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At the baby shower, Tonya provided an activity for us to do that turned into a cool gift for Hazel's room. In lavender, pink, and green (colors I told her I would have used to decorate Hazel's room had we an actual nursery) she had a friend paint/draw on a canvas the letters HAZEL with some girly details. Then everyone at the shower thought of a word starting with each letter in her name to describe Hazel. For example, for 'H', people offered happy, honorable, heavenly, etc. They did this for all the letters - obviously 'Z' was a little hard! Then I chose one word I liked the best, and someone wrote that word out, and it turned into a cute custom made painting just for our little girl! Isn't that creative? Also, her name is written in Hindi on the right side. What a great idea and memory for Hazel and me.The room is pretty much ready for Hazel's arrival. Since her room is also the spare room and so it's functional and not very decorative (we're leaving this house in just a few months, so that would have been a waste of energy and money!) it didn't take me that long to get it together. 
Here is her crib. If I have the time or energy, I'm gonna get a pillowcase made for the little white pillow. If not, then it'll be tossed. Also, James' aunt and uncle, and his mom are each sending some more sheets for the crib! 
Aunt Tiffany (maker of delicious scones and quiches! :) bought this wicker shelf for me to put some of the items that I'm assuming will be the more used ones, like diaper paraphernalia and onesies. I really needed this shelf, because I completely ran out of room in the closet. 
The stuffed closet! 
A side note - our very sweet friends in Russia, the Goodman's, sent Hazel a couple of bibs. (Thanks, y'all!!) She's getting quite a collection of international accessories!
Once upon a time, two kind ladies named Suzie and Tonya wanted to throw a joint baby shower for two very pregnant friends, Andrea and Emily. One said pregnant lady, Andrea, ended up needing overnight monitoring in the local hospital. So what were a group of fellowship-loving ladies to do? Well, have two baby showers, of course!
Our heroine, bedecked in pink to represent the anxiously awaited arrival of her daughter, Hazel, went to the baby shower as planned. She was a little sad to not be able to share this honor with Andrea, but the large amounts of food made up for it. It was a brunch theme, and after all, breakfast is her favorite meal.
The guests all graciously prayed for Emily and Hazel, and then said a word of advice for the mother-to-be.
They laughed, joked, and talked with each other until Suzie brought out some toilet paper. The guests wondered why would toilet paper be at a baby shower? Suzie quickly explained that everyone was to guess how much toilet paper it would take to wrap around the pregnant belly. The toilet paper was Indian, so each square was a slightly different length. Our heroine was about 10 squares around, and Lydia guessed the closest with 11 squares. Everyone else over-guessed, much to the amusement of Hazel's mother.
Gifts were passed around, and our heroine was overwhelmed by her friends' generosity. Everything to prepare for a bouncing baby girl was provided, and the mother-to-be felt the true meaning of what it meant to be in the Creator's family.
Then delicious cake made by Tonya was passed around, and everyone was full of sugar. None was more delighted than our heroine. A very unique gift was created on the spot for Hazel, which will be posted later. And then as some people left for their homes, others boarded a vehicle to take the baby shower on the road! The less round ladies boarded a lot more gracefully than our heroine.
After sneaking gifts up to Andrea's room, 5 ladies, one man, and a little girl celebrated the up-coming arrival of Jellybean in what was surely a hospital rule-breaking baby shower. Some cake and tasty scones made by Tiff were brought for Andrea to enjoy later, and the toilet paper was pulled out one more time.
Although our heroine came close, it was actually the father-to-be, Adam, who knew the exact amount of toilet paper needed to circle his wife's belly.
Gifts were opened, and Jellybean's creative gift was worked on as well. 
At 36 and 34.5 weeks, the mothers-to-be took another belly picture, and everyone enjoyed the impromptu hospital baby shower. More prayers were said, this time for Andrea and Jellybean, and smiles were on the faces of all in that hospital room. No one can know for sure, but legend holds that even Jellybean and Hazel were smiling that night. The end.
Once again, more packages! One from my mom ("Mimi") and one from James' mom, who hasn't decided yet what her name will be. 
Isn't the red cute? This is what James' mom sent. I can't wait to dress Hazel in this for Christmas! I just love that little red jacket.
And this is from Mimi. Some more much needed practical items, like a thermometer and nasal suction thingy. And I don't think my mom ever saw a baby girl outfit she could say no to.
Much thanks to the grandmas!!
We got more stuff for Hazel in the mail today...can you stand it? This time from the wonderful family of my brother - mainly Christi, of course. She sent more onesies and sleeper sets than I could count (although one certain Sam Houston State onesie may 'somehow' accidentally disappear :). Hazel will have no problem staying warm in our cold house this winter. Christi also sent a bunch of bibs, socks, pacifiers, a cap, and some bows. And then for the much needed functional items, she sent several bottles and milk freezer bags! Wow, Hazel is one blessed baby. Thanks Aunt Christi, Uncle Andy, and cousins Boston & Livvie!
Did you notice...my due date is two months from today! Fortunately, we're close to finishing things up for Hazel's arrival.
I got a package from my mom today! She sent me these super fun athletic pants that as you can see, 
I was really excited about! As these pictures show, I am quite the dork, as is James, so poor Hazel doesn't have much of a chance at coolness.She also sent this really cute red top. Depending on your heat/cold tolerance, it's already weather at night for long sleeves, and soon, it'll be cool all day long! I am loving this October weather. So these are my 31 week belly pics.
Mimi also sent Hazel some things, of course. A couple more blankets (one with ballet stuff on it!), some cute pink caps, and some handy nursing items! I would have taken pictures, but in my nesting excitement, I threw them immediately into the washer so I could put them away.
Dr. Kapur had us go once more to get an ultrasound this week to see if my diet was helping to reduce my excess amniotic fluid. As I'm sure you remember from my constant whinings about it, I haven't had sweets in over 5 weeks, and no sort of fatty foods whatsoever in over 3 weeks. But this time, my fluid levels have remained about the same they were 3 weeks ago, which is still lower than they were 5 weeks ago. Okay enough with all these numbers! Suffice it to say, the diet is helping to control the fluid level, and also control my weight gain, which Dr. Kapur is very pleased with now. And more exciting, Hazel is no longer breech! I wonder if it was the exercises I was doing to ease her out of breech, or if it was just taking her a little longer to get upside down. Hey, if I had the option, I'd wait until the last possible moment to suspend upside down, too.
So the funny part of the ultrasound measurements is that her head is still slightly large, but not excessively so. At the scan, I was 29 weeks 6 days. Her weight was 1.78kgs (3.96lbs) which is what they should weigh at about 32 weeks!! Dr. Kapur reassured me that her weight isn't excessive, and agreed and laughed at my remark that Hazel just must be a big American baby. After reading the reports closer, I see that her abdomen circumference, not her head, is the largest part of her now, age-wise! So James and I laughed at the thought of our cute little chunky belly baby.
This is completely unrelated, but Jaya gave Hazel a gift today. She had bought a child's lehenga for her 5 year old niece, but it's too small. So she gave it to me, knowing I've been dying to buy some cute Indian clothes for Hazel. She said that until Hazel can fit into it in about 3-4 years, that I can let my niece Olivia wear it. So Christi, what do you think of Livvie being an Indian maharani for Halloween 2008? ;)
Thanks to Auntie Lata, a very generous lady in the English weekly ladies group I go to, Hazel will be sleeping in a real crib! Auntie Lata called me a few weeks ago and said she hated to see her crib go unused, so she wanted to loan us the crib until we leave next year. Apparently she bought it from a local market, who had bought it from someone at the Embassy. It's so big, we're gonna have to take the door off to get it into Hazel's room. Either that, or she'll just have two rooms! God is so good to us. We didn't even ask for this, and weren't expecting to have anything nice for Hazel. Obviously she doesn't need luxuries that we can't afford, not to mention only use for 6 months, so we weren't concerned that her room would be half of a spare room and decorated in blue. But God has blessed us with such a nice piece of furniture, and something that we can decorate girly! Thank you Lord! And thank you, Auntie Lata!
Wow, how blessed are we? First, the Fam sent a Shower-in-a-Box, and just today, we got another package, this one from my mom, with pretty much a downsized version of what they sent. (there are 6 of them versus one of her, you know :) Hazel's wardrobe and supplies keep getting cuter and cuter! I can't wait to hold my snuggly little baby girl.
Thanks Mom!!
Edit: Mom sent 3 sleepers, a pair of socks, a couple headbands, 2 pacifiers with a pacifier holder, a towel with ballet slippers on it, 2 matching wash cloths, and 3 receiving blankets.
My best friends really are the BEST! They got together over Labor Day weekend, and unbeknownst to me, decided to give me a Shower in a Box! They sent me all kinds of sweet little baby girl things! A couple of dresses, receiving blankets, a towel, some washrags, socks, about 12 onesies, head bows, bibs, the most precious little baby tights, and cute little baby boots! Check it out:
"Daddy is my hero"
My best friends, the Fam, over Labor Day weekend. I love these girls!
Like I said, I have one more month to go before the third trimester hits, and Andrea isn't far behind me. So we actually for once had a free day today so we went shopping! Who knows how long we'll still feel energized enough to shop like this again? :)After one wrong stop, we found the little baby shop. Like many South Asian shops, there is a lot of merchandise crammed into a tiny room. So we would point, the man would put the items on the glass case, and we'd decide if we wanted it or not. This is Andrea demonstrating:
Happy shoppers:
And this is what I brought home. I'm getting closer to being ready!
So I wouldn't call myself a tree-hugger or anything like that, but I am environmentally conscious, and the idea of all those diapers bothers me. (Bobbie, why hasn't Huggies found out about our genius biodegradable diapers yet? ;) So James and I decided that we'd try out using cloth diapers at first. I know, this may only last a week (some of you may be thinking, "Honey, that's only gonna last a day!") but I must say I was really excited to see they have disposable diaper liners I can buy here! I bought enough to make a good try of it, and I can already tell that disposable diapers, not cloth, are much easier, and more user friendly. Did any of you try out cloth diapers first?
I usually don't like to take b&w photos of her because I hate to miss capturing the blue of her eyes. But she's pretty darn cute in any color (or lack thereof) don't you agree? :)
And finally, I shouldn't blog without putting up a shot of a Hazelnut face:
