It’s a Girl!



Introducing Hadley Elizabeth Bateman.
Born: Monday, November 8, 2010 at 9:38 PM
Height: 19.5 inches
Weight: 7 lbs 14 oz

When I find the time, I plan to write up Hadley’s birth story. It’s a good story so I want to give it the time it deserves, but in the mean time, I have uploaded all the pictures from Hadley’s birth, Hadley’s second day when she (finally!) met her sister, and Hadley’s third day when we came home from the hospital. Enjoy!

Now I am going to go back to staring at my beautiful daughter. Night!

39 Week Belly Shot

I am 39 weeks pregnant today. One week from my due date. Since Ana was two weeks early, this is officially the most pregnant I have ever been. I’m still not overly uncomfortable, but I am really excited to meet my daughter already. My hospital bag is packed, the car seat is installed in the car, my camera has an empty memory card and a full battery, and all my friends and family are on stand-by. The point is, I’m ready.

Since I’m not really a fan of this hurry-up-and-wait business, I’ve done a couple searches on the Internet and tried some of the easier “natural pregnancy induction” techniques. I’ve walked. A LOT. Eaten lots of spicy food (which just kick starts my heartburn). Tonight we spent almost an hour in the swimming pool and then I had eggplant Parmesan for dinner. And I haven’t had one real contraction (I’m having Braxton Hicks contractions, but nothing more serious). With my gestational diabetes, my OB won’t let me go (much) past my due date, so if this little girl doesn’t start her descent soon, I may have an induction in my future. I’d much rather do this naturally, so keep thinking positive baby thoughts for me!

Hopefully this will be the last one of these I do. Here is my 39 week belly shot:

As always, any pictures of Baby Bateman 2.0 will be collected here. Also, earlier in the week, Sim, Ana and I met with my lovely friend Elle who took the most amazing maternity/family pictures for us. You have to see the fabulous slide show she put together for us over on her website, Zober Images.

Doctor’s Appointment Report & 38 Week Belly Shot

I had my 38 week doctor’s appointment on Friday and have this to report back:

Weight: gained .8 lb since last week (3.8 lb total gain)
Blood Pressure: 110/70
Baby’s Heartbeat: 144

My appointment was pretty uneventful, so there isn’t really much to report back (just the way I like it!). Baby is officially full term and now we just wait for her to be ready to come out!

In honor of Halloween tomorrow, Sim, Ana, and I decided to get a little creative with this week’s belly shot. Sim and I painted my belly like a pumpkin when I was pregnant with Ana, so it was only fair. Here is my 38 week (pumpkin) belly shot:



Ana thoroughly had a blast while we were painting our bellies, so make sure you check out all the pictures here.

Doctor’s Appointment Report & 37 Week Belly Shot

I had my 37 week doctor’s appointment on Friday and have this to report back:

Weight: gained 1 lb since last week (3 lb total gain)
Blood Pressure: 104/71
Baby’s Heartbeat: 142

I got the results back from the Strep B test and it was positive. So, just like with Ana, I will have to have some antibiotics (for the baby, not for me) while I am in labor and stay in the hospital for at least 48 hours to be monitored. So nothing extreme and I’ve already been there before so I’m not worried. Otherwise, everything at my appointment was nice and normal. Baby Hadley is growing right on schedule and everything looks great.

Sim is going to be out of town for the next few days at a conference in LA, so he is insisting I take it super easy while he is away so I don’t accidentally bring on labor. He’s asked me not to workout, go for long walks around the mall but permitted to do carpet cleaning around the house with the help of an expert.I think I can handle it. Ana and I will find some nice leisurely activities to keep us busy and close to home. But, in the event that Hadley decides to make a surprise appearance, I have several friends on stand-by. So all my bases are covered.

But I’m still keeping my fingers (and legs!) crossed… just in case.

Here is my 37 week belly shot:


Then Ana wanted to be in the picture.

And she didn’t want Sim to be left out, so Ana took one with him and I.

36 Week Belly Shot

36 weeks? How am I that far along already? I don’t feel uncomfortably huge (unless of course I am trying to tie my shoes or pick something up off the floor) so sometimes it really sneaks up on me that I am already so close to my due date. A couple days ago I felt like the baby was sitting pretty low and I could actually breathe for awhile. Granted, I felt like I needed to pee almost constantly, but there was also a little break from the heartburn, which was nice. But today she feels like she is back up in my ribs. So the Tums are once again my constant companion. I don’t know if it’s just been four years since I was pregnant with Ana, but I don’t remember her moving around as much as Hadley. I have felt some serious kicks and jabs that practically take my breath away (not that I need any help with breathing issues). This baby stretches and moves around so much, all I can do is sit back and marvel at how strong she is. The other night, Sim was feeling some of her mightier movements and he had a moment of panic that maybe this baby wasn’t going to be all easy going and sweet like Ana was as a baby. It was funny for him to realize that Hadley is going to be her own person and we have no idea who that person is going to be. But she will be here soon enough and we just can’t wait to meet her!

Anyway, here is my 36 week belly shot:

As always, any pictures of Baby Bateman 2.0 will be collected here.

Extreme Nesting: Window Edition

We bought our home back in January 2003, nearly eight years ago. Over the years, we’ve done minimal renovations, considering it was built in 1992 and is beginning to show signs of aging, including our ac leaking water recently. Recently, we’ve noticed issues like ice on ac unit, which prompted us to seriously consider major upgrades. It is also an indicator of a faulty capacitor that needs repair or replacement. When dealing with issues like ice on your AC unit, it’s crucial to rely on a trusted service like ac repair salem or, to diagnose and resolve the problem effectively. Starting our research and gathering estimates coincided with the impending arrival of Baby Bateman 2.0, adding a sense of urgency to our home improvement plans.

We prioritized the things that needed to be done, and that we could afford to do, this year: replace the aluminum windows, redo the roof, and schedule a heat pump repair. If you want to ensure optimal performance and energy efficiency in your heating and cooling systems, consider an efficient service like heat pump installation gig harbor wa for expert installation and maintenance. The windows were the first project to come together.

The front of our house, before:

The front of our house, after:

Ana’s room, before:

Ana’s room, during:

Ana’s room, after:

The nursery, before:

The nursery, during:

The nursery, after:

Our living room bay window, before:

Our living room bay window, during:

Our living room bay window, after:


Anyway, you get the idea. We replaced our crappy aluminum windows with triple pane composite windows that I LOVE. They are the kind that you can open in, so you can wash the outside of the windows from inside the house. They are amazing, fabulous, and beautiful.

Once the windows were done, we needed to touch up some of the paint (to cover caulk), so we decided to repaint the trim (and gutters) white to match the new windows. To ensure the air quality in our freshly painted space remained optimal, we also installed a uv air purifier albany ny. Luckily, Sim’s dad and brother were available (and skilled in this area), which kept Sim from having to scale the side of the house on his own.


We are still waiting for both of our sliding glass doors to be replaced. One arrived damaged and the other was the wrong size so they have them on a rush order. I’ll post pictures once those are installed.

Our next (and final, before baby arrives) extreme nesting project (Roof Edition) will happen in two weeks. Stay tuned!

All the pictures from the window replacement project are here.

Doctor’s Appointment Report & 34 Week Belly Shot

I had my 34 week doctor’s appointment on Friday and have this to report back:

Weight: down 1 lb since last month (3 lb total gain)
Blood Pressure: 118/70
Baby’s Heartbeat: Normal, in the 140s

Not much to report back. I didn’t see my regular OB this week since she was on vacation, so the appointment was pretty brief. But everything is going great and right on schedule, so I can’t complain!

Here is my 34 week belly shot:

Doctor’s Appointment Report & 32 Week Belly Shot

I had my 32 week doctor’s appointment on Friday and have this to report back:

Weight: up 3 lb since last month (4 lb total gain)
Blood Pressure: 120/70
Baby’s Heartbeat: Normal, in the 150s

Everything went great at my appointment. Baby is growing right on schedule. I talked to my doctor about my blood sugar levels and she said everything is well within the normal ranges and I am currently doing a great job managing my gestational diabetes with diet and exercise. Wahoo!

Oh and here is my 32 week belly shot (plus a couple with the Big Sister):




(We did the Race for the Cure this morning, hence the pink workout shirt.)

As always, any pictures of Baby Bateman 2.0 will be collected here.

They Grow Up So Fast

I set an alarm this morning. One of my biggest fears is over sleeping and being late, so I generally always end up waking myself up way before my alarm is even set to go off, but regardless, I set the alarm so we could get up and get Ana to her first day of school on time. Turns out today, it was Ana whose internal clock woke her up before the alarm. She came into our room about 15 minutes before we were suppose to get out of bed, so Sim invited her under the covers to cuddle while we waited for the alarm to go off. When it finally did, Ana sat up in bed and shouted, “It’s time to go to school!” Then I had to explain we still had two hours until school started and no one would be there yet.

Our morning progressed, as most mornings do when we need to be somewhere first thing, but unlike those other mornings today we were able to do everything at super speed so we ended up all ready to go a good half hour before we needed to be at school. So I took the opportunity to exhaust Ana with the obligatory “first day of school” pictures and she was happy to oblige if it meant we were progressing to actually leaving for school. I mean she was wearing her coat and backpack, what else would we be doing, right?




After I took the pictures, we loaded up in the car as I anticipated more traffic than usual since everyone else with children would also be taking their kiddos to school and we have to drive through several school zones just to leave our neighborhood. But I didn’t take into account that the majority of the schools started a good hour before Ana’s preschool, so once again we found ourselves ahead of schedule and with some time to kill. Thankfully, I looked around the parking lot and there were several other families sitting in their cars waiting for it to be an acceptable time to arrive at school. As it was, Ana and I were still the first ones into the classroom, but it gave her a few minutes to chat with her teacher and learn the whole “what to do when you get to school” drill. Minutes after Ana placed her coat and backpack on a hook, washed her hands, and set to explore the classroom chaos broke out as everyone else arrived in a frenzied swarm. As always, being early pays off!



As we were leaving school, I grabbed my camera again and took a few pictures on the grounds (I didn’t want to embarrass her by taking pictures IN the classroom…though I should have, as most of the other parents did). Ana was very happy about her first day of school and we went to Starbucks for a little post-preschool snack to celebrate.

Enjoying a post-preschool snack at Starbucks.

You can see all the pictures I took of Ana’s first day of school here plus the ones I took on my iPhone are up on Flickr.

Mommy Daughter Date

Today Ana and I went to a little nail salon near our house for a special mommy-daughter date. We went and got pedicures! Ana got a manicure too (her mani-pedi took the same amount of time as my spa pedi). We have been meaning to do this for awhile and with Ana starting school next week, it seemed like the perfect time for a little special treat.

First, Ana got to pick out her nail color. You have never seen her more excited in her life as when she spotted the wall of nail polish.

Picking nail polish colors
Then she settled in to the special child chair: pink, shaped like a teddy bear, and complete with her own personal DVD player.

To get ready for back to school, Ana and I are getting pedicures!
She was very excited to watch a movie while getting her manicure and letting her feet soak in the bubbly tub.

Ana gets to watch a movie while getting her manicure.
For her fingers, Ana settled on a pretty purple color. She was ecstatic when the lady added a fancy flower to one finger on each hand.

Purple nails with a fancy flower
For her toes she opted for a sparkly pink, and again was very happy to have the added flower. If you notice, the lady did the flower centers with the other polish Ana chose. Very coordinated! And fancy.

Sparkly pink nails with a fancy flower
Here are our completed pedicures. Is there anything sweeter than a mother-daughter pedicure? Oh I don’t think so!

Mother daughter pedicures!
(I didn’t think to bring my nice camera, so all the pictures were taken with my iPhone 4. Not too shabby for a phone!)