Holiday weekend and reading to baby

For the Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, my mom and stepdad came for the weekend! They wanted some projects to tackle and to just spend some time with us. They also brought several items for the baby from NC, including a rocking chair that I was rocked in as a baby, a bassinet we are borrowing, and boxes of baby clothes for us and Jason's sister to use from my sister, Suzanne. Since Christmas, decorating has started as well. My mom brought some decorations that she is working on for the walls. Jason and I have found some furniture for baby girl's room the week before, so putting her room together has started! After getting that crib together, I am glad that I didn't have to do it by myself with Jason monitoring me-it would have taken such a long time and would have been so frustrating for him. These things should be fun NOT STRESSFUL! Along with pictures of getting her room started, Jason and I also got the opportunity to pose for "baby bump" pictures. We haven't taken any yet, so these are 2 sets of pictures we will be so glad that we have and took in the future! (Some are posted below) Dale and I got to go run some errands, he stabilized a shelf in our laundry room, and Mama cooked me my favorite meal. It was a good relaxing weekend chatting about nearly all things BABY.

Dale and the dresser

Starting to put together the crib

Don't most first-timers

That red futon

We've been working on this for a while, but being the social media world just found out, we want to share something that Daddy plans to be in charge of! I'll preface this with saying that Jason doesn't speak with his voicebox anymore. When we collapse the cuff, there is audible sound, but not enough to make words. We have researched a way that he can "read" books. This has got to be one of a child's favorite things to do, and we are excited to have found a variety of ways for Daddy to do this every day. We plan to get people that give us books to record themselves reading those books using 2 types of devices:

Recode: turn any book into an audio book

USB Drive Voice Recorder

The recode would be when the child can turn her own pages, or I can sit nearby and turn the pages as it reads. The USB drive will fit directly into Jason's eye gaze computer and he can tell it to play with his eyes. We have other options as well. I can record my voice with one of these recorders. I can also type books into a Notebook program on Jason's eye gaze computer and the software will read what I type. Jason can stop and start the reading.

If anyone has any ideas, please send them! We have asked doctor's and a social worker for ideas, as this is not uncharted territory, but they tend to give very general things instead of specific ideas. When I write "general," I mean ways that we should act or not to hide illness. We have not gotten them to be specific, like this idea that we thought of.