More nursery pics and, errrm, does my belly look big in this??

We've had lots of requests for more on how the nursery is coming along so here's an update and a few more pics.

* Painting is mostly done although there are a few bits and pieces we might add if we get round to it.

* The weird dark speckly bits on what was a nice yellow sun is glitter - Jayne's plan for a nice spangletastic sun didn't quite work out as intended. It might get fixed... or it might not!

* Model hot air balloons have been hung up.

* Double bed is back in temporarily, for visitors while Bubs is still in with us overnight.

* Crib would be in place had it not arrived damaged :( so hopefully they'll get it sorted before Bubs arrives. The plan is for it to go where the mattress is currently on the floor.

* Dresser/changing unit will go under the hot air balloons when Adam can find someone to help him move it from the guest bedroom.

* 'Hug A Planet' earth bean bag all set to get bounced and dribbled on.

* Glider nursing chair and footstool (thanks Nana!) will probably go where the bean bag is when they arrive, and then at some point into the corner where the spare bed is at the moment.



So, here are those pics...

The grandparents' houses, plus the inevitable scattering of cows and sheep. All painstakingly handpainted (and repainted, and touched up and attempted all over again!). Jayne admits the cows, still handpainted, were blatantly copied from some Woody Jackson artwork. Thanks Woody!

Moving round to the next wall, a few more cows, tree and daisies in the field

Then we have the Angel of The North to guard over bubs's crib, the sun to shine on him/her and the trusty Hockings ice cream van for obvious reasons :)

Now, something strange happened overnight... it seems my belly bump has expanded again all of a sudden. Even Adam (the king of observations!) commented on how big me and Bubs looked today. What do you reckon?

April 28 2008, almost 33 weeks along

Baby stuff and bump progress

Well, we have completed our course on child birth, so we know how to do it all now... right??!! No worries... hmmmm! We'll see in due course I suppose.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures, one of our birth class group, and one that is just the instructor and the ladies... and our bumps of course. The only folk missing were Rob and Georgette, who we've become quite good friends with, and who are expecting their baby anytime now, if they've not already had him!

L to R, front row then back: Justin and Teresa, Ian and Casey, Kimberly and Peter, Kate and Tyler, Darren and Emily, Susan and Scott, Adam and Jayne, Nan and Nate

L to R: Kimberly, Teresa, Emily, Kristina (instructor), Kate, Casey, Jayne, Susan, Nan

Some more bump pics, by popular request...

April 6th

Can't remember what was so funny now...

A sunny 78F and in my summer togs (yeay!) on April 19th

With most of 'the big things' now here or at least ordered (the crib, car seat, pushchair, bouncey chair, glider nursing chair) we also bought the pack and play... Adam thought we should put it up to make sure all the bits and bobs were present and correct. Miraculously, as the instructions suggest, this only takes a minute to put up. Yeay!

I think Safi was wondering what the heckers we'd got her a cage for!

So as not to tempt fate all this stuff is safely dismantled again and stashed in the store room until a little bit nearer d-day, which is coming round frighteningly quickly! Now there's only the zillion little things to get... and the nursery to finish painting!

Anyway, with the child birth classes all done, Adam was keen to learn a bit more about what to do with the baby once we're let loose on our own so we've signed up for a one-off infant care class... hopefully this will reassure him some that he's gonna be just fine and make a great Dad!

Tomorrow is the last of our monthly visits to our ob/gyn... after then we go up to visits every two weeks until the very end!

Sugar On Snow - Sunday March 30, other places

The morning view from Shelburne Outlook. The Adirondack Mountains on the other side of Lake Champlain in New York State were looking very pretty, albeit more cloudy than VT!

We were pretty much at the point of having had quite enough of sugar shacks and maple syrup when it occurred to us we hadn't actually had any 'sugar on snow' so continued on our journey to find a shack that was doing this traditional sweet treat.

We found Palmer's Suagrworks...

Okay, so it all looked pretty much the same basic set up as everywhere else we'd seen!




Except for one thing so far as we could see...

... This place didn't use a thermometer to determine when the syrup was hot enough. They used the more traditional 'syrup shovel' method, where they dip said shovel into the boiling syrup and check how it 'strings' when dripping back off.

Yup, time to run it off... again ;)

Whilst this place offered sugar on snow the Devon farmer came out in Adam and he determined it was a rip off - they wanted almost $4 for a bowl whereas most other places we'd seen the day before were half the price... so yes, this meant one final trip back to Dakin Farms...

En route we came across one of Vermont's infamous covered bridges... we didn't need to go over it... but of course we did.

Finally making it back to Dakin Farms we arrived to the sound of frenzied banjo playing... there was a guitar/banjo duet playing away in the shack, and they were actually really good. A big crowd had gathered so we had a little listen and then got our bowl of sugar on snow and headed out into the sun to enjoy it.

For sugar on snow (basically a bowl of crushed ice with syrup drizzled over it) the syrup is boiled to a much higher temperature so that as it rapidly cools on teh 'snow' it turns to a chewy, toffee-like consistency.

Tradition says you have to eat a sour pickle with it. Adam wasn't much into that but Jayne quite enjoyed it!

Before leaving we had a little sneaky look inside their distribution center, cunningly designed and built to look like an old red barn.

We needed to stop for fuel and found this quirky little place on the way back - just like the old gas stations you see in films, where the pumps are actually attached to the building, with the obligatory big ice bin on the side too.

We also came across another covered bridge and of course had to get the inevitable photos going over it...

We sent Safi on ahead to make sure it was sound!? ;) Awwww - she looks like 'The Littlest Hobo'... well kinda. Do you remember that kids TV programme from the 70's/80's?

The end.

Thankfully, no more sugar shacks to visit... til next time!

Sugar On Snow - Sunday March 30, Shelburne Farms

We started the day by heading out to Shelburne Farms where the local 4H group (kids outreach programme) was running a pancake and maple syrup breakfast.

Not a bad spot to have breakfast on a lovely sunny Spring day in VT!

Afterwards we took a stroll up the hill to the Shelburne Farms sugar shack

The view looking back - you can just about make out Mt Mansfield and Camel's Hump on either side of the farm building (note the absence of any clouds whatsoever!)

Almost there... Jayne was puffing nicely at this point! ;)



We passed a trusty John Deere, complete with snow chains on it's back wheels!

Here they mostly use the piping we'd seen at other places to collect the maple sap, but Shelburne Farms, being the educational center that it is, also has 50 or so trees tapped directly into buckets to demonstrate the more traditional techniques.

Peeking under the cover of a bucket we could see that the sap was indeed starting to run as the morning's temperatures started to rise. About 10 attempts later Jayne managed to catch an in-focus drip of sap coming off the tap in the maple trunk and into the bucket below.

Inside Shelburne's sugar shack

Outside the sugar shack

The sap lines

Finally the sap makes it to the sugar shack

Adam and Saf

Jayne, Bump and Saf