Baby Boy Smith Update

If you got my email...then don't read below. It is the same thing I sent out but since not everyone goes to our blog I did both!

Hey everyone! Sorry this update is going out late but I am busy tracking back into school and so life is getting crazy again :) Thank you for all who have called and emailed asking if everything is ok! :) We appreciate your encouragement, prayers, and thoughtfulness!

As some of you have heard we are having another precious little BOY!! So Brayden will have a little brother to play with me! I thought it would probably be a BOY especially with Daniel's genes! There are 4 boys in his family so I think we are destined to have all boys. I have always said since I started babysitting (when I was in high school) I would definitely prefer to have more boys than girls and so so far God is granting that. I would love to raise a girl at some point though just to raise both genders but not this time! We will just have to wait and see what God has in store for us later on! :)

They did measure basically everything on our baby. The ultrasound lasted for quite a long time. Then we met with one of the Maternal Fetal Medicine Doctors at UNC. So far they don't see anything abnormal with his bones. All of his bones measured right around 18 weeks which is good. When trying to look for OI they are looking for bowing of the bones, abnormally short bones, bones that are different sizes, etc. And so far they do not see any of that. That does not mean our son will not have OI and the Dr. made sure to tell us that (they have to and I understand why). But it does mean that as of now things look good. We will still not know for sure if our son has OI until we do cord blood sampling at birth and send it off to the University of Washington to be tested for the same gene mutation as I have. With Brayden we did not find out those results until he was 7 weeks old.

But for now we will just continue to enjoy Brayden and enjoy knowing that we will have another amazing little boy to hold very soon. Of course I am sure I will still have my emotional days where I let my mind wander and think about the "worst" and "what ifs" but hey I am not perfect. I am coming to realize that it is ok to have these days once in a while but I just need to continue to trust in God and know he is right here with us along this journal! :) Please continue to pray for another healthy baby BOY for us. I was emotional yesterday finding out it was a boy b/c I worry about the comparisons with two boys and how Daniel will deal with having one boy without OI and "possibly" one boy with it. But then Daniel looked at me as he saw tears fill my eyes and said "Babe if this little baby has OI...Brayden will be a great big brother for him". So that made me cry even more :)! I love my husband b/c he is so good for me in more ways than one!

Of course I have uploaded some pictures from our ultrasound. We had to scan them in this time b/c the lady didn't burn our CD correctly but they are hopefully redoing it and so I will have some clearer pictures soon.

Thank you for your phone calls, emails, and prayers! I appreciate everyone checking in to see how things went. I am starting to feel the baby move more and more each day which is so fun! I guess you could say - I am definitely outnumbered in my family now! :) haha

Love ya'll,
Mandy, Daniel, Brayden, and Baby BOY Smith

Diapers and Wipes

Over the last year and over the next several years we will be buying a lot of diapers and wipes. We have a 15 month old and another one on the way so we will even have 2 in diapers at the same time for a little while at least.

Right now I buy most of my diapers and wipes at BJ's. We can get them in bulk so I have to buy them less often and we have a membership there so I figure why not. Lately I have been wondering if I am paying too much for them. I think some recent decisions we have made about my job next year and knowing we will be buying double the diapers soon has encouraged me to research the price of diapers at 3 different stores. I attend these stores on a regular basis I feel and I wanted to see how they compared in prices.

I only compared the different kinds of Pampers Diapers and wipes. That is what we have seemed to use most of. I have tried Huggies and they are ok but for our son Pampers seem to work best.

So here is a spreadsheet I made showing the total price, how many wipes/diapers are in each pack, and how much money I pay per diaper/wipe. You may need to click on "sheet1" at the bottom of the google spreadsheet. The yellow boxes are prices I still need to fill in but I could not find them at the stores right now.

Some conclusions I have come to...

• Overall BJ's does seem to be cheaper. BRU can be comparable depending on the size of diapers.
• Unscented Pamper's Wipes is definitely cheaper than the Baby Fresh or the Sensitive Wipes.
  
• Baby Dry Diapers seem to be cheaper than almost all other Pampers diapers.
  
• The price per diaper goes up as the size of the diaper gets bigger.
  
• At Target you can't seem to buy the bigger boxes of diapers like you can at BRU and BJ's.

Some questions I have...

• Does anyone know why packs of diapers get smaller as the size of the diaper gets larger?
• Why can't every store have the same box of Sensitive Wipes? But no instead I found boxes of Sensitive Wipes with 384 wipes, 448 wipes, and 512 wipes. Doesn't make sense to me.

Some other things I learned...

BRU will take several manufacture coupons at one time. Also our friends told me about a Rewards R' Us Card that you can use at BRU. Then once you buy 9 boxes of diapers you get the 10th one free. (I went back and got a Rewards R' Us Card just in case I decide to shop there) All the same deals apply to Toys R' Us and Babies R' Us.

At BJ's you get a book of coupons in the mail for being a member. I think the book of coupons come just about every month. Almost always there is at least one for $3-5 off on diapers. I found out you can use those coupons with manufacture coupons on the same visit.

Well there you go. It was a fun task for me! If you add to my data please share.

Something for me to remember

This morning I was reading an update I got sent on this little girl's CarePage. Her name is Ella Newmiller and she has a DIPG tumor. I have never met her but she is part of my friend Jessica's church and that is how I heard about her. So I subscribe to her CarePage and get updates on her every so often. It helps me remember to pray for her and her family and to not always think about myself.

So today they referenced the verse Philippians 4:6-7 which most of us know ...

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I think I really need to remember that verse right now and that God was reminding me of that this morning. Lately I find myself being anxious and worrying about a lot of things in my life. My job situation for next year, finances, family situations, having a baby with OI, getting everything done... I don't think I have spent enough time with the Lord lately to calm my worries. I really should be thanking him I even have a choice of jobs next year. That Daniel and I both have jobs to be bringing in finances. That I could even get pregnant b/c I have friends who can't get pregnant and want to. That I have a family to even care about. And the list could go on and on of things I should be thanking him for instead of worrying about them. Deep down I know He will and can take care of us but I think I just need to remind myself of that more right now.

18 Weeks and 15 Months

Well I will be 18 weeks this Saturday. So I thought I would post a few pictures at 17 weeks. My belly is growing and definitely popped out sooner than with Brayden. I guess they say that happens though. We went to the doctor yesterday. The heartbeat was in the 150's again and so far everything seems fine. We go for our 18 week ultrasound on Monday at the UNC office at Rex. This is the first appointment that they will measure the baby's bones and see if they look like they are growing at the appropriate rate and will let us know if they see anything abnormal. So please say some prayers that everything will look great. We should also be able to find out on Monday if Brayden will be having a baby brother or sister. Of course a girl would be fun but we will be excited either way. With the Smith genes I bet we are having another sweet boy! :) Either way a healthy baby is the prayer. I know if it is another boy I will worry more about him having OI than I would if it is a girl. They both would have a 50% chance of inheriting the gene from me but having one boy with OI and one without worries me more for some reason.
So please pray for our emotions with that.

I am sure I will send out another update on Monday with our news!

Update on Brayden - we went for his 15 month appt. last week. He weighs 23 lbs and 5 oz and is still only in the 30%ile for weight. He is 33 inches tall and is in the 93%ile for height. So we still have a very tall skinny little boy. He got to experience snow for the first time a few days ago and was a little apprehensive about it at first. He is so much fun at this stage. He is learning new things all the time and you can tell he is understanding more and more what we say. He is exploring cause and effect, loves throwing things down the steps, enjoys playing basketball, loves to dance, and gives great kisses! He can say lots of words like - ball, please, more, milk, blanket, dog, "moo" for cow, 'woof, woof" for dog, book, baby etc. He is at the stage where he really enjoys playing with his buddy Palmer and gets so excited when he sees him! I have enjoyed being home with him the last 5 weeks and will miss him when I track back into school
on the 28th. I feel truly blessed to have been home with him this long though!
Of course we have lots more pictures on our flickr site so go check them out if you want!

Baby Countdown

So here is a random fact but we have 156 Days until we have another baby! Just thought I would share. It may seem like forever but 5 months seem to go by real fast!

You may ask did I go out and pay money for this counter? No I did not. I got it as a gift from my mom when we were getting married and it comes with different things you can attach to the front. So I attached the baby one when we were due with brayden and now set it up again for this baby. Just something fun! :)

Life

Welcome to our neglected blog. If you are reading this I am sorry we never post anything. I definitely think of things to post but get busy and then just never do it. Over the past few weeks I have had several things on my mind that I have thought - why don't I just blog about them. I always think who wants to read my thoughts and what goes on in my head? But friends have said to look at this blog as a journal to be able to look back on and who cares who reads it. So maybe I need to have more of that mindset and just type more often. Hopefully I will!

What has been going on in life since our last post? Let's see...

• On October 16th we found out we were expecting our 2nd baby


• We went on a Carnival Cruise in November


• My parents came down for Thanksgiving


• I celebrated my 30th birthday on December 5th


• We celebrated Christmas here in NC


• We ordered hard wood flooring for our downstairs...soon to be delivered


• I am tracked out for 3 weeks which has been amazing!

Those seem to be the big things that have happened. I may be forgetting something. Maybe more blog post to come about what goes on in my head. Hopefully I can follow through!

* FYI - I just used html and did it all by myself! I am proud!