Heartburn & Hair - Who knew?

Yesterday our niece Peyton Ann Young was born weighing 7 lb 14 oz, and 19 inches long! She's a beautiful healthy baby girl! We are so excited for them!

Peyton came out with dark hair! It even was a bit curly!Now we are really curious what Jackson will look like. Will he have curly, strait, dark, blonde, brown, strawberry, or red hair or....will he be bald? We are hoping Jackson has hair when he's born, but we aren't so sure, so too keep up with his new cousin we have had to resort to a serious back-up plan and quick!

It all started when I was reading an article about newborns. I discovered that we did have hair options! Even though most newborns loose their hair in the first 3 to 4 months, (mainly due to the loss of their mothers hormone levels), that there were things parents could do to prevent a their baby from having a SERIOUS hair complex.

No matter how their hair is when they are born, they still can be the KING or QUEEN of the nursery and gather the most attention by simply being the only kid in there with the most AMAZING hair! The first thing you do is to visit this amazing website; babytoupee.com (yes, it's a real website). It offers babies all sorts of options! The second is to choose the right toupee for your child, choose carefully though, it has been known to change their personalities (I liked the Bob - see upper right)! I think it adds character! My second favorite is the Samuel and the Donald, the Samuel because it's perfectly adorable, perhaps a little too over the top and the Donald so he could practice being CEO of the nursery!

Seriously though, I just couldn't stop laughing, and thought it was too hysterical that there was ACTUALLY a baby toupee website and so I couldn't resist blogging about it!

I have high hopes that Jackson will have hair and lots of it too because the article I was reading also said that women who are pregnant and have heartburn (I have lots and lots of wonderful, blissful heartburn - got to love it!) typically have babies with above-average to average hair when they are born! The reason for this phenomenon is simply because the hormones which cause the the baby's hair to grow also causes their mothers to have heartburn! Once again a blissful bit of news that will hopefully pay off in the end so that we won't have to visit said above website! For more info. on the article I was reading see www.wondertime.go.com/learning/article


Just in case (LOL) which hair piece is YOUR fav?

Any guesses on what kind of hair, if any Jackson will have?

CHILD BIRTHING CLASS

Knowledge is Power ..or is it?

Andrew and I went to our first of three (three hour) classes last night. We opted to take the class in Casa Grande so that it would be closer to home. There were several people there with Sept. due dates and a few Oct. and Nov. ones.

The instructor had our coaches introduce us and tell our due dates, doctors and gender of the baby. There was a mother there who said she was there to make sure her daughter had a better experience than she did, because she was on bed rest for the last 3 months and it was such a terrible experience that she only had one child. The instructor also said that with her 3rd child that she too was on bedrest for 2 months and that was her last child as well. Very motivating! There was another mother with her daughter who was pregnant who said she had twins and was shipped out to a better facility to handle the delivery.

Then the teacher did a good job of explaining every part of the birth in great detail. We watched a movie of the 3-d inside-version of the birth and then an actual childbirth. It was very ....interesting. My favorite line in the movie was when the mother was going through lots and lots of pain, in active labor, during her delivery and said inbetween contractions, that she is going to quit! I had to laugh, is that an option! A girl from my old singles ward was there with her husband as well, aparently the Chandler classes were full and so they had to drive to Casa Grande for class. The movie ended and the instrutor asked asked a stone silent class if they had any questions, the girl I know piped up for humors sake and broke the deadly silence with something like "How can we undo this?" The class laughed. The instructor said "There's only one way out of this from here girls." Dads in the room made some comments that they were sure glad they weren't women, I think at that point every women in the room would have eagery chipped in for scientific research to have their husbands roll in the delivery and their roll in it irrevocably reversed!

Andrew was great through the whole thing, we even went through the drive-through and got some Sonic soda's before going. He joked that this would be the best 3 hours of our marriage as I'm sure he was just excited about going as I was, but we both thought it would be benifical and informative and he was really being positive about the whole thing. However, during the first half of class the room became very stuffy for me, I got really warm and felt claustrophobic, soon my random nausia set in and that combined with viewing an actual birth about did me in. I glanced over at my devoted birth coach to discover that Andrew was happily re-writing my delivery manual - adding what he later refered to as "his own expert advice" like "give father massages" and "bring _____ for father." He looked up at me expecting a chuckle, but all I could do not to loose it was stare stone-faced back and turn my head trying not to loose dinner... Poor guy, he was trying to make it all enjoyable and I was so out of it. Not to mension that the instructor had acronyms like T.A.C.O. and was nibbling on dinner during the movie which I could smell a mile away, all of which didn't help with the nausia. Finally we got a break and I made it to the restroom just in time...

Andrew was awesome, he did the breathing techniques better than everyone in the class and even reminded the instructor what she was doing a few times during class. I made another fun discovery during the exercise and relaxation portion of class, aparently I'm really out of shape. The relaxation exercises were uncomfortable for the most part and I kept thinking that if these uncomfortable exercisees were to make the pain easier to handle, that I must be having to go through a LOT of pain for it to actually help! Yikes! I did however really enjoy the hypnotic-like mental relaxation exercises. I was surprised how relaxed I became and actually had a hard time standing up, I was numb all over. Overall I'm glad I went, I got a text from Andrew this morning saying that it wasn't the best 3 hours of our marriage as afore hoped, LOL for but we are hoping the next class is more empowering! Overall I was hoping to leave this class with more confidence, and to feel more in control of what was going to happen as the saying goes, "knowledge is power," but I find that I left feeling more apprehensive than before I went. I'm leaning towards another saying, "ignorance is bliss!" The class got out 5 minutes after it was said to end, we sleepily got our things and prepared to leave. "Our next class" the instructor announced before we left, "is on c-sections!"

Jackson's Casa Grande Baby Shower

My baby shower was a huge hit! Amelia and Tanya are such an amazing creative team and really did an amazing job with my construction theme! My Mother-in-law and Grandmother D also helped make my shower wonderful, they put a lot of hard work into the shower. My Sister-in-law Juliet also helped a lot, she did a fantastic job announcing new games and activities! I loved everything about it! I had a lot of fun and many people commented on how wonderful the shower was! There was even a semi-real construction site people had to walk through to get into the house, with barricades and caution tape, the works! Once inside there were games to guess how big the baby is going to be, when he is due, how long he will be and caution tape to measure how big he is now! There was even a "dump site" where melted candy bars were in open diapers and people had to guess what kind of candy was inside of it. There was also the superstitious 7th gift, where the mother-to-be opens gifts randomly when she gets to lucky gift number 7 (the giver of the gift) is said to be the next person to have a baby. There were adorable homemade cupcakes with construction signs and tractor cakes that were given away as prizes. There was a raffle for those who gave diapers and many other great and wonderful details that went into the shower. I don't have pictures, but perhaps I can borrow some from a camera so I can post them. There were such cute games and decorations! My cousin Hollie even made a masterpiece of a cake, with construction materials, trucks, mounds, clever signs, all wrapped up in a delicious melt in your mouth chocolate cake! Thank you Hollie, loved the cake! There was also wonderful food and fun! It was so nice to receive diapers for Jackson and I love all of the adorable and sweet gifts I received. My Sister-in-law Helen is so talented in sewing, and made an amazing quiet book that everyone fell in love with! Thank you Helen, I love it! I was also surprised at the amount of people who came, they were a lot of fun and it was great to see and talk to them again. Thank you for a fun shower and for all of your hard work! I loved it! My mom and her family are also planning another shower in my hometown on the 12th of September, they are also very creative and talented, I'm really excited to go to that as well. I'm so very blessed to be apart of such wonderful families!

TALE AS OLD AS TIME

It seems that this relaxing summer has turned upside down into a summer full of activity and events. We've had such a wonderful summer, but it seems that we are constantly on the go, so when a Saturday comes that we have nothing, it's rare and it's treasured. Especially since our nights of freedom are numbered....we are super excited about our baby boy coming, but we do realize it will be a little while before we can just jump in the car and go to things like this. Andrew wasn't looking forward to attending an all day class this last Saturday, but there have been several weekends where I've had to leave him to go to events and things as well. So I was really surprised when he bought play tickets for us to see Beauty & the Beast! I love plays, and I love Disney, so it was such a wonderful treat to be able to go to a combination! He's so very thoughtful! I'm very blessed to have such a wonderful husband and friend! The play was at Hale Center Theatre in Gilbert, a theatre set on a circular stage with the audience all around. We've seen several plays here and almost always are impressed with the performances. We were really excited about this play but were curious how they would incorporate all of the scenes needed in this type of theatre. They were able to pull it off really well, and it was fun to hear the additional Broadway songs that aren't in the Disney movie. We also found out that the girl who played Belle was married to the actor who played the Beast, which made the story a little more magical. The outfits were done well, the wolves and beast costumes were a little too frightening, but served their purpose well and children in the audience didn't seem to mind them. The play was beautifully done, and the music was enchanting! I loved every minute of it and I highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in plays! Thank you again Andrew for such a wonderful treat!

http://www.halecentertheatrearizona.com/