JAMSquared

James and I have made great strides in preparing for Baby JAM. We have purchased the nursery furniture and it will arrive soon. The room is going to have a rainforest theme (similar to my initial thoughts of a jungle, but with no elephant). Once the furniture arrives and we put it together and start decorating, I’ll post pictures of the room, but for now, you’ll have to settle for a picture of the bedding we chose.

It’s amazing to think that we’re at week 26 and in another 14 weeks, she’ll be here. Wow, the time is flying. At my last appointment (week 24), I had gained 6 pounds since the beginning of the pregnancy, all of which had been gained between weeks 20 and 24. She is a very active baby as I feel her kicking quite frequently with her most active in the evenings. We went and saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (which was excellent btw) at the IMAX theater last Wednesday night and she was kicking throughout the entire movie. I guess because of the loudness of the movie.

I feel like I’m actually looking like a pregnant woman, but I don’t feel like I’m one of those super cute pregnant women you see. Maybe it’s just my hormones making me feel that way. I’ll let you judge. Below are the next three installments of my biweekly photo shoots. James is a pretty good photographer when he actually has the camera. See this post for the previous three installments.

I know a lot of people are curious if we have decided on a name yet. We’ve decided that Baby JAM’s middle name is going to be Ann since I’m Jennifer Ann, my Mom is Mary Ann and James’ Mom is Olivia Ann. However, we still haven’t decided on a first name, but we have a few in the running.  Hopefully, with the help of baby name book I purchased, we’ll have decided by the time she arrives.

Recently, James and I attended a couples baby shower for my brother Jason and his wife Julia. Their baby is due August 9th.

To prepare for the shower, I started shopping quite a while back. In fact, back in February while I was at Target for some other reason, I was browsing the baby section and came across this adorable little pink dress with stars on it and two-tone sleeves. I knew this was perfect for Jason and Julia’s baby, so I bought it. Then I asked my good friend, Jillan, owner-extraordinaire of Beany Bling, for advice on fashion accessories. Beany Bling was born when Jillan’s daughter was born a little over two years ago. She makes leg warmers and hair-bows to go with any outfit. The hair-bows can be purchased with cloth headbands that don’t pinch at the baby’s head for those hairless babies. The headbands are pretty neat in that you can interchange the bow and get multiple looks with the same headband. The below picture is the outfit with the leg warmers and matching bow. I also couldn’t resist this cute little brown and pink bow so hopefully Julia has another outfit or two that will coordinate with it.

The idea for the second part of the gift was born when I read this post at Cool Mom Picks. However, I wanted to put together my own labor delivery bag for Julia. So I bought the diaper bag she registered for and then I bought the following items to put in it.

• Lansinoh Ultra Soft Nursing Pads, 36-count
• Lansinoh Lanolin Topical Breast Cream, 2-oz.
• Earth Mama Angel Baby New Mama Bottom Spray, 4-oz. bottle
• Earth Mama Angel Baby Natural Stretch Oil, 4-oz. bottle
• Burt’s Bees Replenishing Lip Balm with Pomegranate Oil, 0.15-oz. tube
• Avon Naturals Shower Gel – Gardenia, 1.7-oz. bottle
• Avon Naturals Body Lotion – Gardenia, 1.7-oz. bottle

Another item I had thought about including was Preggie Pops, but I didn’t end up remembering to look for them at Wal-greens. Now, Julia has a number of recommended items for her labor recovery process in one convenient location. I’ve since then bought the stretch oil for myself and it smells and works great.

The shower was a lot of fun. It was held at Julia’s Dad’s house and was hosted by her Dad’s friend who lives out of town. The light dinner included these little smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches that were utterly tasty. We played a game where we had to guess the flavor of baby food. James being the picky eater that he is declined to play, but I had fun. Joe and Sara, two of Jason and Julia’s friends who organized the game, bought 8 different flavors of baby food, some of which were combo flavors such as Pineapple, Ham & Rice. Then we were to taste-test and write down what we thought they were. I didn’t win, but I got half correct, so I feel that I did pretty decent.