Harlan's water birth

So I have put together a video of Harlan's waterbirth. It is mostly a picture montage of photos taken during my pregnancy and also my labor and the birth. There is a 30 sec video clip in the middle of the montage of the actual moment of birth. It is not "graphic" but you do see my butt! So if you would rather not see that then don't watch the video. I will say that is is taken from the side and is very tasteful! The whole video is in B & W. The music is nice and all in all I am very proud of the work I put into this video. Enjoy and please comment!

Harlan at 6 months

I have been meaning to create this post for about 3 weeks now. Technically Harlan turned 6 mos on April 7th. We have had lost going on since then so I am just now getting this posted.

Harlan has acquired a few nick names but the one that has stuck is Harlie. In fact if you follow me on Facebook you will see that I almost always call him Harlie. I think it is cute and fits him!

Here is a picture of all my kiddos!
They all love Harlie so much and love posing for pictures with him!

At his 6 mo well-baby visit he weighed 15 pounds 4 ounces
And was 27 1/8 inches tall. Long and lean!

He is a very happy baby that rarely cries.
He smiles alot and likes to watch his brothers and sister run amuck.

Harlie has a great relationship with each one of his siblings. He espeically loves to roll around with Mason on the floor. And Mason has the ability to make Harlie laugh out loud!

Harlie has 3 teeth. 2 on the bottom that he got in his 4th month and 1 on top that he recently cut. He is working on the other top tooth. Teething has been a challenge for him and teh only time really that he is inconsolable. He responds well to pain relieves though.

Harlie is also eating soild foods like a champ. We started with jarred purees and now have moved onto table foods. He likes fruits and veggies and loves to self feed. He really loves pancakes smeared with my homemade strawberry jam and cut into little squares that he can self feed.

Harlie is such a joy and has fit seamlessly into our family. I am so happy that he has completed our family so perfectly. At the beginning of the month Tim got a vasectomy so we are done having babies. It just feels so right and we are thrilled to have taken that step. I am just savoring every baby moment with Harlie. They grow so fast and he is the last of my babies!

Basement Bedroom is COMPLETE

A few weekends ago we got all the furniture moved in and the kids moved! It went very well! My brother Dave came over to help Tim move the furniture. Then I sent in and unpacked and organized all the stuff. I am very happy with the way it turned out. They do need some more wall art but we are gonna work on that soon!

Here is Mason standing on Jasmyn's bed

Jasmyn is obviously excited!

Jasmyn's area. She needs art on the wall!

Kaleb's area. He has lots of art work!

The room!

And the transition of the kids sleeping down there went way better than I expected. They have enjoyed sleeping downstairs and love the new bedroom! It is just awesome!

Basement Bedroom Part 3

Work has continued on our basement bedroom project. The floor proved to be a huge challenge. When Tim pulled up the linoleum that covered a portion of the floor he found it very securely GLUED to the floor despite having been there since ... well forever I think! The plastic layer came up but the paper backing stuck to the concrete. Here is what it looked like:
Obviously it needed to be removed before we could put new flooring down. The new flooring is an adhesive plank type flooring that is moisture resistant and rated for sub level concrete. So thus began our quest to remove the mess from the floor! We bought an industrial size floor scrapper from home depot. That didn't work. We bought a floor stripper that was supposed to remove the glue and paper. That didn't work. We did find a solution eventually. A 4 inch wide wall paper scrapper with removable razor blade type blades, lots of water, get on your hands and knees, and apply lots of elbow grease!

We took turns scraping while the other one used a push broom to wet the paper and glue to help loosen it. The kids picked up the scraps of paper and put them in a bucket. In about 2 hours the floor was clean enough! The next step was to let the floor dry. We turned on a space heater.

Tim then spent a few nights after work painting the doors and trim white. Then he painted the ceiling and 3 walls yellow and one wall green. The colors came out great!

The next day I went down and swept the whole room and then mopped. After the floor was clean I let it dry completely again. Then we needed to use a concrete preparer to help the adhesive planks stick to the floor more effectively. I got the job of rolling on the floor paint.

After the floor was dry again we were ready to start laying the flooring down. Thankfully Tim had some help from my brother Dave. It took the two of them about 3 1/2 hrs to lay all the planks and then Tim still had some finish work to get done as well.



Here are a few pictures of the floor and the pain now that it is done. The kids as you can see are thrilled with the new room! The space heater is still in the room helping the adhesive cure to the floor.



The room is very long and narrow. It should work great as a dormitory type setting for the boys! Well and for Jasmyn too until her room is finished upstairs. We do still have some work to do before we move the kids into the room. We need to get some baseboard trim painted and installed. All the outlets in the room need to be replaced with new plate covers. The light switches need to be replaced and they need new cover plates as well. And we have 2 low profile ceiling fans to install as well. And the cover that goes over the water main needs to be sanded, painted and installed. We are getting closer to being done! I can't wait and neither can the kids!

Harlan's 1st Solids

Harlan is 5 months old and seemed like he was interested in what we are eating. He watches the fork from our plates to our mouths and drools. LOL! He has been doing this for a few weeks now. He can sit up when supported and has good head control. And he is very expressie when he is unhappy and can convey when he has had enough! All of these things are signs of readiness for solids. A few days ago we decided to try to introduce solids to him. So I smashed up some bananas and mixed some organic whole grain rice cereal with some formula for him. Tim got ready with the camera. We were little over zealous considering what happened next!

His first bite!

It did not go over well. He was NOT inpressed with it AT ALL.

Notice his little frown.

This is NOT the face of a child loving solids.

But we tried a few more spoon fuls.

And he made it CLEAR it was done with it by arching his back and tying to get away from me.
He did like it when I let him hold the spoon.

And he enjoyed chewing on it!

So we will wait a few more weeks to try again. In the mean time I am letting him chew on the spoon when he watches us eat dinner. And I am gonna start putting him in his high chair (as soon as the seat cover gets finished) during meal times as well. Hopefully these things will help him get excited about eating solids.

Also one of my online friends gave me a link about allowing babies to feed themsleves instead of spoon feeding them purees. It is an interesting concept for sure. Here is the link in case anyone is interested.

Basement Bedroom Part 2

More pictures of our basement bedroom!

Here is the window just set with no trim on the inside. Studs are exposed still.

Here is the outside of the window with Trim and the well in place.

We still need to add a weed protecting sheeting, sand and gravel in the whole to prevent weeds and grass from growing and to facilitate water drainage.

Here is the inside of the window with the dry wall in place.

Here is the window with the mudd/joint compound on the wall. The mudd has to dry and then Tim will sand the mudd smooth. And then he will prime and paint the wall.

We still have 3 other walls that need to have drywall repair done on them. Once all the mudd is dry, Tim will sand it and then prime it. I can't wait until we can paint! Painting is what I am excited about!

I am so thankful to have an handy hubby! I love that he is doing the work. Work that we are both proud of!

Basement Bedroom part 1

As I mentioned before we are doing some room reconstruction to create a bedroom for our boys. Here are a few pictures of the "before" and also the "after" the window was installed. We still have lots of work to do, but hopefully within a few months the kids will be moving into their new room!

Here is the view standing in the doorway facing the window. As you can see the window is small and not up to code for a bedroom window. All of Tim's tools are still out as we are still in the midst of the project.


This picture is taken from the other angle. My back is to the window and I am facing the doors. The left door leads out into the playroom and then to the upstairs. The right door is a door into a storage room that currently holds Tim's tools and our camping gear! Eventually those things will be in a shed outside, but the shed is not in the budget till next spring!


This picture is taken from the same place but just captures the opposite wall. The hole on the right wall houses our Water Main. Tim is going to have to construct a locking cabinet to keep the kids from messing with it.

This is the outside of the house. The guy in the hole is setting up his cutter to make the hole in the concrete to place the window.
Here is the view from the outside after the window is set. They still need to do the frame on the outside and set the window well in place. This work is done now, but I have to still take pictures of it. By the time they finished it was dusk and my pictures would not have turned out. So I will take some more tomorrow.
Here is the window from the inside. Tim is going to do all the trim work inside. The window adds so much light to the room. It is really gonna look awesome once it is all done!

And this last picture I took with my cell phone so please excuse the quality! But here is the window in the room! And you can see how big the window is in comparison to the kids!

More pictures to follow as the work gets completed! Wish us luck and that we can get it done quickly! I am anxious to have this room finished so the rest of my house can get back to normal. We had to empty that room of everything to do the work so the "everything" that was in that room is now "everywhere" in the rest of my house! I hate clutter and disorder. So this project may very well be my undoing!

Update of sorts

I have lots of stuff in my head so I am gonna just put one big update out there and hopefully cover all of it!!!!

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Harlan will be 5 months old tomorrow. He recently achieved another "first", although this one is one that I was dreading.... his first cold. Well this cold is extra special, it is actually croup. Croup is common in children and causes swelling in the throat, voicebox and upper airways into the lungs. Usually the child has a "barking" cough and a raspy hoarse voice. It can get serious because their airways are so tiny. It is nothing to mess around with at all. In fact when Mason had Croup at around 18 months we actually ended up in the ER and he was admitted overnight for steriod treatments because his oxygenation was declining due to Croup. It was very scary and not something I ever want to go through again. Last Wednesday I took Harlan to the Dr. because I suspected he had Croup and a possible Ear Infection (EI). He did have croup but no EI. They gave him an oral steroid and sent us home. On Friday he was worse. He lost his voice completely. It is really scary to see him crying but no sound comes out. So back to the Dr we went. The Dr agreed that he was worse and decided that he needed breathing treatments to help open up his airways. They gave us a nebulizer and a prescription for Albuterol with a treatment schedule for the next 2 weeks. Wow the treatments have made a HUGE improvement in his croup. He still has no voice when he coos or cries but he can breath so much better and therefore can eat better and is just a happier little guy!
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We are making a bedroom downstairs for the kids. We have a big rec room downstairs that accounts for about 1/4 of our house's square footage. Up until this point is has served as storage and a place for my crafts. But mostly it is a place to put stuff when we don't know what else to do with it! Our Rec room had become our WRECK room! The other reason we had never used it for a bedroom is that the window in the room did not open, nor was it big enough for a rescue person to climb through in the case of a fire, nor was it low enough for the kids to reach to climb out. Clearly something needed to be done with the window before we could put a child's bedroom down there. We had checked into having an Egress window put in a few years back and it was quite expensive. But due to the economic downturn, contractors are pricing things a bit more reasonable to get work. We were able to hire a contractor to do the work with money we received from our income tax return. The window should be in next week.

We also needed to empty that room of all its junk and get my craft stuff out of the room. :ast weekend Tim removed the utility shelves from the room and moved them to another area of our basement and then I moved all my stuff out of the (w)Rec(k) room. Stuff is kinda spread around the house in a holding pattern until the room is done and we move the kids downstairs. Once the kids move downstairs it will free up a bedroom upstairs for my craft room.

Now that the room is empty and the window will be in next week we can start the rest of the project which includes painting, new flooring, new trim, and a new door. Also some drywall needed to be patched and our water main in in the wall in that room so we have to install a locking cabinet door over the main to keep little fingers from messing with it. So yesterday we went to Home Depot and picked out an interior door, paint colors and some other odds and ends. Tim and Dave are going to work on the drywall patching today and Tim has actually already installed the new door. I am going to try to get some before pictures taken so we can see the huge difference all of Tim's work made in making this room for the kids.

And when I say "kids" at this point I mean Kaleb Jasmyn & Mason. Ever since forever Kaleb & Jasmyn have shared a room. They just feel safer and more comfortable sharing a room. And I understand this because Dave and I shared a room for a lot of years when we were the same age. So for now the 3 older kids will share the basement room. But eventually that room is for just the boys and Jasmyn will get a girlie princess type room upstairs. Right now Harlan is too little to be that far away from me at night, and the 3 older kids are still enjoying sharing a room. And I can't have my whole house torn up with room remodels. So we will wait until summer of 2011 to do Jasmyn's princess room upstairs.
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I am also just overjoyed to have my craft room upstairs! I will be able to start a project and leave it out to work on when I have time. Currently I have to drag everything out and put it away when I am done working on it. It just isn't convenient, and thus my projects never get worked on, which is why Kaleb is the only child with a semi completed baby book! And his is only done up to like his 6 month of life! I have lots of work to do it get these done and I will soon have the space to make it happen!!!!!
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Today Harlan is 5 moths old. We are getting close to starting solid foods. He thinks he is ready! Well lets just say he watches us eat with lots of intense staring and plenty of drooling! But I am really wanting to wait for a few more weeks. Mostly because he has been slow to gain weight and starting solids will replace some of his feedings of breastmilk or formula. And nothing I can mash up or thin down is as nutritionally dense as breastmilk or formula. I am concerned that solids will slow his weight gain down even further. But I know that developmentally he needs to start experimenting with textures and flavors. I also need to make a new cover for his high chair. Sigh. I wish I had my craft room set up already!
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At the end of the month is Spring Break. Dave and I decided we should take a family vacation the likes of which have never before been attempted by our family! We are taking both our families and all our kids and Grandma to Seattle for 3 nights 4 days of site seeing and touristy stuff. We are buying "city passes" for everyone that allows us access into 6 attractions around Seattle. We are gonna go to Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle Aquarium, Space Needle, and Pacific Science center for sure. The kids are overjoyed with anticipation and I have to say.... so am I!
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So I realize that I need to post some more pictures and I will try to get to that later. But right now Harlan is crying, though not making noise, and I need to get breakfast made for the troops!

Harlan's first teeth!

Harlan has been teething for a while now. It actually did not take that long for these teeth to come through. The first one came through and was followed by the second tooth within 3 days. He is now working on the top teeth. But it seems he teethes for a few days and then he gets a break and then a few days later he starts the drooling and chewing on everything in sight again.

He is such a cutie pie!

So far he has done OK with teh teething. He likes to chew on my finger. I wrap it up in a cold wet washcloth first so that his sharp little teeth don't hurt me. Tylenol seems to take the edge off the pain as well. He has actually tolerated teething fairly well.

Harlan's 1st Haircut

Yup at the ripe old age of 15 and 1/2 weeks he needed a haircut! No not because it was too long or getting into his eyes. This was purely a cosmetic haircut. See Harlan was born with a full head of hair. He was my first baby ever to have ANY hair. The older 3 kids were bald until well over a year old. I was thrilled to FINALLY have a baby with hair. And then.... it all started to fall out. Not only did he rub some of it out on the back of his head but the top of it fell out too. But it did not fall out evenly. It fell out in stripes on top leaving a Mohawk. And he had the "newborn bald spot" on the back of his head from always being placed on his back to sleep, rubbing his head on the car seat, swing etc. So what was left was a "comb over" on top and a "ring" above his collar. It looked horrible! Here are a few pictures:

The comb over The ring above his collar and "bald spot"

The Mohawk in the front

So I cut it! He did just fine with the clippers. He did not even cry and that way I wouldn't cut him if he moved the way I might with scissors. The clippers has a guard that prevents cutting the skin. The kids took pictures of his haircut!

The small amount of hair that I cut off. I kept a lock of it for the baby book!

Doesn't this look better?!?!?!

He is the cutest baby ever with his new hairdo!