Stacey

So, my sister Stacey is extremely creative and can do nearly anything. One of her many talents is making great cartoons from our everyday lives. Here are a few of the recent gems! The first one is a cartoon of Alan waking me up during the night to tell me to roll on to my left side. I recently made the mistake of telling Alan that I had read how it is a good idea to sleep on your left side when pregnant because it helps the blood and oxygen get to the baby the best. Ever since, I am awakened at least twice each night by my concerned husband to encourage optimal sleep position!

Ultrasound 13 weeks

Our little one is very active and was moving all over during our ultrasound at 13 weeks. In this picture, our little Brady is sticking out his(?) tongue and waving his hand. He was also stretching, kicking his legs and swallowing a lot! My dad didn't believe me when we said we could see so much on the ultrasound but he was amazed when he actually saw the video and the photos. This photo does not do the actual pictures justice because they were even clearer on the actual ultrasound screen. I will post video soon.

Welcome to our blog

Hello and welcome to our blog. We found out in July that we are pregnant after trying to conceive since December. When we found out, Alan's dad and brother, Juan, were visiting so we got to tell people from both of our immediate families in person. Both sets of grandparents are as ecstatic as we are about the addition to our family.

The baby is due in March and during a recent ultrasound, we became fairly positive that we are having a boy. However, it is still a little early to tell so we aren't buying too much boy stuff just yet. We are, however, trying to come up with names because we only had girl names that we really liked. So, if you have name ideas, send them along!

So far, I have been feeling pretty well, just tired and a little blah every once in a while. Mainly, we are just trying to have fun with this pregnancy and hoping that will make the journey even better.