We have a winner!

So I haven't forgotten the baby weight/birthdate contest. No one came close to the birthdate...I certainly wouldn't have guessed that Emerson would be more than a week late either. Grandaddy Preston came the closest with his guess of April 4th at 6:35 pm. The closest weight guess, without going over (a la The Price is Right), came from Mimi at 8 pounds, 8 ounces. So our clear winners are Mimi and Grandaddy! Congratulations! We will send you a signed copy of Matt's third book, The Night Swimmer, when it comes out in January of 2012.

- Stacy

Emerson Cleire Bondurant

Emerson Cleire graced us with her presence on April 11, 2011 at 12:58 pm. Though it took a little effort to get her here, her arrival was beautiful and Matt and I again found ourselves amazed at the process of childbirth and how human beings are brought into this world. This was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

Doesn't she look like Ford in this picture?

Again this time around Matt was a stalwart partner. Without going into great detail of the responsibilities he assumed, I will simply say that he's the greatest husband and father that I and my children could have.

At birth Emerson weighed 8 pounds, 9 ounces and was 21 inches long. She has a little head of brown hair and what appear, for now, to be blue eyes. She's absolutely gorgeous as we knew she would be. Her name derives from a few sources. We knew we wanted a strong name just as we had with Ford. Matt and I are both fans of the writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and we love the names Emme and Emmy (Matt has an Aunt Emmy Lee). Her middle name, as I alluded to in an earlier post, comes from the Cape Cleire Island off the coast of Ireland which figures prominently in Matt's next book, The Night Swimmer. Matt and I visited this island over the summer when Matt swam in the open-water Beginnish Island Swim. It is a beautiful and serene place with a tremendous amount of history and it is also where we found out that we were going to be parents again.

Ford is thrilled to be a big brother. He loves to kiss Emerson and is fascinated by her tiny diaper and umbilical cord. We are working on being "gentle" and "soft" with the baby. He's recently added "Baby Sister" to the growing list of things he's thankful for in his bedtime prayer.

Matt and I would like to thank my mom and my cousin, Elizabeth, for all the help they offered in taking care of Ford and taking care of us by bringing food and keeping us company during our hospital stay. Things would have been quite a bit more complicated had we not had family to help us out.

There will certainly be more pictures to come but for now I will just leave with you with a few of our little beauty, her proud brother, and our new family of four Bees.

Stacy

PS - I will be posting more pictures on Shutterfly and will put a link to the album in a future post. So make sure to check back in a few days!

Time to get silly...

Our sweet girl comes home...

The Countdown Begins

As I am nearly (or already, depending on which of the two due dates I was given) 41 weeks pregnant, my doctor has decided that the best course of action at this point is to schedule an induction. Being induced is not what I would have chosen, however, I want to do what is safest for the baby.

So I have about another day to absorb life with one child and enjoy my little family of three. I think tonight we will do a few of Ford's favorite things -- have a "pizza party," as he calls it, and do movie night. He and Matt went to the library this afternoon and checked out a Clifford the Big Red Dog DVD so we won't have to suffer through Winnie the Pooh's Christmas Adventure yet again. Ford hearts Tigger forever :)

As much as I would love to avoid induction, I am really looking forward to meeting Baby B. I am anxious to see how this whole thing will register with Ford once he realizes what having a baby sister really means.

I go into the hospital Sunday evening for an overnight stay and will be induced early Monday morning. Hopefully, if time permits tomorrow, I will be able to take one last nap with my little Fordy, one of the things that I love to do most in this world. There's nothing like snuggling up with a little curly-headed two year old who wraps his arms around your neck and then nestles his head against yours...it is heaven on earth. Perhaps one day the joy of this will be surpassed by snuggling into bed with my curly-headed two-year old daughter and her big, four-year old brother. That sounds nice too.

Stacy

Nesting

As you probably know, Baby B is not here just yet. It's as my brother's girlfriend said, "You should let her know there's no such thing as being fashionably late to your own birth!" I continue to nest as we patiently (ha!) await her arrival and Matt's even gotten in on the action. My projects mostly involve simple sewing for the baby, but they've also encompassed a few household updates as well...things I assume I won't have time for after she arrives. I thought I would take a few pictures to share the results of my late-night labors. I apologize for the fuzziness...the good camera is packed in the hospital bag.

"Up-cycled" clothes: I tried adding appliques and embellishments to some of Ford's newborn clothes in an effort to girl-ify a very brown and blue collection of baby clothes. I also tried my hand at a few little skirts.

This little outfit was made from one of my skirts that I no longer wear:

A few pairs of pants from a very easy tutorial :

Pillowcase dresses from this tutorial. The little dress on the left was made from one of Matt's and one of Ford's old shirts following this tutorial:

(You're probably noticing that I had a lot of that brown and cream material in my stash and I'm not done yet...)

Some coordinating diaper covers from this tutorial:

A few household projects:

Hooray for spring!

(My flowers got a little battered in last night's thunderstorm...)

And of course I couldn't leave Ford out...

Some new shorts and freezer paper stenciled t-shirts with his current favorites:

A new umbrella cover for his sandbox:

And an awesome vinyl decal (ordered off Etsy, not made by me) for his bedroom wall in our "Around the World" theme:

So, yeah, I'm pretty much over nesting. Come on Baby B!

Stacy