Hand Crafted Cradle

Erin's dad is very artistic and one of his hobbies is wood working. He's always enjoyed it and made many smaller projects including model airplanes and doll houses.

When Erin announced she was pregnant he had the idea to take on a much bigger project and make a cradle for the baby. I don't think he knew what he was getting into. His care for detail resulted in MANY hours of planning, testing, consulting with friends, and finally creating.

He started with the design of a cradle one of his friends showed him. However, he decided on making it bigger and better so most of the design he came up with himself.

He measured many times, then cut out all the pieces one by one. After cutting and sanding everything he fit it together without any glue. Satisfied that it all fit nicely he disassembled it, stained each piece, and then coated each one with polyurethane.

Once stained he put the pieces back together, glued it, and finished it with a few more coats of polyurethane.

The final product is a beautiful cradle that is greatly appreciated. It will be put to very good use. On the bottom is a reminder of who built it in case future generations cannot remember.

Waiting...

I can't remember the last time I've been home for 6 Saturdays in a row. I'm positive it hasn't happened in the 3 years we've lived in Kentwood. I'm guessing it hasn't happened since college. Hence, the lack of posts.

Bags are packed, toys are put together, and the car seat is installed. Now we wait...

Week 36

Week 37

Nesting

Erin and I have basically given up on the hope of selling our house before baby Elenbaas is born. Six months and no sale so we bit the bullet and began organizing the baby's room. Some women claim "nesting" is one of their prelabor symptoms, where they want to clean and prepare for baby's arrival (more than normal).

Erin may have a dose of nesting so we moved the bed out of baby's room and converted the old office to a nice looking bedroom. We should have done this a long time ago; it looks significantly better than it did. Maybe house shoppers would have liked this look more.

We also set up the pack and play, set up the baby rocker, and hung all the gender neutral baby outfits.

It was an odd feeling realizing that we weren't just cleaning and hanging up clothes....soon enough we'd be dressing our baby in them!

Erin is looking better every day,

The End of the Showers

February 9 Cindy graciously hosted, again, the Soper family shower. It was a fun relaxed time with good food and conversation. With each shower I feel a little more prepared for the baby, even though most of our stuff is still sitting in boxes and bags hoping to be moved into a new house. It's amazing all the stuff you need.

Saturday I had my last shower. My sisters threw me a friend shower which was a lot of fun. We played a couple games, The Price is Right and a book game I had never played. Everyone brought a book, Gwen read off the first sentence of the book and everyone had to guess which one it was. It was fun and now our baby has a good start to it's library.