Baby Brown Survey Responses

We have had a number of requests to post the responses to the Baby Brown survey we sent out a while back. So, here they are.

.	Timestamp	What date will Baby Boy Brown be born?	What time of day will Baby Boy Brown be born?	How much do you think Baby Boy will weigh?	What do you think Baby Boy's name will be?	What is your name?
.	12/24/2011 16:10:42	1/25/2011	6 pm	8 lb 4 oz		Jen
.	12/24/2011 16:32:36	1/20/2012	10:58:00	8 lbs 11 oz.	Wynston	Vickie
.	12/24/2011 17:09:22	1/25/2011	8:00:00	8.5 lb		Gary
.	12/24/2011 20:06:13	1/22/2012	19:50:00	7 lbs 9 oz	have no clue but I like the name Braden	Kathy Lantz
.	12/24/2011 22:36:07	1/20/2012	12pm	6lbs 12oz	Gavin	Jenn Downing
.	12/24/2011 23:03:16	1/8/2012	3:45p	8lb 8oz	Warner Dane	Stacey H
.	12/25/2011 0:11:28	2/1/2012	6am	8lbs		Donna Bird
.	12/25/2011 0:50:28	1/12/2012	13:12:00	7 lbs 12 oz	Something AWESOME, I'm sure!	Cousin Shari
.	12/25/2011 2:44:07	January 12th	4PM	7lbs 10 oz	Jacob	Julie Welsh
.	12/25/2011 13:42:06	Jan 17th	14:12:00	8 lbs 2 oz	??	Sarah Witgen
.	12/25/2011 20:20:32	1/31/2012	19:00:00	7lbs14oz	Wyatt	Phil Welsh
.	12/26/2011 10:31:49	February 14, 2012, A Valentine	8:23 14 sec. AM	8 lb 3 1/2 oz	Christopher Matthew Brown	betty
.	12/26/2011 11:35:24	God's time	God's time	What God decides	Something Creative!	Shira
.	12/27/2011 7:00:44	1/27/2011	6:45:00	8lb 2oz		Mimi
.	12/29/2011 8:40:41	Feb 2nd	2 am	9 pounds 8 oz	Robert	Jimmy Hoffa
.	12/29/2011 8:45:40	2/5/2011	2:38:00	6 Ibs, 9 oz	I'm not sure, there's this letter preference I can't remember	Choua
.	12/29/2011 8:45:53	1/12/2012	14:04:00	7lbs 10 oz	Jack	Jaclyn Hackathorn
.	12/29/2011 8:46:11	1/8/2012	12:34:00	8 lbs, 3 oz	Brayden	Sara P.
.	12/29/2011 8:46:25	1/17/2012	2.35 pm	7 lbs. 6 ozs.		Diane Lindeman
.	12/29/2011 9:38:00	1/1/2011	Early Morning	8lb 1oz	Galvin	Kim
.	12/29/2011 11:12:49	1/28/2012	6:00:00	7lbs 6 oz	Have no clue and don't dare to guess!!!	Beatriz
.	12/29/2011 13:02:59	January 20th	9:23 a.m.	8 lbs 1 oz.	T-Bone is still available	Cathleen Wilkinson
.	12/29/2011 13:49:27	1/18/2012	5:00-9:00pm	7lbs 1oz	Kayden	Jeni Zemlicka
.	12/29/2011 15:47:12	2/9/2012	3:00:00	8 lbs	Zyelar	Stacy
.	1/2/2012 21:10:58	1/22/2012	16:58:00	7# 1 oz	Quinn, or Hunter or Jamison	Great aunt Kathy
.	1/2/2012 22:02:23	1/25/2012	11:30 a.m.	8 lbs. 5 ozs.	Jonathan Chase Brown	Patty Dimond
.	1/3/2012 8:34:37	1/15/2012	15:34:00	8lb6oz	Kayden	Sara Vancil
.	1/3/2012 10:11:20	1/18/2012	2pm	8 lb, 14 oz	Grayson	Stephanie Covington
.	1/3/2012 12:01:09	2/16/2012	8:15:00	8lbs 12oz		Nicole Josephs - From Mom's Night Out!
.	1/4/2012 17:09:04	1/18/2012	3:43:00	7 lb 15 oz	Spanky	Sean
.	1/5/2012 10:31:51	1/21/2012	21:17:00			Kindra
.	1/5/2012 22:57:54	january 28th	13:56:00	7lbs 8oz	kaleb	ashley

I will say that several of you were very kind and estimated baby's weight would be pretty small. However, at my last check-up, my doctor estimated that baby is getting close to 8 pounds already. So, no small baby here.

Also, several of you estimated his arrival WAY past his due date...seriously, no pregnant woman wants to think she is going to go PAST her due date. So, all of you who guessed past the due date are definitely wrong because I am actually scheduled for an induction on February 1, which would put me at 39 weeks...I did mention baby is already big, right?

So, sometime between now and February 1, we will get to meet Baby Brown and reveal his name! I have to say there are some great guesses on the list, and some names that we hadn't previously thought of but that I actually quite like. However, I do feel that I should have shared all of our "rules" for naming our kids. First, none of our kids will have names that start with "J", "B", or a vowel. Also, we will not reuse "G" as a first letter. Each child's name will have a "Y" in it somewhere. The first name will be two syllables and the middle name will be one syllable. (Yes, I know, we have a lot of rules.) Anyhow, I appologize for not sharing the rules prior to people responding to the survey but I still enjoyed seeing all the names.

Although we do have a long list of rules for naming our children, we have considered scrapping all of the rules to follow the celebrity naming trend started by Jay-Z and Beyonce', who just named their first child Blue Ivy. To name our "destiny's child," we used the name generator to help us determine the best color for a first name and plant for a middle name and a few front runners are "Grey Maple" and "Silver Woodworm." It's something to think about don't you think?

Well, as we prepare for our new little man, I am soaking in the last moments of Garytt as an only child. In fact, I walked in on my boys hanging out in the living room this past weekend and had to grab the camera. Justin was working on the laptop and Garytt was just chilling next to him reading a book. I just love those simple moments!

Baby Boy Brown Survey

On this Christmas Eve day, I can't help but think about how my mother must have been going through her normal pre-Christmas routine 30 years ago, not suspecting that in just a few hours everything would change (especially since the doctor had given her a due date in February). My parents ended up going to the hospital that Christmas Eve instead of Midnight Mass as planned. My parents welcomed me into the world that Christmas Day.

As I sit here 33 weeks pregnant with my son (who is incidentally also due in February), I wonder at what moment my world is about to change. I am trying to be prepared for anything, as Garytt was born 5 weeks early.

We thought it would be fun to put together a little survey for people to guess the actual arrival date of Baby Boy Brown. I can't wait to see what everyone enters and who ends up being the closest!

Just enter your responses below and then press the submit button.

Third Trimester Home Improvements

I am officially in the third trimester! Whoop!

Yesterday we were able to take another look at Baby Brown #2. I had an ultrasound done to check the weight and be sure that everything looked ok, as there were a few concerns during the last ultrasound. The good news is that baby and mom are doing great!


Profile


Hand

We are thrilled to be in the third trimester and have a healthy baby. We are also working like crazy around the house trying to get things ready for our expanding family. I have come to terms with the fact that everything on my list will not be complete by the time we meet our new baby boy. But we do need a room for Garytt since this baby will be moving into the nursery! So, that was our project this past weekend.

The room that will become Garytt's new room was covered in every single type of wall covering the previous owners could think of...it had paneling, wallpaper, and, that's right, carpeting!


The paneling and the wall paper. The picture was taken after the carpet was removed from the master bedroom.


The carpeting on the wall in the corner...strange.

The first thing to go was the carpeting on the wall. (We also decided to finally take out our window air conditioner unit...I'm sure the neighbors wondered what took us so long.)


Carpet gone...lots of icky carpet glue left.

The next item to remove was the wallpaper. Fortunately, in this room they actually used the sizing underneath the wallpaper, which made the removal quite a bit easier.

As we started to remove the paneling, we noticed that the previous owners had allowed their children to write messages with spray paint and play tick-tack-toe on the walls prior to covering it up.


The first panel we removed revealed "Mom"


If you look closely, you can see the tick-tack-toe games.


The rest of that wall revealed.


The names of the kids...and the year it was installed or someone's class year??


Not sure what to think...

Taking down the paneling was quite a chore. The panels were 1/2 inch thick, so they didn't bend and they had installed them over an inch beyond the ceiling tiles. It took both of us to do most of the pieces. (Thankfully, Garytt was a great napper this weekend!)

We left the hardest panel until the end...the panel behind the radiator. There was just no room to work and it was very frustrating...as seen in Justin's face.


Devising a plan of attack


The face says it all!

We did finally get all the panels off. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, some of the ceiling tiles were sacrificed during the process.



We had no idea if we would be able to find similar ceiling tiles, which made me nervous because I really didn't want to have to redo the entire ceiling (even though the ceiling tiles aren't my favorite look)!

We decided we would check out Menards and just see what our options would be. At first glance, it didn't look as though Menards carried anything but plain tiles that wouldn't match well. However, we randomly came upon a couple of boxes of tiles with the exact same pattern...and they were on SALE! It was a sign! We don't have to replace the ENTIRE ceiling!

It did, however, take us from the time Garytt went to sleep until midnight that night to complete the tile installation. And we had to glue some pieces in because the tiles are tongue and grove style and if one broke in the middle, we weren't going to take out all the tiles around it just to replace one.


New tiles...old pattern


A makeshift tile holder while the glue set

Ok, so, yes, if you look closely, you can see that the tiles we installed this weekend are slightly whiter than those from who knows when. But...who cares, we didn't have to replace the ENTIRE ceiling, remember!?

Removing the panels, also uncovered quite a crack in one of the plaster walls. This is the first major crack we have encountered in our over 100 year old plaster walled house.


Yikes!

Our original plan was to leave the walls plaster, just like we did in the nursery and the master bedrooms. But that is a huge crack! Not to mention we would have to figure out how to smooth out all that old carpet glue in the corner. So, we opted to drywall the room.







Ok, so I have to say Justin is awesome! He just keep pushing through, even though I know he must be exhausted. But, I also want to say that being 28 weeks pregnant and doing this much manual labor isn't exactly a piece of cake either!

The plan is to get the drywall mudded (my job since I can hopefully do it during the day) and then start painting after Thanksgiving before removing the carpet. (Ugly carpet makes a great drop cloth!) So, we'll have to keep you updated on Garytt's future bedroom! I just hope it's done in time!!