Luke Alan Fletcher

From Fletcher Baby

We have given our boy a name. "Luke Alan Fletcher" has been at the top of our list for a while, but didn't want to officially give him the name until he was born. We think Luke fits him well.

Before anyone starts asking him to use the force, may we remind you that we took the name from the Bible, not from any movies, if there are any, we remember from our childhood. However, we still think the force is strong in this one.

We have a son

From Fletcher Baby

After some progress, but very little, things did not go as planned for a standard delivery. At about 7:30 PM the Dr. on shift asked if we were OK with a C-Section. We decided it was for the best.



Baby Fletcher born Wednesday, April 15, 2009 @ 9:05 PM. He was 8 lbs. 14 oz. and 23 1/2 inches long.

Tax Baby Coming

Well, we've been here at the Banner Desert hospital for about 26 hours now. This has been a long process, but there is finally a light, (however faint), at the end of the tunnel. If the rest of today continues as it started, we should have a new arival to our family in the early evening today.



We started by having an appointment to come here for an inuction at noon yesterday (April 14). We were checked in before 12:30. They started inducing at about 3:30 yesterday afternoon. They didn't expect her to go into labor for about 12 hours. She went into labor at about 3:00 this morning and had an epidural at about 4:30. They broke her water at about 9:45, and things are steadily, but slowly progressing.

As stated in our previous post. We have a web album specifically for our baby. Hopefully Robert will be able to periodically post pictures of the baby as he gets a few. The link again to the album is:

http://picasaweb.google.com/robertfletcher65/FletcherBaby#

We're Getting Close

We know, we know. It has been over a month since we have created a new post here. As we go week by week, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of changes, but when we look back a few weeks, we realize how much has changed. Shelley is getting very large and less mobile. Tiger is getting in her way with almost anything she does. She asks Robert to pick up anything she drops, even if he is a couple of rooms away. Robert is feeling sympathy pangs by gaining some weight himself, except he's not going to lose it as quickly when delivery comes.

We are now going to the Dr. Office twice a week. Both times, Shelley has a non-stress test taken on tiger. On Fridays, in addition to the non-stress test, Shelley is having an ultrasound taken and a Dr. or NP visit. We are including a picture from the last ultrasound in this post.



OK, now we're going to post a picture of our Nursery the way it is now. Not a lot of changes have been made in the past month, but there are a few. Let's see if anyone can find any differences. We will post the picture we took a month ago first and then the one we took this morning:








We'll be sure to update this blog as much as we can during delivery. We'll post 1 or 2 baby pictures here, but most of them will be on our picasa web album. The link you can use to get to our baby album is blow:

Fletcher Baby

We've Got a Nursery!

Yeah, we've finished our nursery, for the most part. Robert put together the crib and the changing table today. They were donated to us from Shelley's sister, Ellen and one of her coworkers. Ellen and her husband, Rick donated a bunch of other stuff to us, including the dresser that we have in the nursery. We are very grateful for all the donations and gifts that we have received from everyone. We have been very blessed to have such great family and friends.

We are posting 5 pictures of our nursery. The first one is actually the east side of the room which we are using for storage. You may see that we have specifically set up the shelves there to allow us to put a gate up to keep the baby out of the storage.

The other 4 pictures show a full view, the crib, changing table, and rug respectively. Of course we will probably put more stuff in there, but it is pretty much complete now.







It's hard to believe that we only have a month and a half left now. We have been very lucky with the health of Shelley and Tiger. Tiger is the nick name we have given our baby now. We don't want to give him his real name until he is born.

Many people have asked if we have any names in mind. We have a few, but are not discussing them with anyone because we don't want anyone calling him by any specific name (except for Tiger, of course) in case we choose a different one. To dispel any rumors, the name Tiger will not be on his birth certificate. We really don't want him to be a golfer.

Fondue Recipes

Shelley had a good time at the baby shower last Saturday. She doesn't like to be the center of attention, but she did it for Tiger.

We had another ultrasound appointment today. Tiger was little too shy and wouldn't show his face, so we don't have any really good pictures. However, his weight is 5 lbs 11 oz which is pretty big for his age.

Shelley's sister, Ellen, gave us a couple of fondue recipes that many people have asked for. We have posted them here:


• If you don’t have a fondue pot, you can also use a double broiler placed over a pot of simmering water.



SPINACH & ARTICHOKE CHEESE FONDUE
1/2 c chicken broth
2 T lemon juice
2 T white cooking wine (optional)
1 – 2 t minced garlic
3 oz frozen chopped spinach, thaw rinse well & squeeze out water
3 oz chopped marinated artichoke hearts
8 oz mozzarella cheese blend – ex: romano, parmesan, fontina, asiago…
3 – 5 turns of black pepper
1 T butter

Put the broth, lemon juice cooking wine and garlic in your pot on medium heat until it stars to simmer. Add the spinach and artichoke and mix well. Add cheese a little at a time and mix until melted. Add the pepper and butter and mix until everything is well blended. To thicken, add more cheese. To thin, add more broth. Can be served with breads, crackers, corn chips, bagel chips, pita chips, pretzels, vegetables, apple slices, etc.


CHOCO-SCOTCH FONDUE
¼ c milk
6 oz butterscotch chips
6 oz semisweet chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 t vanilla

Mix milk and chips in your pot on low heat until melted. Add condensed milk and vanilla and mix. Can be served with fruit, marshmallows, cookies, pound cake, angel food cake, cheese cake, pretzels, etc.

Another Ultrasound Picture

OK, so we don't have as creative of a title on this post. We just started on our trip again to the edge of the earth and decided we needed to turn around.

No, we don't have any new pictures of our nursery. We want to wait for the rest of the furniture we are putting in before we take more pictures. We do have an ultrasound picture to post, so we'll go ahead and do that. This ultrasound was done on Tuesday, 1/27. Tiger was up to 3 lbs 8 oz by then



Shelley went to the Dr. today, but didn't have an ultrasound done. She will have another one done in 2 weeks, however. We'll post another picture then.

Robert has been very busy with Cub Scouts. He has been the Cub Master in our ward for a month now. He has been to a lot of training, including a Pow Wow, New Beginnings training, and Leader Specific training, all within a 7-day period. Robert has gone a few days now without having to think much about Cub Scouts and is starting to feel a little relief.

We will hopefully get the rest of the furniture for our nursery this week. We will post more pictures then