The fastest 5 months of my life!

Hello everyone! Can you believe that it has been 5 months since we welcomed our little Emmalyn Kate into this world? I am so sorry that I have been a bad blogger. New mommyhood has kept me extremely busy and has not left me much time to update. Fortunately summer is finally here, and while I will continue to busy with my sweet girl, maybe I can update more regularly. Here are some quick updates in the life of the Babinicz family.

Emmalyn turned 5 months old yesterday. Wow! She has been part of our family for 5 whole months!! I cannot believe how quickly she is growing and changing. She is adorably chubby these days and at her last Dr. appointment 4 weeks ago, she weighed in at 15 lbs and 2 oz. She has almost tripled her weight since her birth. We love to squeeze and kiss her plump little cheeks!

She loves to talk and coo all the time now. She has recently started to "sing" to us too. In fact not only does she "sing" to us, but also to the ceiling fan, her toys, the tv, the wall, etc.... Her singing consists of her opening her mouth and making the sweetest little drawn out cooing sound over and over again. Last night she woke up at 12:00 am and spent about 15 minutes seranading her elephant mobile.

We recently started giving her rice cereal once each day. We all knew that this girl loves to eat, but lets just say that the cereal was a hit! As soon as she sees me mixing it up she will start rocking and swinging her legs in anticipation. If I don't get the spoon back to her mouth quickly enough she gets annoyed and starts whining for more.

Here are some other things she can do now....

* roll over both ways (although she still prefers to just lie on her back)

* grasp objects, and put them in her mouth of course.

*hold her own bottle

* laugh out loud and squeal

*rock her body back and forth when on her tummy

*scoot out of her bouncy seat

We are still so overwhelmed with love for our baby. We thank God everyday for choosing us to be parents to this precious girl. I never new how happy life could be thanks to my sweet angel. I am looking forward to watching her continue to grow, but cherishing the memories that we have made so far. I will leave you with a picture of sleeping beauty herself.

Emmalyn's birthday!

It has been one week since we welcomed our sweet baby girl into this world and my due date is still 3 weeks away! Although she was early, we are enjoying every minute with her.

Last Sunday around 1:00 am I started having mild contractions. Since my due date was still 4 weeks away, I thought they were probably just braxton hicks contractions and went back to bed. After trying unsuccessfully so sleep for a few more hours I decided to wake up Mike and ask him what he thought. He agreed that it was probably false labor so I should try to just sleep it off. At 9:00 I informed him that the contractions were getting closer together and much more painful. We started timing them and they were five minutes apart. At this point we decided to go the hospital to get checked out. We both assumed that they would check us, tell us it was not true labor, and we would be on our way within an hour. We didn't bring our bags or anything.

We got to the hospital and got taken back to the exam room. Soon the nure came in and asked a a million questions and finally checked to see if I was dialating. After checking me she says "you are going to have a baby today!" Mike and I both looked at each other and I think I said "Are you kidding?"

We got settled into our labor and delivery room and shortly after that I got an epidural. The next 5 hours were smooth sailing and I felt great! At about 5:30 the doctor said I was fully dialated and ready to push. After two hours of pushing we welcomed Emmalyn Kate Babinicz into the world at 7:37 pm. We were both overcome with emotions and couldn't believe the love we felt for our little girl.

Here we are one week later. Emmalyn had her first pediatrician appointment today and the dr. said she looks great. We are enjoying being parents (even with the lack of sleep). Here is another picture of our beautiful baby girl.

She is here!

Emmalyn Kate Babinicz
Born January 3rd at 7:37 pm
6 pounds 19 inches long

Who does she look like?

We had a doctor's appointment yesterday and were able to have an ultrasound to check on Emmalyn's weight. Right now she weighs 5lbs12oz. After seeing her on the screen we are even more ready to hold her in our arms. Here is the picture we got from the ultrasound. Who do you think she looks like?

34 weeks

Here is the latest belly picture. I've grown a lot since the last picture. Here is what is going on with us

• Emmalyn now weighs between 4.5- 5 lbs
• She is anywhere from 17 - 19 inches long
• She moves almost constantly now and is running out of room in there
• We met with and chose our pediatrician last week
• Starting next week I go to the doctor on a weekly basis
• We found out that Emmalyn is going to have another cousin!
  
• We get to meet our daughter in 6 weeks or less. :)

Love,
Mike and Stacey

Baby Shower and Nursery

Sorry that we have not posted in a while. Things have been busy. We have had 2 baby showers since our last post and we have almost finished the nursery. Our first baby shower was given by Mike's coworkers at his office. It was a really nice shower and we got a lot of Emmalyn's essentials. Our second baby shower was thrown by Kristen, Will, Lindsey, and Jarod. It was also very nice. We had great food, lots of fun, and of course Emmalyn got lots of great stuff! Here are a few pictures from the baby shower at Jarod's and Lindsey's.



We have also been making some progress in the nursery over the last few weeks. We are 95% of the way done. Here are some pictures!

Crib Assembly

It is a rite of passage for all dads, the assembly of the crib and nursery furniture. Mike tackled this job two weeks ago. He did a fantastic job assembling all of little E's nursery furniture and it looks great! It was so cute watching him put it together with such love and care. He wanted to make absolutely sure that everything was perfect and safe for his little girl. He is going to be such a great dad and I cannot wait to see him interact with her. Here a few pictures of Mike hard at work assembling the crib. We also got our bedding last week (thanks Morgans and VanAlstine's.) We will post pictures of the nursery again when it is complete!

First Baby Shower

This past weekend Mike and I drove to Nashville for Trevecca's homecoming and my first baby shower. My best girl friends from college threw me and my friend Allyson (who is expecting a baby boy) a shower on Saturday morning. They did such a good job putting the whole thing together and we had a great time being together and catching up/talking babies. Meanwhile Mike was able to play golf with some of his college buddies.

We feel so blessed that Emmalyn is already loved by so many people. Her "aunties" definetely spoiled her and she got lots of goodies. Thank you to all of the girls for making it a great weekend. Here are a few pics from the shower.
The super yummy food

Cute Cake by Emily

The mommies to be

Emily made this for Emmayln

Baby Bellies

Auntie Joy already loves Emmalyn Kate

My wonderful girls!

Nursery Update and an Official Name

On Saturday I finally took advantage of my 1 hour prenatal massage that Mike got me for our 3 year anniversary. While I was away getting pampered, he was at home busy painting. Here are some pictures of the work in progress.

These are the color samples we started with. We chose the light green shade in the center.
Here is Mike getting ready to start painting.

Mike almost finished with the 2nd wall.

I got home just in time to pose for a quick picture. Don't let this picture fool you though, I did 0% of the painting.
Uncle Jarod and Aunt Lindsey were great to come help Mike paint.

Mike putting on some finishing touches.

Finished painting!!!

Here is what her bedding will look like. Thanks again aunt Kristy and uncle Will for this adorable blanket.

Now that the painting is finished, our next step is to pick up and assemble the furniture. It is all starting to feel so much more real.

In other exciting news our sweet girl finally has an official name. For those of you who have not heard, our little girl will be named Emmalyn Kate Babinicz. We love the name and are counting down the 3 short months until she is here!

Mike and Stacey

Week 26

It is hard to believe that I have been pregnant for 6 months already. Time is really starting to fly and it is exciting to think that in about 3 months our baby girl will be here. This week Mike, along with some help from some great family members, cleared out the office so we can begin painting. We got samples of 3 different shades of green and I think we have picked the one we want to paint the nursery with. Mike taped off all of the walls and removed all of the outlet covers so the room is ready to paint. Hopefully we will be able to get it painted next weekend. Here are some before shots of the nursery.
This is the pink rocker we will use. It used to be Mike's moms.

Her crib will go against the wall with the window.

Look at all of those clothes already! Can we say spoiled?

We also took on the task of registering at Babies-R-Us a couple of weeks ago. It was very overwhelming but also a lot of fun. We are looking forward to our first shower coming up in a couple of weeks.

According to www.thebump.com, our baby is now 13.6-14.2 inches long and weighs 1.5 - 2.2 pounds. She sure has come a long way since a poppy seed! Here is the latest belly shot. Sorry it is so dark, it is the best one we got.

Nursery furniture and big bellies

Last night Mike and I purchased our furniture for our nursery. I am absolutely in love with it! We ended up getting a convertible crib, 5 drawer dresser, and combo/hutch unit. The color is called black cherry. It is a very dark wood and almost looks black. We were also really excited because we got the set for 50% off. I can't wait to get it home and put it together.


Here are some other exciting things going on in our lives....

• Mike felt the baby kick for the first time this week
• I feel her moving all the time now, she is definitely growing and her movements are getting stronger
• Mike's sister Kristen is having a baby girl on Friday and we get to go to Charleston to meet her.
  
• We finally cleaned out the nursery closet and our little lady has 15 pieces of clothing hanging up already.
• I get to hear my baby's heartbeat again on Tuesday. :)
• My due date is exactly 4 months from today. (woo hoo)

Here is the updated belly pic I promised. This picture was taken at 22 weeks 3 days. There is no denying that there is a baby in there. :)

21.5 weeks and nursery ideas

It has been a few weeks since our last update. Not much has changed in the world of baby B. She is still growing and so is mommy! I am now wearing maternity clothes nearly all the time. They are so comfortable, but it is sad to not fit into some of my favorite clothes anymore. Mike and I are still working on a name for our little girl. We want to pick the perfect name, so we are having trouble deciding. We pretty much have it narrowed down to two names, one of which we are leaning more towards. As soon as we decide on the first name and a middle name we will let everyone know.

We have also been looking at cribs and baby bedding and I hope to start getting the nursery organized soon. We are planning on converting our current office into the nursery. I think it will be cute once we finish, however the task of actually moving the furniture around, cleaning out the closet, and organizing piles of papers is so overwhelming that we keep putting it off. My goal is to have it at least cleaned out and ready to be painted by mid-October. We want to paint the nursery wall a light green color and use light pink accents. Here is a picture of how we want it to look when we finish.

I think the green and pink elephants are adorable. Our nursery will be a little more simple than this one though. We don't plan on getting the lamp, the hamper, or the round decorative elephant pillow.

Stay tuned for a belly pic this weekend.

Stacey and Mike

It's a GIRL!!!!

We had our 18 week ultrasound this morning and were thrilled to find out we are expecting a GIRL!!!

Our baby girl is healthy and right on track for her development. We had such a great time watching her squirm and wiggle all over the screen. It is amazing to see how much she has developed and changed since we last saw her at 8 weeks. She kept putting her hands up by her face and we even got a picture of her pointing at us. As you can imagine we have had smiles plastered on our faces since this morning. Here are a few pictures of the little princess....
Profile Pic

Pointing at mommy and daddy


Hands up by her face

Already practicing her gymnastics routine


Girly parts...

Almost time for pink or blue!!!!

It has been a few weeks since our last post. Mike and I have both been busy, especially with school starting two weeks ago. I am so lucky to have a great class this year, however I am still looking forward to a nice break in January and I have already lined up a long term substitute.

We have a very exciting milestone on Thursday this week. We have our level 2 ultrasound and we will find out the gender of our baby! We are so excited and cannot wait to share if it is a boy or a girl. I am still thinking girl......but I would be so happy with a little boy too! I have been feeling really well the last few weeks. I had gotten some of my energy back, but with school in full swing I come home exhausted most days. Another exciting thing has happened since our last post, I have begun to feel the baby move. It is the most amazing feeling and makes the whole pregnancy even more real.

We will post again on Thursday to let everyone know the gender. Stay tuned.......
Here is my most recent belly picture. This was taken at 18 weeks 3 days.

14 1/2 weeks.....Baby bump time!

Baby B has been growing up a storm lately and I have the bump to prove it! I think my belly is getting bigger by the day now. It is so exciting to actually see evidence that there is a little baby in there. I have been feeling great. My energy has improved and I am no longer nauseous, which is good since I start back to work next Thursday. According to our books our baby is 4 inches long and weighs 1 ounce. Our next Dr. appointment is Tuesday. I can't wait to hear the heart beat again!

Here is the very first picture of Baby Babinicz.....