10:30 Update

It's 10:30 now...nothing really new to report... Still awaiting Baby K - whose heartbeat is still fairly inconsistent - which is completely normal.

The debate with the nurse is that if Baby K will come before or after midnight. Right now, the nurse's projection is right at midnight - we'll see how close she is! Dana and I still think that Baby K will be an early morning February baby... Of course, our prediction is based on zero education - compared to our nurse's years of schooling!

Hopefully, you will get to see Baby K with the next post...

Pain, Pain, Go Away...

According to Dana - one of the biggest and best advances in medical technology is the usage of the epidural. After going through early labor at the hospital for about four hours, the anesthesiologist came in to administer the epidural.


If you have never been present for an epidural or spinal tap, it is pretty interesting. Our anesthesiologist, though, I would describe as the John Madden of doctors - he gave a play-by-play account of each step in the process. Everything from: "See how curved this long needle is?" to "Good, no spinal fluid when we entered the plastic tube." allowed both Dana and I to understand what was going on.


Anyway...that has been in since around 7:00 - and Dana can barely feel a thing from her toes to her chest. Right now, we are relaxing (as much as we can) watching the Grammy Awards and the Pro Bowl. She has progressed a little bit more - so we are on our way! The only question is whether Baby K will be a January or February baby... More updates to come...stay tuned!



Here is a picture of a relaxed Dana...

It's Supper Time

It's time to eat some dinner... Here's what it looks like now in our room - with Dana hooked up to both an IV and a monitor. The monitor tracks both Baby K's heartbeat (the 138 below) and Dana's contractions (the 9 on the monitor below). When Dana has a contraction, the "9" can go up into the mid-20s.

It's with this backdrop that we have just enjoyed our dinner. Chicken sandwich and fries for me - grilled cheese and soup for the mom-to-be. Here's a picture of Dana enjoying the last supper of being a mom of one!

When Karter was born, I was semi-chastised by my family for posting a lot about where my next meal was coming from. What can I say? I was concerned with the basics... So...this will be one of my final posts about food.

What's next? The doctor came around 6:00 - and things are starting to progress. Dana will probably get an epidural around 7:00 or so...as things are progressing quickly...

We are Here!

Well...it is now 4:30pm - and we are at the hospital. We got here around 3:00pm, and are now waiting...the long waiting game! :-) Room 1105 will be our residency for a while now. Above are pictures from and of the bed.

Dana is hooked up to an IV - with pitocin (supposed to quicken contractions). Her doctor will be here around 5:00 - to hopefully give her a check and get ready for the event.

I'll continue to post as time goes on (hopefully with more pictures!). Ok...we are going to try and walk around a litte bit...come on Baby K!!

The Final Countdown

Well...the time has come to hand over the documentation duties to me (Mr. Minnesota Gray) - as we head into the final countdown to Baby K. As we go throughout the birth and hospital stay, I will keep you up to speed on how mommy, daddy, Karter, Gramaw, and Baby K are doing.

We received word from the hospital that our plans have changed... Instead of Dana being induced at 7:00am on Monday, we got bumped (baby-bumped, I guess you could say) to 3:00pm Sunday. So...tomorrow afternoon - barring any monumentous events this evening - we will be heading to Regina Medical Center. Their Family Birthing Center will be our temporary residency for a few days.

Stay tuned...as the newest member of the human race joins the Minnesota Grays!!

Karter Counts to 10

Still Waiting

Mommy kisses, originally uploaded by minnesotagrays.

Today is Baby K's official due date, but he doesn't seem to care about that and is pretty comfortable where he is. While I'm not really looking forward to the actual delivery part, I am very much looking forward to holding our new baby in my arms. There is just something very special about those first moments with your child, and my arms are aching to hold him for the first time! Looking at this picture, it is really hard to believe that our Karterman was once this little, he is much too busy running around these days to cuddle like he used to. We know that Karter is going to be a great big brother and are looking forward to seeing our two boys together!

No, I'm NOT in Labor!

I figured since I didn't post yesterday (and almost didn't today) that some people may have thought it meant we were at the hospital, but I'm sorry that is not the case! I was hoping by now to have a new baby boy to post about, and with Gramaw Terry here I haven't been taking very many pictures. I had another appointment today, and things are continuing to progress along. I have been having some regular contractions today, but they just aren't gaining in intensity...hopefully soon. If Baby K doesn't decide to come this weekend, we will go in on Monday at 7:30am to be induced, Dr. TT really doesn't think that I will make it until Monday though. He will be here soon...one way or another!!

While we have all been waiting on Baby K, Karter has been keeping us entertained! He has always loved to sing, and these days we have been doing A LOT of singing. He loves all songs, but prefers the ones that have hand motions to go along with them...and everyone in the room must participate. Here is a cute little video of him and Gramaw singing together....

Karter's 1st Ouchie

One day last week for lunch we went across 52 to Little Oscars. When we got there and I went to get Karter out of the backseat I was greeted by a not so fun surprise...his hands were covered in blood! Little Oscars is literally a minute away from our house, so it was very surprising that 1) his hands (that were clean when I put him in the car) had blood all over them and 2) he didn't make a peep the trip over! Gramaw Terry helped clean his hands while I dug out the first aid kit from under the seat. It turned out he just had a little scratch on his pinkie finger, but it is still a complete mystery as to how it got there!

He didn't cry at all until I wanted to change the bandage in the restaurant...I think he was being a little overly dramatic!

He didn't like having the band-aid on his finger....

....and for the rest of the day he acted like his entire hand was broken.

Karter'st 1st ouchie wasn't anything a big smooch from Mommy...

...and a few french fries drenched in ketchup couldn't cure!

In this video Karter was to excited anticipating Gramaw dancing that he could barely play his harmonica, but if you watch him you can see how he acts like his right hand doesn't work!

39 Weeks

Here we are at 39 weeks and the end is so very close! I honestly didn't think I would still be pregnant today. At my OB appointment last week I was dilated to 3cm and over 50% effaced (sorry if that is TMI, but hey this is my blog!), so after that progress I was convinced I would have the baby this week...I still think it will happen before our actual due date of the 29th. We are as prepared as you can be for a new baby to arrive. The nursery is set up, our hospital bags are packed and Gramaw Terry is here ready to stay with Karter! We can't wait to meet our new baby and by the look on Karter's face, I think he is pretty excited to be a big brother too! Hopefully soon we will have some exciting news...stay tuned, Kristoffer plans to update as often as possible during our hospital stay!

Karter Counting

It is so fun to watch Karter grow and learn, each day he is coming up with new things to amaze us with. He has mastered the alphabet and now we are working on counting...he surprised us yesterday with his ability to count to six!

Wordless Wednesday

Playdate

This past Saturday we had an awesome lunch down in Hayfield with our friends, The Sonnenberg's. We don't get together as often as we would like, because we all have pretty hectic schedules, but we wanted to squeeze a quick lunch in before Baby K was born. This lunch was super fun, because their twin girls are almost 11 months old and were actually able to play with Karter this time. I love going over to other homes that have kids, because the houses are always stocked with cool toys that we don't have at home and Karter could play for hours! A big hit with all of the kids was the ball pit...who wouldn't love to go down a slide and land in a pool of balls!? Thanks for a great afternoon Johann & Sherry!!

Hope Baby K Likes to Swing

When Karter was a newborn, he loved to be in his swing, he actually used it until he was over 6 months old.

This past week we spent a lot of time unpacking all of his old baby clothes and toys to get them cleaned up before Baby K gets here. Of course the swing was something we had to get out right away, and as soon as Karter saw it (before it was even set up) he wanted to get in it!

Now that it is all set up and ready to go, Karter has been asking us to put him in it. I keep telling him that he is a big boy now and that the swing is only for babies. Yesterday he decided since he couldn't swing he would let his monkey try it out!

We may need to work on how hard he pushes the swing, but I think he is really going to enjoy pushing his baby brother....lets just hope Baby K likes it too!!

Bubble Boy

Karter has always LOVED bath time, but ever since Santa brought him bubble bath in his stocking he loves it even more! Now when we ask him if he is ready for his bath, he will run into the bathroom and open the cabinet and hand us the bubble bath. We were only adding bubbles on the weekends, but last night he spent the whole bath time asking for bubbles, so I think every bath may have to be a bubble bath. It is so hard to say no to, "Bubbles, Pease!"

His favorite thing to do with the bubbles is to get a lot in both hands and then blow them at me! It is really cute, but then his neat freak side comes out and he has to wipe them off my face for me! The time it takes to take a bath has about doubled, because he wants to play in the tub until all of the bubbles have gone away. He's pretty pruney at the end, but at least I know he is clean!!

Blues Brothers

When we were in college, Kristoffer got on a little kick and wanted to learn how to play the harmonica. He picked up a cheap one along with a tape (yes, a cassette tape) and a book to help him learn, and he practiced a lot and got pretty good. The next year for Christmas he got a really nice one, but that was the year we were going to graduate, get married and move, so practicing the harmonica kind of got put on the back burner.

We have always kept the two harmonicas in the drawer of the end table, and last month Karter learned he could open the drawers and he was instantly drawn to them. Of course now he is obsessed with playing them because they make noise...it is an added bonus to him that Rascal hates the sound and goes crazy whenever he plays! He is super cute when he plays and wants you to dance along to his song, so if you are ever over be prepared for Karter to give you a private concert!

Wordless Wednesday

Big-Boy Room

Saturday was a big spending day for our family. We set out after breakfast with a long list of things we needed to accomplish; go to Menard's to pick up supplies to add shelving to the closet in Karter's new big boy room, stop at Sam's Club to stock up our freezer, get Kristoffer's watch re-sized at Kohl's, pick out a new big-boy bed at Mattress Giant, and of course, go to Target to purchase everything we needed for Karter & Baby K (and maybe a new Wii game for us!). Unfortunately for Karterman, we got to Sam's too early and he didn't get the sample snack that I had promised him in the morning, so he was getting a little hungry by the time we were done there. Besides Target, we knew that Mattress Giant would take the longest because we wanted to make sure that we picked out a mattress and box springs that would last our kids awhile (wow, we are about to have more than one child!), luckily they had some toys in the corner of the store that Karter quickly spotted and entertained himself. We picked out and purchased a mattress set that we thought would suit us well, but unfortunately they didn't have any in stock at the store and we would have to drive up to their distribution center to pick it up. We readjusted our plans for the day and headed to Target for a little lunch and shopping before going to pick up the mattress. We could of had it delivered, but it would have cost half as much as the mattress set itself, so instead we drove home from Eagan with Karter's new bed "hillbilly style" (our salesman's term for strapping it to the top of our car!).

While at Target we did happen to buy ourselves a new Wii game (Tiger Woods for anyone who is interested!), so we didn't actually set up Karter's new room until Sunday. For anyone who has been to our house before, Karter's big-boy room is the old guest room. The workout room will become the guest room (this weekend hopefully) and the elliptical will move out to the living room behind the couch.

Santa knew Karter was a big-boy and brought him some new bedding for Christmas, but Santa forgot to get a bedskirt so we had to make another Target run yesterday to get one! We really lucked out on the headboard and bed frame. We looked on Craiglist in December and found this awesome headboard, that looks brand new but is actually over 10 years old, for only $40. Since our little monkey can get out of his bed whenever he wants, we aren't going to be adding any more furniture to his room for awhile. We don't want him to climb up on anything and get hurt. Another thing we still need to do is get new curtains, it was just something that slipped our minds.

After the bed was all set up it was time to tackle the closet. When we had our basement done in early 2007, we didn't have children on our radar yet, so we opted out of putting shelves and clothes bars in the closets to save money. However, now that Karterman is down there and he doesn't have a dresser, we desperately needed to finish out the closet. His closet is huge and was the perfect spot to store games, toys and my sewing machine, but all of that needed to be more organized to make room for his stuff now.

Kristoffer did a great job hanging the shelf and yesterday morning Karter helped me organize his things in there.

He is super proud of his new room!

Sunday night was his first night ever sleeping in a real bed. We made a big deal about him being such a big-boy all day Sunday, so when it came time for bed he would be super excited. It worked great, he laid right down and went to sleep. I on the other hand had a little melt down shortly after he went to bed. I'm going to blame it on the pregnancy hormones, but I just felt so guilty that we had just changed everything he had ever known.

It didn't phase Karter one bit though! He only woke up once all night because he lost the pacifier that he has to have in his hand somewhere in all his covers. He woke up happy and ready for the day around 7:30.

I am so proud of our big guy! He did great during nap time yesterday, and night #2 was even better, we didn't hear a peep from him all night and as I type this at 7:30 he is still sleeping!!

Now it is time to get the nursery ready for Baby K. Right now this is what his room looks like...the closet is empty, but the floor is full of stuff. It may not look like it, but this is actually organized chaos! When I was emptying the closet I made piles, some things need to be washed, some toys need to be stored away and others just need to make their way back out to the living room.

Kristoffer pulled about half of the baby things out of storage, and my goal for this week is to get them all washed up and ready for Baby K.

Soon this room will be filled with tiny baby clothes and all the stuff that a new baby needs. I better get started on that laundry!

Christmas in Indiana: Part III - More People = More Playtime

After spending a few days with my mom, we headed to the other side of Indiana to spend the rest of the week with the Gray's. Karter is a pretty easy-going little guy and quickly adjusts, especially when changing places means another Christmas celebration, new toys and a room full of people to entertain!

Karter quickly warmed up to his Gramaw, Papaw and Aunts & Uncles. He remembered them all from Thanksgiving at our house and it wasn't too long before he had them all wrapped around his chubby little finger!

Karter took a little longer to warm up to Gran-Gran and Great Grandpa Bud since he hadn't seen them in awhile, but Gran-Gran quickly learned that books are the way to win him over!

Great Grandpa Kenny also learned books are the way to Karter's heart, as well as once you start reading to him be prepared to read the same books over and over!

We had such a great time visiting and relaxing with everyone. It was really fun to watch Karter, because spending time with his grandparents means he gets to help Papaw feed his fish...

...explore Gramaw's decorations...

...make up new games...

...and have pillow fights with Papaw!

While in Indiana we were also able to visit with a few of our friends. New Years day, my high school friends, Craig & Jess Barton, came over to visit for awhile (sorry, no pictures), and we were also able to go visit our old MN friends, the Tokar's, in their new Muncie home. It was nice to be able to catch up with friends that we don't get to see as much as we would like, and of course Karterman loved playing with his old pal, Henry!

New Years Eve was a fun night for everyone, we got to enjoy an evening out and Karter got to stay in and play with Gramaw and Papaw! We came home to a crazy little boy that had learned a lot of new tricks and a couple of new phrases in one night!!

Our trip to Indiana was a great time for our family, we were able to relax and spend 10 full days together visiting our families! Last week it was back to reality and getting our routine back. Karter got back on track pretty quickly, but really missed having a room full of people to entertain!

Christmas in Indiana: Part II - Cousins!

For the first leg of our trip we stayed at my mom's house, which was great because my brother and his family were also there. Our nephew Jonah is six months older than Karter and those two boys love to play with each other. Last Christmas the six month age difference was very evident, Jonah was walking around and Karter was still just a little baby perfecting his ability to sit up, but this year was totally different! These two boys are both full fledged toddlers running around and getting into trouble together! It was really hard to get them to stand still for any pictures together, because they were so busy playing. Karter and Jonah are into a lot of the same things right now, like helping. They were both really excited to help Grandma Vicky pass out our Christmas presents.

They both really wanted to help the other one (or any one for that matter) open there gifts. Karter was particularly excited to help open this one for Jonah because it was from him...matching Elmo slippers!

Jonah was as equally excited to help Karter open his new puzzle. He has the same one and wanted to show him how to do it!

Christmas is so much fun when there are little ones running around getting so excited about every gift.

As excited as the boys were to play with their new toys, they were also pretty happy to crawl up into Grandma's lap and have her read a book (or 20) to them!