Tilden's Birth Announcement

Precious and Priceless

Tilden Jo had some newborn pictures taken by Tammi at More Than Words Photography.  This was almost a month ago already as these picutures are taken during the first week of life.  Tammi is fabulous, and she is really finding her niche in newborn photography.  It is not easy to get these beautiful shots.  Here are a few of our precious and priceless favorites...

Tilden's Crib

Tilden isn't sleeping in her crib yet, and she isn't sleeping through the night yet in case you're wondering.  We're up every three hours at this point, and yes, we are tired.  I do look forward to when she slips a bit longer and we move her into her room, but I'm not wishing this special time away either. 
For now, her room is just cute to look at or if you ask Brighton it's a nice place to play.  There is lots of wide open floor space and a crib which he can hop in and out of on his own thanks to the nearby rocking chair.  It was super cute when Cousin Urban visited this week and followed Brighton right in there, so I had to share this adorable picture of both boys having a great time.  

Tilden is 1 Month

Walcott Family Poem

Three plus one equals four.

The Walcott family is having one more.

The middle of February is the time we'll grow,

But Lindsay is already starting to show.

There may be a question that comes to your mind:

Should the Walcotts have a girl or a boy this time?

But oh, we actually already know.

Last week the doctor gave us a show.

We saw the cute little toes on her feet.

That's right, a little girl we are excited to meet.

Love these Ladies!

Aren't we cute? I just love these ladies!

These are some of college roommates: Angela Mulder, Kim Rubin, and Jo VanderPloeg. We still get together every couple months, and I just love those times.
We lived together in a home on Ridgewood Avenue near Calvin College. In this picture we are again in Grand Rapids celebrating Kim's baby on the way - baby boy Rubin. We had a fabulous time with many of the other ladies in Kim's life.

The next time we'll see her she'll be a mama! Congratulations Kimmy!

Shower Day - Times Two

Last Saturday, (I realize I'm a bit behind here) I had two showers to attend: a baby shower for me and a bridal shower for my best friend Kim. It sure was a fun day.

The baby shower was thrown by a few of my friends (thanks so much gals!); it was great. It was neat to see some of my friends from different circles meet and interact. I heard many times, "You have such nice friends." Yes, I do! I received such great stuff along with a kids book instead of a card - what a great idea. We have a nice little library started for our "Little Stinker." Thanks so much everyone!

Kim's shower was tons of fun too. It was in Ferrysburg at a clubhouse with many of her girlfriends and her aunts and cousins too. I won one of the games. We had to draw kim in her wedding dress on top of our heads - not looking of course. I did my best, and then wrote "I love Aaron" at the bottom. Some thought I was cheating a bit, but words are my way - go figure...English and communications teacher.

What a fun day with fun women!

It's NOT a Chevy

Some of this baby gear is something else to put together! We got an attachment for our stroller, and figuring things out and putting it together took a bit longer than expected. We have found that to be the case for just about all gear we have bought for the "Little Stinker." If this was a Chevy or just about anything else for that matter, Jon would NOT be reading the directions.

He does look a bit overwhelmed doesn't he? The extra time and a bit of frustration were well worth it. Understandably (and thankfully) Jon becomes a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to gear for our son.

Mr. Fix-It of course eventaully accomplished the stroller assembly. We hope to be pushing around "Little Stinker" in just a couple short months!

31 Weeks

Thirty one weeks and counting! We have about 60 days until "Little Stinker" arrives. Here is what we look like:

We got another look at the "Little Stinker" on Friday. This is his face. His whole body is too big to fit entirely on the screen. He weighs about 4.5 pounds, and he has hair.

The crib is ready and waiting for him.

The Nursery

We're getting there...

Getting Ready

I am 29 weeks along, so we are definitely in the stage of actively getting ready for our "Little Stinker" to arrive in May.

• We attended a birth class at Holland Hospital on Saturday. I really don't know where to begin, so I'll just leave it at that.



• Jon tried to install the carseat today, and although as a mechanic he was confident (and so was I) that he could install the thing, he has decided to call the Lakeshore Safe Kids Coalition just to be sure. Not as easy as we thought.




• We received our rocking chair this past week. A great gift from Dan & Jordan. It's so cool! I was bit concerned about the comfort at first, but then rememembered I'm pregnant, and it's not exactly comfortable to be rocking like that at this stage of the game.
  
• I got a couple of great things from Petunias. Kelly hooked me up with a great blanket, burb clothes, an icky bag, and even a onsie that says...you guessed it..."Little Stinker." You can access her Etsy stores here and here. Great stuff!
  
• Our crib and changing table is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday. Can't wait for that! You know what we'll be doing Tuesday night.

This week at school (and many high schools across the state) is going to be crazy. We've been "Getting Ready" for quite some time now. The Juniors need to take the MME, and the rest of us need to do something while they're doing that. During this time we're not in regular classes, but divided up into grades doing a variety of activities. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are going to be crazy. Thankfully the principal decided to release the seniors for one of the days, and I'm with them, so who knows what I'll end up doing when they're gone. Maybe they'll be nice to me because I'm pregnant :)

Have a great week everyone!

The Raterink Grandpas

Little Stinker's Grandpa Raterink and Great Grandpa Raterink painted his bedroom this week. Great Grandpa Raterink spent most of the day painting and then Grandpa Raterink helped the last few hours.

The room looks great! Thank you so much grandpas!

Move In & Out Day

Today we are moving the office out of the second bedroom upstairs to make way for the nursery for our "Little Stinker." Then the two new bedrooms downstairs are finished and ready to move in, so we'll be setting up our new office down there and our spare bedroom.

We have a little bit of painting to do in the nursery that we hope to do in the coming weeks with some help from Grandpa Raterink - we're thinking bright apple green. It's downstairs in a bathroom already, and we both really like it, so we're bringing it upstairs. A fun and distinctive color for our little guy - purposeful as my friend Jo put it. We're only painting two walls, so don't freak out those of you that prefer the pastels. I think it will be quite cool. This week we also plan to do some work on the inside of the closet: adding some shelves and changing the hanging set-up. Nursery furniture won't arrive until March, so we have some time.

The rest of my family arrives home today, so we are looking forward to seeing all of them. My sister and her husband get home today from their Hawaii Honeymoon, and my parents were gone too in the Florida Keys. We're looking forward to hearing about both their trips. They certainly will return to a winter wonderland here. I've had three snow days in the last two weeks.

Have a great weekend! Around here it's a perfect one for outdoor winter activities. Too bad most of them are off limits for me. I know Jon would really like to be snowboarding or snowmobiling.