Nothing new to report

Well, for anyone who's wondering, there's no baby yet. I noticed that the camera actually had some pictures on it, so I thought I'd clean it off and write about our past week, since it was really pretty busy, even though Baby #2 decided to stay in its comfy (temporary) surroundings.

Tuesday night I went to girl's night at Janelle's house. It was our last one before Julie gets married! (Which is 4 weeks away.) Here's our group, minus Heidi:

Hannah, Jess, Janelle, Julie, Me (sorry about the redeye, girls!)

On Wednesday I didn't have anything planned and my dear husband was concerned about me keeping busy and my mind off the baby, so he got sweet corn and stayed home in the morning and part of the afternoon to help me do it! Mom Beutel, Katy, and even Janelle pitched in and helped, too. Thanks so much to all of you! This is a pretty common sight whenever we have corn at our house now:

He's got it figured out now...sideways is best!

He's pretty serious about this corn-on-the-cob thing...

Oh, and did I mention that this ear of corn is raw? He loves it both ways. :)

Uncle Caleb working on some artwork and Max 'helping'

For those of you who haven't heard the story, I started having some contractions on Thursday morning (the first I'd ever felt), and after they stopped, I couldn't feel the baby move. I called my OB and they asked me to come in right after lunch and be monitored. Well, of course, I could feel the baby moving by the time we (Greg and I) got to the doctor's office, but I wanted to see the midwife anyway, so we sat for 15 min. while I was on the monitor. At this point, I started having contractions again, some stronger than before. When the midwife checked me, she said I had progressed since my appointment with her on Tuesday (dilated to a 4 instead of 2-3, almost completely effaced). We went home, and that afternoon and all evening I continued having contractions in spurts. Greg and I were actually at church most of the time, helping at the luggage table for the church conference. By that night, I was exhausted and more than ready to just go to bed.

When I woke up Friday morning, I felt completely normal and didn't have more than 4 contractions all day. I was more than a little disappointed; thankfully Greg had the day off and spent it with me so I wasn't just moping at home. Saturday, Greg was proactive again and realized we needed something to do so we didn't both go crazy just waiting for labor to start for real. My mom and sister-in-law Ellie hadn't done corn yet for the summer and we figured if we helped them it wouldn't take too long, so Greg and my brother Philip (who was home for the weekend...more help!) went and got somewhere around 350 ears of sweet corn. It really was a fantastic idea, even if Mom hadn't wanted to do corn that day. :) It kept us busy and our minds off of our stubborn baby. :)

Anyway, Saturday night we went to Aaron and Katie's for supper, which was alot of fun. Brett and Laura were there with Bryce, as well as Jeremy and Kalsey with Rylee. All four kids are within about 6 months of age, so it was fun to see them interact.

I had Greg take a few pictures of me and Baby #2 before we are separated, since I realized we don't have any good pics of me pregnant this time around.

Belly

40 weeks...Mom must be more ready than Baby...

Sunday morning I really wanted a family picture, but we were just about ready to walk out the door, so we didn't take the time to set up the self timer. Instead, Greg snapped a few of me and Max. (You can even see the door to the garage open...we were literally just ready to walk out the door!) :)

Well, those are all the new pictures I have...I sincerely hope that the next ones put up on the blog are of a new baby Beutel! I've found that I'm really awful at this waiting stuff...I know I shouldn't complain because I'm not really even overdue (my due date according to the doctor was yesterday), but the sporadic contractions are just kind of playing mind games with me. I didn't have to deal with any of this when I had Max because my water just broke. So, apologies to anyone who has had to deal with my impatient attitude in the past few days. We'll keep you updated!