Devan Joseph Mote

Devan was born around 4:30 pm. He weighed 7 lbs, 12 oz and was 20 3/4" long. It took 6 sets of pushes to get him out. Way to go! He's already tried to breastfeed and started to figure it out after awhile. He just got his first bath.

Here are a few of the first pictures taken:

Push Time

It is just about push time. She is ready to go. Will post pictures WIGC, read as "when I get a chance." 12 hours of labor so far. Gone more or less ok. No complications. Send an email to motedb@hotmail.com if you want some original picture files!

Wife is making fun of me for being on the computer. Gotta go. At least she has a little humor still!

Shout out to Gramps

We have a nice gas fireplace in our living room. However, it doesn't produce heat! Only if you're standing right in front of it, can you feel some heat coming off of it. This is because the builder cheaped out and didn't install a fan. All the heat just went out the back and not into the room. Boo to them!

When we went home in March, Carl found us a fan! This will be great for the winter! Now we can actually use the fireplace and stay warm! No more space heaters for me :)

Well... Dustin finally installed it this weekend. I know what you're thinking: what took him so long??? Now give him credit- I've kept him VERY busy doing other projects around the house before the little one came along, so he has an excuse. His "honey-do" list was very long and he's done a great job crossing things off the list every weekend.

The fan is fantastic because it has a built in temperature switch that turns the fan on and off. This is great because we didn't have to run more wire to create a switch. And after you turn the fireplace off, the fan keeps running until it's cooled off, so it doesn't waste any heat! Awesome! And even better, it was really simple to install! Now we just have to turn on the fireplace and the room heats up! Hooray!!! Good job gramps!!!

VA Baby Shower Pictures

It's about time, but here are the pictures from the baby shower out here in VA that my neighbors threw for us. Enjoy :)

http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=bd6677f9d6702950&sid=8QcsWrJy4csZE

D-Day...

D-Day (or B-Day) is fast approaching....

At my doctor's appointment they put me in the "lucky room". Earlier that day, 2 women had their water break in that room while they were waiting to be examined. I had my fingers crossed, but... I was only 1/2 centimeter dialated when my doctor checked. So... no baby this week :( But we scheduled induction for Monday. (The fastest way to go into labor is to schedule an induction.) We'll arrive at the hospital at 4pm and if all goes well, we'll have a healthy boy on Tuesday!

We were hoping this week would be the week (my doctor's on call this week). But it's not looking promising. And next week she's only around on Tuesday (hence the day we picked for induction). It's very important to me that my doctor does the delivery, so hopefully all will work out. If it doesn't, I can't complain. What happens, happens and it's out of our control. We tried to plan everything out and now it's up to nature. But we have the best shot at everything working out :)

This weekend is our last weekend of "freedom" and it's going to be gorgeous- mid to upper 80's. We'll be having fun in the sun and getting all the last minute errands done.

I'll keep you all updated... :)

Good Karma

Saturday night Dustin was on Craigslist and found a listing for a guy needing help. He needed his lawn mowed. So, Dustin answered it and off we went the next day. Loaded up the truck with our mower, weed whacker, leaf blower, etc.

The good news: he REALLY needed it. He just had bypass surgery and couldn't mow his lawn. (And his dad had a heart attack at the same age mowing his lawn, so understandably he was pretty wary). And his son has a rare genetic disorder that has left him mentally handicapped.

The bad news: he REALLY needed it. We thought it'd be a quick mow job. But... his 1/2 acre was a disaster. Leaves everywhere that have built up over the past year or so, along with tall weeds and junk.

Dustin got started mowing (and bagging everything). I went to run some errands. Came back 2 hours later, thinking he should be close to being done. WRONG! He started raking the leaves out of the ditch (because during the winter his basement flooded due to the leaves clogging the drain). An hour later, he's still raking leaves out of the ditch. A larger project than he anticipated. Meanwhile, I'm raking them onto a tarp so he can drag it to the back woods and dump. After 3 1/2 hrs we had to leave for a previous appointment back at home.

So we left everything there, went home for our appointment, ate "dinner" at 4:30 (after only having a bowl of cereal in the morning- I was STARVING), grabbed some more water and headed back out to Midlothian. Got there at 5:30 and began working again. Finished the leaves and then started on the back fenced area. After 12 huge black garbage bags later full of mulched leaves and grass, we had to call it quits. We were out of garbage bags. There's still a HUGE pile of leaves sitting on a tarp in his driveway. We're going back on Tuesday to bag the rest of the leaves and haul them to the recycling center.

He was SO appreciative. Wanted to give us cash. But it didn't feel right. He obviously needed the money more than us. So they bartered. Dustin got an old gas leaf blower and a chainsaw from his shed. They need work and have obviously been sitting unused for a long time. But Dustin's excited to have the tools and be able to fix them up. And we felt better taking some tools, which he had multiples of, than taking cash. In return, Dustin said he'd come out and do yard maintenance for him on a regular basis, whenever he needed him. And in return he'd give us money to pay for the gas to get out there (since it's a 30 min drive).

We got back home at 8pm, exhausted. 6 hours of hard work. But we felt GREAT that we were able to help someone who really needed it, and appreciated it.

38 Weeks

I'm 38 weeks now and ready for him to come out. The nursery is done and waiting. Tonight we meet with the pediatrician. We're ready and waiting (the hardest part so far). He's now about 7 pounds and 21 inches long. He won't be getting much longer but will still be gaining weight every day. Not much new here, except for the swelling. My rings no longer fit on my finger and I have "Flinstone feet" and cankles. I'm stuck wearing flip flops every day to work because my regular shoes don't fit anymore :( At least you can't really tell when I'm wearing pants.... I am ready for him to come out!

Surprise!!

I have THE BEST neighbors in the world!! 4 families on our street got together and threw me a surprise baby shower!! Where to begin....

They've been planning it all week, and Dustin was in on it! And coincidentally, this weekend Aunt Pat was coming out to visit. Very cool that she got to be a part of it, since she missed the one we had in Oregon. We "took Taylor for a walk" at 3 on Saturday. Much later than usual and I kept trying to take her earlier, but Dustin wanted to "get stuff done around the house" before we took her. Later I found out this was a stall tactic. The girls were running back and forth between houses all day (through the backyards), worried that I would see them out the window.

So we leave for our walk and Mary comes out of her house and wants my opinion on something. Kinda strange, but I go with it. Walk into the house and everyone yells "surprise!!". Banners, streamers, balloons, etc EVERYWHERE!!! Their house was decked out! Every nook and cranny was baby decorations. And food galore!! Carrie, Mary and Jennifer spent the day cooking all the food and setting up. The husbands were sent on errands to get last minute stuff. I was so surprised! They went above and beyond what they should have.

We played some games (the clothes pin game, the belly game with string, word scramblers, guess the beads, drinking milk out of a bottle, etc) and filled our bellies with food. And there was a giant sheet cake. Carrie made a gorgeous diaper cake. Good friends and good conversation. It was so nice to have everyone on the street together and unfortunately some people couldn't come at the last minute. I think everyone had a great time. Even the husbands had fun playing the silly games! And there were good prizes (Chris got a lotion set with a loofa- think his wife was telling him something ;)

And we got some good presents. Very useful stuff that we didn't have yet (like body wash, lotion, humidifier, travel diaper changing station, etc). And some great advice. Not forced advise, but "this is what worked for us" type of advice.

Everyone really put a lot of time and effort into organizing the shower. Carrie took some GREAT pictures. Once I can get them from her I'll post them for everyone to see (and this will be the only time you'll see Dustin drinking a bottle).

For now, I have some pictures that I took after the shower. Tomorrow I'll post a new belly pic.

Complete!

All in a day's work... or rather, weekend's work! It was a VERY busy, yet productive weekend. We got SO much accomplished and I feel SO much better now. My perfect hubby worked his tail off trying to get everything done so my anxiety level can go down. Now that the 2 largest projects are complete I can finally relax a little and enjoy the final 3 weeks until d-day :)

Here's the FINISHED work-out room. It's finally done-done!!! Dustin spent a lot of time over the past 2 weeks working on it. He re-finished the tape lines on the walls and ceiling. Primed and painted everything. Put on baseboards and quarter round. Caulked and painted those. We put in the floor (that was the fun part!). We ended up doing a foam floor. And he fixed the light fixture and put in a transition for the doorway. It looks awesome!

Then onto the nursery once we got everything cleaned up. It's now organized and almost everything is put away. Finally! It feels great to have that done! Basically all it needs are the paintings I'm still working on (although I almost have 3 done) and curtains (which my mom will hopefully be bringing with her once she comes out. I think we've decided on fabric and a design).

And... the weather was PERFECT this weekend! Mid 70's and sunny. Just gorgeous! Dustin got to mow the lawn for the first time this year. How exciting! It's finally green. And Home Depot was having a sale on annuals- 3 for $1. So I got a flat and spent the day planting in pots. It's still a little early, but if it does decide to freeze one last time then Dustin can just drag them in the garage for the night. Lucky him :)

Everyone on the street was out this weekend doing yardwork and enjoying the sun. I just love it! And Dustin turned on several neighbor's sprinkler systems, which made him the hero on the block and saved them $75 (stupid sprinkler company charges $75 in the spring to turn on the system and another $75 in the winter to blow it out- both of which Dustin can do and will do for our neighbors. Isn't he the best??). What a joke! $75 for them to come out and turn a valve under your house!

Last night we babysat Malaya again.

That's our weekend! We got a lot accomplished and I'm feeling great! Tonight we'll take a new picture and I'll post it tomorrow.

Later :)