Introducing Leonora Grace

Leonora Grace was born last night, May 19th, at 6:56 pm. She weighed 8 pounds 3 ounces and was 22 inches long. I've been told she has lots and lots of dark hair. Both mommy and baby are doing well. I'll make sure to update with a picture as soon as I receive one.

Update

As you may or may not know, Kara was due on May 6th. So she is very overdue, two weeks overdue tomorrow. Two weeks is as far as she can go before she can't deliver at the birthing center anymore. She called me this morning to let me know that she has been having some contractions since about 2:30 this morning but they haven't been regular enough. She called her midwife group and they told her to come in and they are going to break her water, so she should have her baby before the day is out!

A Post From A Friend

Hello to everyone who reads Kara's blog! I'm Kara's friend, Melissa. Kara won't have internet access for a little while so I'm going to be updating important stuff for her. By important I, of course, mean stuff about when she goes into labor and has her baby. That way no one will miss out. That's all for now but I'll be back when something "important" happens!

ultrasound2
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

This is another picture from my ultrasound. It's her legs and one foot. We were very happy to find out that she doesn't have clubbed feet like her older brother did.

Ultrasound picture

ultrasound1
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Okay, I don't know how well you'll be able to see this. I didn't get a digital copy of my ultrasound pictures, so I finally just took pictures of the printout they gave me. The ultrasound was done in December. This one is her face.

Easter

Easter
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Here's a picture of William and his cousins Dari and Verah enjoying the spoils of thier Easter egg hunt.

Good Weekend

We had an exciting weekend! Saturday was my baby shower, which you can read about in my earlier posts. Then Sunday, of course, was Easter. We didn't do too much Sunday morning, but got ready for church. After church, Aaron checked his email and found out that he was accepted into an opera young artist program! He had been anxiously awaiting their email and we were both very excited to hear that they accepted him! Then while he was telling his family the good news, his cousin and her family arrived for our Easter dinner. We had a turkey, potatoes with gravy, veggies, cranberry sauce, rolls, and I'm sure something else... Anyway, it all turned out very good, and I think everyone had plenty to eat! After dinner, we sent the husbands and kids into William's room while the "Easter Bunny" hid eggs for everyone to find. It was a lot of fun watching them (including our husbands) finding eggs, candy, and a few little toys around the room. For the rest of the evening, we all consumed more sugar than we should have, but it was a lot of fun! It was a nice end to a good weekend!

Baby Shower

Cutie
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Saturday I had my baby shower. Ann (a friend from church) was kind enough to throw one for me, and despite it being Easter weekend, we had a decent turn out. This picture is one of the outfits I got. There are some more pictures, and if you still haven't seen enough, you can click the link to my photos on the right!

cider
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

One of the guests at my shower brought a bottle of sparkling cider, so Aaron and I can celebrate our new baby!

quilt
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

My friends Melissa and Stephanie made this quilt for the baby. They sent the quilt and the rest of their present to the hostess of my baby shower, so I could open it there. What a special surprise.

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Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

This is the bucket that Melissa and Stephanie put together for me. It's got lots of pockets, and they were all filled with cute and useful things for me and the baby! Thank you Melissa and Steph!

A day in the park

ponyriding
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Okay, I'm a little slow to post lately... This was from a couple of weeks ago. We met Aaron's brother at a park in Bellevue. While we had lunch, William chased a couple of ducks around the tables. Aaron got William's kite up in the air for a while, and William had a lot of fun on the playground. Here's a picture of him riding one of the playground's springy pony toys.

Johari Window

My friend Melissa put one of these on her blog, and it looked like fun, so I thought I'd make one for myself. I'd never heard of a Johari Window before, but here's a description from the web site:

"The Johari Window was invented by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham in the 1950s as a model for mapping personality awareness. By describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up."

So, anyone who knows me well enough, come tell me what you think describes my personality.

Funny William!

williamisfunny2
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

One night, just before bed, William came out of his room with his hard hat, sunglasses, and Halloween pumkin. He was a little over exited about getting his picture taken and kept running up to the camera, so that's me trying to hold him back while Aaron took the picture.

Spaghetti boy

spaghetti1
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

Okay, this picture is a little old too... Sorry it's taken me a while to get around to posting. Anyway, William loves spaghetti-well, any kind of pasta really. If there are noodles, it's spaghetti to him! He's doing better at getting food in his mouth, but those noodles are a little tricky!

Bath Time!

bubblebath1
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

This picture is kind of old, but cute anyway! William loves baths, and it's a special treat to get bubbles.

Success!!

I've been so frustrated with William. We've been trying to potty train him before the baby gets here so we don't have to do double diaper duty, and I've felt like he's just not getting it. He likes sitting on the potty and will go if we put him on, but he hasn't asked to go UNTIL YESTERDAY!!! He had a diaper on in the living room and started taking it off. I got really irritated because usually if he takes off his diaper or training pants it means he's already peed them and doesn't want it on him. He wanted to go sit on the potty chair, so I followed him in there thinking that this was going to be pointless since he already went, but it wasn't! He actually went potty, and when I came back out to take care of his diaper, I realized it was dry! I was so happy that he'd actaully told me before he went pee! We give him stickers on a chart if he's dry, so I told him that maybe we could get some new airplane stickers for his chart (he loves airplanes). He insisted that we get them now, and I was so pleased with him that I decided it would be okay. We went to get some together. Last night he had 6 new airplane stickers on his chart! So far this morning things are still going well. With the exception of his bedtime diaper, he's been dry! My little boy is getting so big!

William, what cute sunglasses you have!

Tonight, when we put William to bed, he decided he needed to have his flip sunglasses on. These are a little kid version of the kind with shades you can flip up and down. Anyway, he had to put them on before we could have prayers. Then he couldn't decide if he wanted the shades up or down. You'll just have to picture him laying in bed with his binkie and flip sunglasses. Unfortunately, my camera has no batteries at the moment, but it was very cute! You'll just have to take my word for it.

Funeral

This last week has been an interesting one. Last Friday we found out that Aaron's aunt, who had been struggling with Lukemia off and on for a few years, passed away the night before. His Uncle lives in Boise, so we decided to take the trip to go to the funeral. We drove down on Monday, the funeral was Tuesday, and we came back Wednesday. I hadn't gotten much chance to get to know Aaron's aunt, but she was a really nice woman. One of the things that was said about her during the funeral was that she never met a stranger. I can say that I certainly never felt like a stranger the few times I saw her. She was an incredibly welcoming and friendly person. In some ways it's good that she is gone. At least she won't have to deal with the cancer anymore. But she'll be missed by everyone who knew her. We spent a lot of time on the road (about 9 hours each way including stops) but we were very glad that we spent the time to go say goodbye and see family.

Look what I made!

Andrea Shaw's present
Originally uploaded by karalynlund.

This is a cute little dress that I crocheted for a friend who had her baby shower yesterday. I'm happy it turned out so well! Someone at the last baby shower I went to (I go to a lot of these for some reason...) made a blanket and a hat (and booties? I can't remember for sure) and I asked her where she got her patterns. She said to look up "Bev's Country Cottage," so I did and found the pattern for this there. (for anyone who wants the site: http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/baby.html ) Anyway, this was the first very complex pattern I'd tried to follow. I'm pretty pleased with the results, so now I need to get started on a couple of things for my baby!