Vote for When You Think Baby H will Arrive!

We've added a voting section on the right to see when everyone thinks Baby H will make his appearance. Be sure to cast your vote!!

Also, here is a pic of the quilt Sara's Dad and Brian hung for the little guy. It looks great!

Arizona and More

We had a wonderful time in Arizona with the Hillins! It was a very relaxing trip which is just what we needed. We were glad to not have driven to Las Vegas for two days!! You can see in the picture below that we spent most of our time floating in the pool. Grandpa Hillins even bought his daughter-in-law a new raft so she could float on her back and tummy. What a treat

that was ... Sara really misses sleeping in those positions. She actually contemplated sleeping in the pool on her new raft just to enjoy it even longer! And a big thanks to Barb for the swimsuit!

You know it's a relaxing weekend when not once did Sara put on makeup! It rained one day, but that was okay because it gave us an excuse to go shopping and go to a movie. Grandma and Grandpa Hillins bought Baby H an outfit he can wear home from the hospital and also bought Sara some outfits to wear in the hospital and again at home. Next will be packing the hospital bag - fun!!

One of the other fun parts of the weekend was going through Brian's old books and toys. We came home with quite a few goodies for our little guy including old Transformer and Star Wars toys, trucks, Raggedy Andy, and a lot of Brian's favorite books including Poky Little Puppy! It will be fun to have Baby H play with his Daddy's old toys and read the same books!

Funny that we didn't get a picture of the card game that we played. As usual, Sara won by a landslide every game! It's quite funny that nobody wants to sit to the left of her when playing card games.

The last item for this post is a picture of Baby H's closet. As you can see it is pretty full of clothes already, thank goodness the closet is very large - about 10 more feet total on either side of the door openings...room for lots more stuff! But, our favorite part of his closet is the storage units. That is where bibs, blankets, socks, shoes, etc. will go.

Speaking of socks...family friends the Fox's gave Baby H the most adorable socks. Check these out!! We can't wait for Baby H to wear these. He has a different color for every day of the week pretty much!

3 Hour Glucose Results

Sara had her 3 hour glucose test this morning. Not a fun experience for someone who needs to eat breakfast shortly after waking. The process of the test went like this:
8:05 am = Blood test after fasting for 9 hours
8:10 am = Drink bottle of heavily-sugared water
9:10 am = Blood test
10:10 am = Blood test
11:10 am = Blood test

Sara's results:
8:05 am = 95 (needed to be under 110)
9:10 am = 140 (needed to be under 160)
10:10 am = 151 (needed to be under 155)
11:10 am = 157 (needed to be under 140)

So, the last reading wasn't good, but the Doctor said you can fail one of the four and still pass the test. Woo hoo!! We are very thankful for the good results. Thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers.

We're off to Scottsdale in a few hours. Looking forward to some sun and relaxation with the Hillins!

Nursery 90% Complete!

We're excited to say that the nursery is 90% done. A few odds and ends yet to get, but overall we're very happy with the way it looks so far. Here are some pics for you (just a quick note that the blue that shows up in the pics isn't what it looks like in real life. The blue here is way too bright):



We'll hang the quilt behind the chair here:

Other big happenings here include a change to the Baptism time. Sara's brother brings up a good point that IF the Vikings are in the Playoffs and they play the 11:00 game, then a 10:30 Baptism really wouldn't work all that great. So, since there is the option to have it at the 8:30 mass we'll do that one instead. Therefore, Baptism is now on Sunday, January 10 at 8:30 am. We'll plan on having a brunch at our house afterward too.

Sara had her glucose test this morning and we're sad to report that she failed. The nurse was very surprised given that Sara's measuring right on track and she's only gained 18 pounds. Usually there would have been an excessive weight gain. Sara is headed back to the Doctor on Thursday for a three-hour test. We're crossing our fingers for good results. The nurse did say that sometimes people fail the 1-hour glucose test but pass the 3-hour. Please let that be us!!

Lastly for this update is our upcoming trip to Scottsdale. We will no longer be spending part of the time in Las Vegas. It would have just been too much....flying into Phoenix at 6:30pm, driving 5 hours to Vegas so with the time change we wouldn't get in until 2:00am (the time we are used to). Then doing the same 5 hour drive back on Saturday. After thinking more about it, and having Sara come down with a cold, we decided it would be best to just spend the whole time relaxing in Scottsdale. Maybe we'll do Vegas next summer, we'll see!

Food, food, food!

What a weekend full of yummy food! Baby H is very happy! On Friday we started the weekend at a restaurant we've been wanting to go to for some time. It's called Black Sheep Pizza in downtown Minneapolis. It's amazing coal fired pizza, we'll definitely be back there again!

On Saturday we got Baby H's room put back together after the painter was here on Friday. The room looks great! Pics to come after we hang up the art work. The other big event on Saturday was heading to the Minnesota State Fair where we 1) froze (it was 60 degrees) and 2) ate too much! We indulged in cheese curds, Gizmo sandwich, bull bites, ice cream sundae from the dairy building, fries, and mini-donuts. YUM!! We hope that all of the food processes before Sara's glucose test on Tuesday morning. :)

Speaking of yummy food, we went over to Jeff and Dawn's house for dinner tonight where they prepared a wonderful meal of pork tenderloin, real mashed potatoes (what a treat), corn on the cob, and salad. It was a delicious meal but it was made even better because we finally got to catch up! We had also brought over a new recipe that Brian recently was made aware of - cake balls. Basically you make a cake, let it cool, then mix a 1/2 can of frosting in with chunks of cake so it makes like a dough-like consistency. You then form that into balls and dip them in chocolate (think peanut butter balls but cake balls). They were great, especially with some vanilla ice cream. Again, did we mention Sara's glucose test on Tuesday? Uh oh!

28 Weeks – 3rd Trimester!!!

We’ve reached another milestone. Baby H is 28 weeks today which means we have entered the third trimester – yippee! Sara continues to feel great although she has been having a lot of back and leg pain, mainly in the mornings and evenings. She doesn’t sleep very well because she prefers to sleep on her back or tummy but the books all say to sleep on her side. She’ll wake up in the middle of the night laying on her back, then is up worrying for a while that she’s cut off circulation to the baby. So she’ll flip around and after being on her side for awhile she gets painful leg cramps and hip pain. It’s a no win situation! However, she’s not really one to complain because it’s all worth it for Baby H.

Last night we finalized Baby H’s Baptism date. It’s kind of funny considering he hasn’t been born and we don’t have a name or Godparents decided, but when we first met with the priest to start the Baptism process he had mentioned that Jesus’s Baptism was in January. That resonated with us and we thought it would be neat to have Baby H’s Baptism on that date as well. So, we locked in the date. It will be January 10 during the 10:30am mass.

It’s great that we were so decisive on his Baptism because we aren’t doing so well in another area. Yep, you guessed it – red paint. Nothing is easy!! However, six (yes six!) red paints later we finally have the one that we will paint the picture frames for Baby H’s nursery. Brian will finish painting them this weekend and the painter is coming tomorrow to paint the walls blue. We should be able to post a few pictures of the almost completed nursery this weekend!

For the holiday weekend, we’re looking forward to a few days in Vegas and a few days in Scottsdale with Brian’s parents. Vegas won’t be the same with Sara pregnant (ie no clubbing at the Palms until 4am) but that’s okay, we’ll still have a fun time lounging by the pool, gambling, watching the Bellagio fountains, eating wonderful food, and enjoying one another’s company. Sara has already requested some time for dancing at Toby Keith’s I Love This Country Bar! Not sure where her love of some country music came from, but she always loves to dance!

New Rule Implemented

We have a new rule at the Hillins house and that is we will eat before 7:30 pm so that Sara's tummy has ample time to digest prior to going to bed. No more eating at 9:00 pm and going to bed an hour or so after. That was not a fun Saturday evening/Sunday morning for Sara. She was up at 2:30 am with indigestion and getting sick...hence the new rule! So far, we're doing good eating early!

On Saturday Sara's Dad came up to install Baby H's new ceiling fan. It looks great! We wanted to put a ceiling fan in to help with air movement and we had heard it helps reduce the risk of SIDS. It looks pretty nice too, so that's just an added bonus.

Sunday was a pretty fun day. We headed to our parish's annual church picnic. It was a great sunny day for it and there was quite a turnout. Randle even got to go! We brought Special K bars that were quite a hit and we enjoyed sampling everyone else's yummy treats while also eating pork sandwiches, coleslaw, and German potato salad. Brian even ran into a few of his old high school friends there. Hopefully we'll be able to see more of them now that we know we all go to the same church!

After the church picnic we headed over to Jim and Annie's because Sara's Grandma was up for the day visiting. It was nice to see the four generations together and Grandma loved just holding and looking at the little guy. He just gets cuter every day!!

Go Vikings!

We headed to the first Vikings pre-season game yesterday to witness the Favre saga first-hand. Wow what a crowd!! Would have guessed we were in the playoffs! Favre did okay for the two series he was in. Got sacked, thought he was down for the count, but he rebounded nicely. Should be a fabulous season!!

Here is Sara on the way to the game. Four weeks since the last belly shot, now she's at 27 weeks. Sara has gained 16.5 pounds thus far. One of these days, all of the ice cream Baby H is craving should catch up with her. We have only one week left before hitting the third trimester - it doesn't seem that long ago that we announced to friends and family we were expecting.

Baby H continues to be a very active baby. His kicks are getting stronger every day and are especially strong when Sara is reading to him in his glider. He also kicked hard when Sara was holding her nephew Sam. He must have been saying hello! We continue to be amazed at how Sara's entire tummy can shift because of his movement. It is really neat to see!

Last week Sara had a funk for a day. Do all pregnant Mommies get that? Yuck- that was not fun for Sara!! Everything was just bugging her. Luckily it went away as quickly as it came. The weather probably had something to do with it as it was dreary and rainy here for most of the week. All is much better now. A special thanks to Sam for cheering her up. We got to see him at home on day 5 of his life. He had lost a bit of weight since being home so looks a bit smaller here, but we're happy to report his feeding has increased and he's back to his birth weight (completely normal we're told). Isn't he a cutie?!!?

Paint

Another decision on the nursery, check! We finally decided on paint. It will be the furthest one on the left in this picture.

It looks a bit light and too aqua here, but after painting three different walls the three different colors (and an additional even lighter one), this one was the clear winner for Baby H. We have the painter scheduled for August 28! He's also going to do some touch up on the main floor and basement so lots of good things happening!

You can also see in this picture how the red picture frames will look around the art. Unpainted wood frames have been ordered and are set to arrive this week. Now we just need to finalize the red paint which shouldn't be too hard because we like the red of the poster board here. Sherwin Williams here we come! Please let it be as easy as we think it should be!!!

The last update for the nursery is that Sara's parents picked up some great Pottery Barn type wooden totes for storage in the closet and in the vertical storage area of the dresser. 6 red and 4 blue. Gotta love garage sales - 10 for $35! They are in mint condition so they're perfect. We may even use one of the blue ones for the diaper caddy, but we'll see. Decisions, decisions!

Samuel (Sam) Steven Roslansky

Our adorable little nephew made his entrance into the world Sunday morning around 10am, beating the scheduled induction. He weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and was 20.25 inches in length. Annie was a champ through the labor and Jim is one proud papa. Sam is such a cutie. He loves having his hands in his mouth and will pop one eye open at a time...We think he was peeking to see if there was a camera around. He wasn't so fond of the flash when both eyes were open. These pictures were taken one hour after he was born. He's so precious! We love him so much and can't wait to see everyone again tonight!

Other big events for the weekend included a fun-filled Friday night that included ColdStone ice cream for an appetizer, shopping at Babies R Us and Target, picking up a pizza, and assembling the glider/ottoman. When did our Friday nights become so boring? But, we did enjoy putting together Baby H's furniture. The nursery is now pretty complete except the paint, picture frames, lamp, and diaper caddy. Yes, we're overachievers but you can't always predict when he'll make his appearance (we're hoping for approximately 90 days from now though)!

On Saturday, we headed out on Brian's brother and sister-in-law's boat for a relaxing day on the lake. Even though the weather people were far from accurate with their forecast, we had a great time. All was going well until we were heading back to their slip and the steering went out. Brian knows a lot about boats from his time working at a marina during summer months in high school and college, but he didn't have luck diagnosing the problem. Therefore, we had a slow go back across the lake. Brian did a great job steering and utilizing the current even through narrow channels. About 90 minutes later we arrived at our location and were lucky to find the neighboring boat not there, so we docked it without difficulty. We feel terrible that something on their boat broke while we were using it. We're crossing our fingers that it is a quick fix!!