Announcing my shadow box surprise!

I decided to give the children's shadow boxes a make-over while I finished up Drew's box.  I ended up getting two more at half price so I was able to finish the project.  I do not have room in the hallway anymore for so many shadow boxes so I am moving them to my bedroom.  I should have taken a before picture, but, as usual, was too anxious to get started and didn't do it.  Each box has the outfit in which I brought them home from the hospital. Here is the finished product!

Now for the close ups...

Hannah's box is pink and includes a burp cloth with her name on it.  I have a newborn picture and a 2 month old picture in here.  Their birth dates are on the outside glass in each one.

Genevieve's box is purple and has a piece of a crocheted blanket that I made and a couple of other fabrics as background.  Her birth date is not on yet.  I am trying to find the right numbers.

Isaac's box is mostly tan with a little blue.  I covered a wooden letter with blue fabric.  I added a Thomas train because he was so obsessed with Thomas for so long.

Andrew's box is mostly blue.  I covered a wooden "a" with yarn.  I added his frame from his room that has the picture of the blanket I made him as a mat for the pictures of Drew.  I put a lighthouse on the frames corner.  His room is decorated with a nautical type theme.  There is a Maryland bike name plate at the top since he was born here.  I wanted to put something from all of the places they were each born, but so far this is all I came up with.

 Yes, that's right there are five shadow boxes, not four like you might have thought.  Our newest addition will join the rest of the world on or two weeks later than August 15th, the feast of the Assumption of Mary.  I never have had a due date on a feast day before.  And the day I found out I was pregnant was the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, on 12-12-12.  It was quite a surprise to us since the last three times we got pregnant it took at least six months.  We were not expecting any little one to come so quickly and were really thinking it would be months before I got pregnant again.  Brian's pathology board exam is in mid September, so we were thinking that would be better anyway if the baby would be due after that.  However, God had other (AKA better) plans, and we are always open to new life around here!  So, thanks be to God! 

The children are so thrilled.  Hannah's initial reaction was pretty funny.  She started laughing hysterically and when she came up for air she said, "But you just had Drew!" and then fell back into hysterics.  I told her that it does feel like I just had Drew.  He still seems like such a baby to me, especially with his lack of vocabulary.  However, they will be just shy of two years apart which is further apart than Hannah and Genna.  Hannah just doesn't remember that, obviously.  Genna kisses and rubs my already growing tummy all the time.  She and I are hoping for another cuddler in the family.  I'm sure Isaac would love it as well since Drew has never liked lots of hugging and kissing.  I would prefer a girl just so that she would have a better chance of being born under 10lbs, although I was over 10lbs when I was born so maybe that's a moot point.  What goes around comes around, I guess.

As you may know we nickname our in-utero babies around here, this baby is going to be called Tad.  This is short for tadpole with a double meaning because this baby will be due just a "tad" before my husband's board exams. 

I am almost 12 weeks and around 10 weeks it became difficult to hide my wonderful news since I have no abdominal muscle tone left.  Here's my tummy shot from today.

11 + weeks pregnant with Tad  (Genna's hand, of course...She can't keep her hands off my growing belly.)

We have had a bit of a bumpy road with this pregnancy with a couple of scares, but everything is fine.  Tad is growing with a strong heartbeat.  On the last ultrasound, Tad was moving around a ton.  It brought tears to my eyes to see the baby moving so much!  Celebrate with us, please!