Introducing Elizabeth Rose Gaudette

October 4, 2011
7 lbs., 4 oz.
18.9 inches
This has definitely been the most amazing 10 days of our entire lives. Having a child brings new depth to love, new heights to emotion, and new perspective to life. We are truly blessed with our new addition, Elizabeth Rose Gaudette. We are calling her Ellie Rose, or just Ellie.

On the morning of October 4, 2011, Grant and I drove to Lucille Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford for my scheduled c-section to deliver Ellie (she was in the frank breech position, so a c-section was necessary). You can see the nerves and excitement on our faces here as we are getting ready for surgery.

Everything went well, and before we new it, we could hear the sweet, lamb-like wails of our little girl.


Life as we knew it changed forever the moment we saw Ellie. It was truly love at first sight.




We spent four nights in the hospital, just mooning over our new creation, and were blessed with so many visitors, including all 3 sets of grandparents (this is going to be one spoiled little girl), and loads of tias and uncles.

Final Preparations

It's the day before the arrival of our little girl, and Grant and my stomachs have been in knots since we woke up this morning. We are full of so much anticipation, excitement, and nerves that it's been hard to concentrate on the final preparations we needed to get done today.

We wanted to start the day with some quality time together, so we decided to go out for brunch at the Mayfield Bakery & Cafe. After that, we went grocery shopping, and came home and prepared some yummy meals that we could freeze for our return from the hospital. Grant did some household organization and paying bills, and - before we knew it - it was already 3:00 in the afternoon, and time for our appointment with the anesthesiologist at Stanford. Checking in at the Admissions department at Stanford, and spending time in the Labor & Delivery wing at the hospital made everything feel very real. We really cannot believe that our little girl will be here just 12 hours from now! After that, we came home to a nice homecooked meal, then - yes, I know this is last minute - packed our bags for the hospital.

Oh, and I almost forgot . . . we placed our finishing touch on the nursery by hanging Baby Gaudette's mobile! Below is a panoramic pic (which I took with the new camera we bought for the baby!) of the completed nursery.


We are now feeling all prepared for Baby Gaudette's arrival!

October 2, 2011: Buying a Family Car

It's T-2 days until Baby Gaudette arrives, and Grant and my last weekend (ever?!?!) as just the two of us. While I originally had visions for this weekend of sleeping in, romantic walks, date nights, and the like, let's face it -- I can hardly sleep, and we are both in MAJOR nesting mode.

Ever since Grant's car climbed past the 200K mile mark several months ago, we've been thinking that it is time to buy a new car. And Baby Gaudette's impending arrival provided us with just the motivation we needed to move forward with the purchase. We spent several hours on Saturday test driving the three SUVs we had narrowed it down to -- the Toyota Highlander, the Acura MDX, and the Ford Explorer -- and then several hours on Sunday finalizing the decision and making the purchase. Which did we choose?

THE TOYOTA HIGHLANDER, Limited Edition!!! It's super fancy and amazing, and we think it will be a perfect family car.


Some of the special features that we love:
-Smart Key: we can start the car with the push of a button, while the key is buried in the diaper bag, and the doors automatically unlock when we walk up to the car with our hands full of groceries and baby gear
-Navigation: to help us find our way on family road trips
-Built-in DVD player in back: Baby Gaudette will certainly love this in a couple of years time
-Leather interior: will be easy to clean up spills
-Bluetooth phone system: so I can actually talk legally while driving
-Heated seats: who doesn't need this?!?!
-And just about everything else you can think of!

32-39 weeks: Pregnancy Pics

I can't believe that we've reached the end of my third trimester, and - in just days - we'll finally be holding our baby girl in our arms. I've kept up the trend of bi-weekly photos over this last trimester, and am posting them below. To see the full spectrum of my growth (from 20 weeks on), click here.

32 weeks:

34 weeks:

37 weeks:

39 weeks:

Still Nesting: More Nursery Projects

We have been plugging away at Baby Gaudette's nursery, and are so so close to having it all done. Click here and here to see our progress. All we need to do this weekend is hang the cute little birdie mobile we bought from Pottery Barn Kids, and we're all set. Before we show off pictures of the completed room (stay tuned!), I thought I would share a couple of fun projects:

1) The Bookshelves: It was important to Grant and me that the nursery have books in it -- after all, we want our little Grunkaberry to be a smarty-pants! :) The only problem was that we had absolutely no space in the tiny room to fit a bookcase. Then came Tia Purnima to the rescue with an awesome idea that she'd seen on a design blog -- bookshelves made of IKEA spice racks! Click here for a picture of the inspiration. And see below for our completed project!

The best part about this project was that the spice racks were SUPER cheap -- only $3.99 each at IKEA. The worst part about the project is that it was very time consuming to measure everything out in order to get them lined up perfectly. Thankfully, my wonderful father and I did it together! And Dad's motto -- "measure twice, drill once" -- definitely came in handy here.

2) Pictures: In addition to Tia Katherine's amazing painting that we have hanging in the babies room, shown here, we decided to put up some fun black-and-white pictures to give the room some more character. Here are the pictures we chose:
Harry:
Ginny:

And Betinho:

They look absolutely adorable hanging over the queen bed!

August 2011: Planting Baby Gaudette's Fig Tree

When my sister, brother and I were each born, my parents planted a tree in their yard to commemorate our births. Mine was a fig tree, and it still stands in my parent's back yard, now surrounded by large Veronica Heather hedges. Here's a picture.

I've always loved fig trees, not just because I adore eating delicious figs, but also because it is a tree that reminds me of family. In addition to my fig tree, pictured above, I remember my Grandma having a huge fig tree at her home in Los Banos. And, if my memory serves me correctly, even my Ava (Great Grandma) had a big fig tree in her back yard.

So, with the impending arrival of Baby Gaudette, I couldn't think of a more fitting way to express how thrilled I am to be adding new roots to the family tree than by planting our little girl a fig tree of her own. Grant and Dad did the manual labor of actually planting the tree, and we think it looks great!


I hope that, someday, Baby Gaudette and I will share the same giddiness over a delicous basket of ripe, black figs that my mom and I share to this day!

August 20, 2011: Palo Alto Baby Shower

The weekend after our lovely baby shower in Pacific Grove, we were so lucky to have Grandma Rose, Tia Heather, and Grammy throw us another shower up in Palo Alto. The weather was perfect, and it was so much fun to have a blend of friends and family join us from near and far. Thank you so much, in particular, to Hannah, Kari, Pat, Grammy and Tia Kat who made especially long trips to be there. As you'll remember from my nesting post about the backyard, we were in a hurry to get everything completed in time for the shower. And it looked great! Here's a photo of the setup:


Baby Gaudette is going to LOVE those cute dresses! Once again, the food was delicious, the games were fun, and we were spoiled with so many gifts to celebrate and prepare for the arrival of our little girl. Thank you all for your amazing generosity!


And here's a photo collage that captures the perfect day (click to enlarge):