Sunscreen

To anyone who uses sunscreen on themselves or their kids:
Please read this post I did after a little research.
Click to go to my "viola verde" blog: nicoleviola.blogspot.com.

Calling all moms, dads, grandmas, etc!

I posted a poll on the right side of the blog! Please "vote" and then if you have any comments on the topic put them on this post. I think it's interesting to see how other kids are napping... especially since I'm trying to figure out what's best for Gigi at this age... she's sort of in a transitionary period I think. Not quite sure if she can do the 1 nap everyday, but some days it works good (days with church, etc). I'm sort of leaning towards one long afternoon nap and then a shorter morning nap that will eventually phase itself out.
Please share what works/has worked for you!

Coos are cute, Part 2

If you haven't seen it yet, scroll down for part one of this special series. :)

Diaper Rash Remedy!!

Just wanted to share a little secret for babies with red, sore tushies. Gigi had a pretty bad diaper rash last weekend and her doctor, Dr. Pauline Pepek, gave us a somewhat obscure but miraculous remedy!

Mix a 50/50 batch of 1% cortizone cream with Lotrimin (or generic) anti-athletes foot cream (I got a nifty little bottle from the travel section at Target to mix it in). It medicates the area nicely and then you cover the medication with your diaper rash ointment of choice (we use A&D, Buttpaste and/or Aquaphor) to seal the medication and block the pee/poop from the skin. After just a couple of applications at diaper changes, her rash almost completely disappeared [enter sigh of relief here]!

37.5-week update

We went to the doctor yesterday and everything is looking good. I'm not dialated at all yet, but my cervixed has softened some and the baby has dropped all the way down so the doc said that I should be dialating soon now.
Monday we walked 2 miles! It was really hard for me after not doing a whole lot of walking in the last month or 2. We're going to keep that up though, and we also bought a pineapple to cut up and enjoy because our childbirth class teacher said that was a natural labor inducer too. Does anyone have any other ideas they've heard to naturally induce labor? (And yes, we know about sex being one!)

Belly Photos!

Rena took some awesome pictures of us at the beach in Newport. If you'd like to see the rest of them, click here: Pregnancy Photo Shoot

Week 35 update

Well, I have been sick for almost a week now, but I'm on antibiotics, and today I finally feel a little bit better. Gigi seems to be doing fine though, she's still shifting her butt from side to side and sticking her feet out to my right side often. At our last doc's appt I was still measuring a little small, but I had grown consistently from my previous appt, so my midwife/NP thought that I probably just have a lot of baby inside me all curled up.
This past Saturday, I hosted a bridal shower for my friend Rena at my house. Here is a picture of Rena, Myste and me. That morning Rena took some fun maternity pictures of David, Me and The Belly in Newport. As soon as I get them back I will post some.

First Baby Shower!

I had a great time at our first baby shower this past weekend down at my mom's house. I got to see lots of family friends and they blessed us abundantly with some fun stuff! It was extra special because my good friends Emily and Kristina and their moms came all the way down from Northern California and stayed for the weekend.
If you'd like to see a few pics, click here: shower pics!
I didn't take too many of the actual shower unfortunately, but there are a few to look at!

Nesting & Baseball

So I experienced a bit of the "nesting" bug yesterday; this is how it manifested itself: I spontaneously went to Babies-r-us to get a crib sheet so that we could see how cute it looks all put together with the adorable bumpers my mom made, I made cookies, I finished making peanut butter balls that had been waiting in the freezer since Christmas, and then I made dinner. I was feeling a little crazy to say the least. I have been having Braxton-hicks contractions like crazy lately, and I'm happy to have a doctor's appointment this afternoon, to make sure everything is going well.
Also, I wanted to post a couple of pictures from our spontaneous trip to Arizona for a couple of Spring training games-- Gigi's first baseball games in the womb! We saw the Angels beat the Padres and the Royals beat the Cubs. The weather was beautiful (it felt great to be out in the sun), and it was a fun little "baby-moon" for David & I.

Week 28

David and I took our "condensed childbirth" class last week which was an all day affair. It was good- we learned a lot of details about the labor/delivery process, I got to have David practice massaging my back, we learned some breathing techniques and we watched a few videos that I could have done without. I see the nurse practitioner/midwife this week (my doctor is on maternity leave) and then after that I will start going to the doctor every 2 weeks! Crazy! It's going so fast!

27th-week-update

Hi! Well I had my glucose test this week, and everything came back normal except that I have low iron so I have to start taking iron supplements along with Vitamin C (must help with absorption?). I bought a body pillow yesterday so I'm hoping it will aid my sleep comfort level. We have our childbirth class this Saturday as long as the teacher doesn't get sick again, we've already had it cancelled once!

This picture is of me just past 26 weeks. Notice the cute maternity dress that I got at Target for only 6 bucks! What a deal!

On a side note, David has been traveling this week in Orlando for work and as he left the airport today he saw an abundance of cheerleaders which made me remember that last weekend was the weekend I was always there for Nationals!

Halfway there!

Here are 2 pictures of me at 20 weeks, or 5 months (Saturday, December 23). The first one is getting ready to go out to a friend's wedding and the second one is me wearing a cute shirt from Rena (thanks!). :) Tomorrow we have our next doctor's appointment, and next week we have a fetal echocardiogram (which is a stage 2 ultrasound)-- hopefully we will have a more cooperative baby so that we can get more verification that she is indeed a girl!

Baby pics! 19 1/2 week Ultra Sound!

Merry Christmas, everyone. Here is an ultrasound picture from last week. Click the link below to view the rest of them.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bennettars/sets/72157594438032880/

Future Gymnast in Womb!!

Well, after an hour and a half long ultrasound with 2 techs trying to figure it out, we are pretty sure that Baby Bennettar is a GIRL!!! One thing is for sure, she does not take after her maternal grandpa (possibly the most inflexible man ever), as the reason why we aren't for sure about her gender is because her legs were up over her head for most of the ultrasound. She rolled and flipped around and showed our tech about every part of her anatomy except the part between the legs (I even tried doing some jumping jacks!). But finally at the end, both techs were pretty sure they could see the 3 little white bones that signify girl (not to mention the lack of any boy-like parts).
We actually have thought it was a girl since our last ultrasound (around 13.5 weeks) when the tech thought she could already see the girl indicator. And my intuition has been telling me girl all along (along with my lack of heartburn and cravings for sweets!). We got some sweet pics of her and I will be scanning and posting them tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Welcome

Hi Everyone! Welcome to our Baby Blog. We are having our ultrasound to hopefully find out the gender of the baby tomorrow! I started feeling the baby move about a week ago. It's the most amazing feeling!