So close!

I can't believe it is so close to Harvey's birth-day! In just about 3 weeks we'll be in the "safe zone" (37 weeks). Harvey will be considered full term, and I'll able to deliver at the birthing center with the midwives from there on out. I get Braxton Hicks contractions anywhere from 1-4 times throughout the day now which I am guessing is probably because of my job, which I am almost done with by the way! February 17th will be my last day at work. I am pretty sure since I'm on my feet a lot and doing a lot of physical work with my job pretty much daily that it's helping to keep him down in the right position and causing some of these Braxton Hicks contractions. I'm betting that he'll probably come earlier rather than later (especially since I'll be working right up until the Friday before I hit 37 weeks), but who knows. Nick is hoping for February 29th and at first I thought that would be a horrible birthday, but I am actually thinking now that would be kind of fun. I sure would rather have him come 2 weeks before his due date than 2 weeks after! You never really know when it will happen even if my feelings, physical signs, and even the history of my sisters' and mom's births seem to point to him being a bit early or on time rather than late he could still decide to show up at the end of March!

Either way, we are slowly getting his things more and more prepared. Baby showers are right around the corner and then we'll be able to finish getting the last few things we need. In just a few more weeks we'll be packing the labor bag, putting in the car seat, then just enjoying the last of his little karate moves inside my belly and waiting for him to come out!

Photo Follow Up

Okay, here are the photos of the diapers. (And we have added a few more since the other day too.)

These are our 12 tiny ("newborn") gdiapers. I don't think we'll use them for very long since he won't be too tiny for too long, but these ones will definitely last us for all of our kids since they won't get much use with each kid.

These are all of our "one size" diapers. The top row are the bumGenius brand and the bottom row are the FuzziBunz ones. I played around with the sizing on the yellow FuzziBunz one to see how small it could go (if you can't tell), so that's why the extra elastic and insert is stuffed out the middle of it.

These are the gDiapers we got today for $5 a piece. 4 small ones, 3 medium ones. I want to wait to get the Large on this brand since I'm not sure how I'll like them and plus, we haven't seen many awesome deals on any that included the large ones.

These are our sized FuzziBunz ones. 2 Small, 3 Medium and 3 Large. These are all used and they have the most wear and tear out of all the ones we got, but I think they'll still last us for a while and all of these were $5 each or less (which is a really good price.) I figure I can always get new inserts if I need to for these ones.

So, there you have it folks. We now have 23 diapers (and the 12 tiny ones). I'm hoping to get 6 more small and medium size ones too so we'll have 20 for each sizing stage. And then a lady Nick knows from his mission is going to make us some extra inserts too. We're almost there! It's been a huge relief to get all of these in the past week and I feel great about getting them at a good price too.

Diaper Stash!

I'm finally at a point where I can start building the diaper stash, which is pretty exciting for me. It's been lingering in the back of my mind that I need to get these cloth diapers before he gets here and today I can say we are starting to collect them now. I had the bright idea to look on ksl this morning while I was trying to stay awake at my desk when a kindergarten class was in the lab. I help around the lab when kids are in there so I don't feel guilty doing my own thing on the computer once in a while if a class is in the lab. 99% of the time I am doing yearbook stuff, photo editing, printing, or something with e-mail so if during that 1% of the time I check my own e-mail, look at blogs, or on this day, ksl, I really don't feel bad.

Anyway, I was like a kid in a candy store when I found all of these really awesome deals. I couldn't help but share the excitement on my blog, even though I know most of you probably won't be as excited over these cloth diaper deals as I am.

Deal #1 - "Tiny" set of gdiapers. This particular set brand new online costs about $150, not including any shipping or tax. My deal is for $50.

I was super excited because I wasn't originally going to get any newborn cloth diapers for him. I figured this time we could go with solely using disposables until Harvey fit into the one-size and small ones of the cloth diaper brands we are going to try. The $150 just didn't seem justifiable for me this time around given that I am going to stop working next month. I figured that we could afford getting some newborn sized cloth ones for our next kid. However, when I found them for $50, I knew this would be a good deal since this is our first and we plan on having a few more kids. This $50 purchase will last us for all of our kids since they aren't usually in diapers that small for very long. I am super excited that we'll be able to use cloth right away now though. Since there are only 12 in the newborn pack and I'm not planning on doing laundry every single day with this, I'll probably rotate these cloth ones with a few disposables during the day and use just disposables at night until he fits into the sizes we'll have more of.

Deal #2 - 4 New fuzzibunz one size diapers. Online, 5 of these ones + tax and shipping would cost just over $100. My deal is for $68. This is the deal that is good, but not as good as the others I found. We're saving about $15-20 by buying them off ksl on this one.

Deal #3 - 3 slightly used fuzzibunz larger diapers. Online this would be about $60 if you include the price of tax and shipping. My deal is for $25. Even though I won't be able to use these 3 for a while since they're large, I know I'll eventually need them and it's saving us over half. This particular seller used mostly pre-folds and covers but had 3 fuzzibunz too which she didn't use a whole lot.

Deal #4 (which we haven't called on yet, but I'm pretty excited about so hopefully we'll be able to snag this deal this weekend since it's a little farther north from where we're at) - 3 small, 3 medium and 1 one size brand new fuzzibunz diapers. Online, this would cost about $140 if you include tax and shipping costs. My deal (hopefully) would be for $75. Crossing my fingers on this one that we'll be able to get them.

Anyway, now that I know ksl has a bunch of these types of deals I'll be checking back every week or so to see if any more good deals pop up so we can continue adding to our stash of cloth diapers. And, if we do get that deal #4 too we'll have a pretty good stash already and not need much more after that! I'll post some pictures of our stash after we go pick them all up in an hour.

What an exciting year!

2012 is going to be an amazing year for us! We have so much to look forward to this year!

We'll be having our little one in just 10 more weeks - give or take. It has gone by so quickly for us and we think back to 7 months ago in July when we found out and it seems like yesterday. I only have 6 more weeks at work and then I'll be done (most likely for good!). After that I have a few weeks to half relax and half get the house ready for a baby to be here. And by the way, if any of you know of someone who needs a job in Provo, let me know because we'll be starting the interviews for mine in the next couple of weeks. It really is a great job all things considering - 30 hours a week with a bunch of nice holiday breaks, but still a paycheck as big as when I worked at the law firm. However, despite being great, to be honest, I don't think I'll miss the working world once Harvey gets here. I'm super excited to be a full time mom which is another thing I am looking forward to!

Another thing that has been exciting and good for us lately is Nick's work. The company was suffering a bit last year because of a (now ex-)employee's dishonest behavior. Now though, things are going great and seem to be getting better for the business. For those of you who don't know, he works with his dad's company selling large industrial businesses power saving equipment like capacitors and co-generators (co-gens). Co-gens help companies "create" their own energy to sustain their plant on (and even can create excess energy that they can sell back to the power grid to make money off of) from things like the excess steam and heat that the manufacturing machines give off. Some good things are happening with two or three big companies currently and they are starting to feel like the weight has been lifted from last year and that this is their year to take off with this business idea. If the deals go through with these two or three companies, they'll be recruited to install the power equipment in ALL of the branches worldwide of these companies and they'll have enough business for more than one lifetime. It's still nerve-wrecking with these type of deals though since nothing is ever certain until the equipment actually on it's way to getting in place and some high up CEO can always come down and say "NO, just kidding" at anytime (which has happened before with other smaller companies), but after a few meetings they've had already this week, we are feeling pretty good about things this year for work and are trying not to get too excited about anything yet, but can't help it!

At the end of this year, Nick will graduate with his bachelor's in Business - Supply Chain! We will finally figure out exactly where we're going and what he'll be doing with his degree. Right now we are unsure of what our best opportunity is going to be so we aren't sure where we'll end up, but we are excited for the many opportunities we'll have and to start our life outside of the student world soon.

This year is going to be a great year though, so here's to a happy and wonderful 2012! We hope everyone has just as much to look forward to and anticipate as we do!