I recently sent them a few questions to see if they had any advice for expectant parents. Here is what they had to say:

1. So tell us about the Lannings.

We are high-school sweethearts, who have been through a lot in both our lives and relationship. We’ve just recently began opening up to the world through YouTube and sharing our experiences to help others.

2. You are at 37 weeks, so by now you’ve learned a few things about pregnancy. What is the #1 tip you could give to parents who are expecting their first child?

Cherish every single moment. Make every single moment a big deal. Make it a grand spectacle. It’ll give you something cool to look back on and will reinforce those memories.

3. Did you do anything special or creative to announce your pregnancy or the gender of your baby?

We actually announced the gender with a super cool video!

4. You’ve been through a few baby showers by now, so what is your best baby shower tip? What is your favorite event or game that anyone could add into their shower?

Keep it intimate and special. Don’t decorate with cheesy blue or pink. Decorate with your baby’s items, like their clothes, stuffed animals. It makes it so much more special. We did a video on our shower to:

5. What is the #1 pregnancy-related product you couldn’t live without?

Coconut oil! I rub it over everything at night. It’s amazing! (NO STRETCH MARKS!) and you can even cook with it!

6. Most of these questions seem to be geared more towards Missy, so we have to get Dad involved. Bryan, becoming a father is an exciting (and stressful) time. What is the #1 tip you would give to guys out there who are going to become a father for the first time?

Don’t worry so much about being a great dad. That will come with time. Worry about being a better husband, because you don’t see many good husbands become crappy dads.

7. What is your favorite food and drink during pregnancy? (Bryan, you can chime in here too.)

CHICKEN GNOCCI SOUP from Olive Garden is amazing. We both crave it. Bryan has sympathy cravings for it. lol. We actually have this phrase with our fans “Peace, love, and chicken gnocchi soup!”

8. Favorite book, tv show, and/or movie to enjoy while you’re expecting?

FRIENDS. It’s a classic. We watch it all the time.

9. Keeping up with a daily blog or vlog isn’t easy. How do you manage to keep up with the daily posts – particularly on days you just don’t feel up to it?

Honestly, daily vlogging is such a huge part of our lives, we don’t even notice it anymore. It’s instinct to pull the camera out and start filming. Bryan can now edit and upload the blog within an hour every night too. There are days we don’t feel like doing it sure, but once we pull out the camera, we start having fun and those feelings instantly go away.

10. This is a difficult question, but one that could be the most helpful to others who share your experience: You guys had 2 miscarriages before this pregnancy. What advice do you have for anyone who goes though such a difficult experience?

Have hope. Like I said before I’m writing to you from our hospital room where we just had our baby boy after 2 losses. Hope is so strong. I remember 7 weeks pregnant, my wife was bawling her eyes out cause she was so scared of what could happen, and now look where we are. If you’re grounded in hope, anything is possible. Understand that what you think could be impossible, is seriously within reach. We were a couple where every bad thing just kept coming, and we finally we were rewarded. Here is a link to the birth vlog.

So, this story does have a happy ending. Turns out that Bryan and Missy were writing the answers to their questions from the hospital. I guess its true what they say – third time’s the charm!

Congratulations to the Lannings and Baby Ollie! And thank you for sharing your story on the Belly Blog.

It might not be convenient to have a computer set up at your baby shower or gender reveal party for guests to join your baby pool online. Because of that, we’re excited to release our free printable game cards! (PDF)  They work just like our printable baby pool template, only they’re individual cards instead of one big spreadsheet. (I think that makes them easier to use at parties, not to mention cuter!)

There are four to a sheet of standard letter paper, so you can print as many copies as you need at home and simply cut along the dotted lines. Try placing the cards near your guest sign-in sheet next to a cute basket to drop them in, or pass them out when it’s time to play other shower games.

Guests can make their predictions about the baby’s gender, birth date and time, weight and length, and hair and eye color just like they would online. Then you just collect the cards and add their predictions to your pool later (more on how to do that in this post).

My own baby shower is coming up at the end of the month, and I’m excited to try these out. I think they’ll be handy for older guests who want to join my pool but aren’t computer-savvy (not to mention those busy friends who keep saying “Oh yeah, I need to do that!”).

If you use them for your shower or gender reveal party, let us know what you think! Just leave a comment here or send us an e-mail.

Download the printable baby shower guessing game cards.

Mollee and her husband, Matt, live in Midlothian, Virginia, and are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their first baby (a girl!) in May 2013. (Check out her baby pool here.) Although she helps pay the bills as a graphic designer, Mollee’s true passion is for making things with her hands. Find more of her recipes, paintings and crafts at molleemade.com.

She set up a baby pool on our website and we sent her a few questions to see if she’d share some of her secrets about pregnancy, motherhood, and maintaining her sanity as a busy working mom.

Jenn and Jayda

1. Who is the “Baby Makin Mama”?

I’m Jennifer, a fairly new mom figuring out my way in the world juggling a career, family, hobbies, and aspirations to be a domestic diva. Despite my name, I don’t make lots of babies, just two so far, but I chose that blog name years before getting pregnant the first time when I decided to write about my journey toward becoming a mother. It’s stuck through the years as I’ve switched my “machine” on and off.

2. You’re expecting your 2nd child on April 1, so you’ve been through all this before. For the rookies out there expecting their first, what is your #1 greatest tip?

Don’t sweat the small stuff. I know nothing seems small the first time around but this time, all those worries about what diapers and shampoo to use, to sleep train or not, home made vs store bought baby food… It wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought. Now my first baby is a little girl and all those things I worried about in the first 6 months or so seem so silly. This time around I’m just planning on not sleeping for a year or so, but enjoying all the fun little moments that go by too fast.

3. Gender reveal parties are all the rage now. Did you do anything special to announce the gender to the world?

I wish! The first time I used an app to make the ultrasound pic all girlie and texted it to family, then announced it on Facebook that way. This time the gender is a surprise so I’m trying to think of a fun way to tell family and friends who don’t come to the hospital. I’m thinking of doing a fun photoshoot when we get home, but who wants to wait that long to share? And chances are someone will spill the beans before I get around to it.

I did make two take-home outfits, one for a boy with suspenders, and a bow tie, and one for a girl with a ruffly bottom and bows. Maybe I’ll share a photo of baby in that outfit. It’s no cake but maybe it’ll be cute.

Handmade onesies by Jennifer

4. You have been through a few baby showers by now, so what is your best baby shower tip? What is your favorite event or game that anyone could add into their shower?

One game I like that’s fun for people who don’t even like games is making the gift opening a game of bingo. Have guests fill out blank bingo cards with what they think mama will get, and cross off their card as she opens gifts. When you get 5 in a row you get BINGO! Winner(s) get a little prize.

5. Most of these questions are geared towards mom, but we don’t want to leave dad out here. What is your husband’s #1 tip for new dads?

“Don’t expect to get any… Sleep.” <— He’s a man of few words.

6. My son is almost 3 and he is exactly what people call a “terrible two”. I hear that girls are a little easier at the toddler stage. Do you feel like that is true, and if your little one turns into a monster, how do you handle the situation?

I’ve always been a little scared of little boys. They seem so destructive and hyper. But when it comes to entertainment boys seem perfectly content playing with sticks. My little girl is definitely dramatic and emotional, at times it’s cute but other times I think she’s just the ultimate drama queen. I think they both have their moments. With her I just try to stay calm and communicate with her. Since she’s so emotional, she’s pretty in-tune with my feelings, so when I’m getting frustrated she usually asks me “mommy are you happy?” and it gives me a chance to tell her how I’m feeling and talk about what we can do so to make both of us feel better.

7. What is your favorite food and drink during pregnancy?

Lofthouse frosted sugar cookies, strawberry Poptarts (without icing), Sonic burgers, hot dogs and limeades. YUM!

8. Favorite book, tv show, and/or movie to enjoy while you are expecting? (If you even have time for these things!)

Last time I felt like I watched nothing but A Baby Story, I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant, and anything else baby related. This time I’ve watched none of that, but I’ve really been enjoying The Bachelor and Desperate Housewives.

9. A lot of people out there are starting blogs and some of them really want to turn it into a fulltime gig. What advice do you have for other bloggers out there?

When it comes to blogging for money, I’d try to be realistic with my expectations. Very few bloggers do very well. Take the time to build up a base and find your focus. I love blogging because it gives me a chance to write and share the things I love most, for fun. It’s also a great journal for myself, and for my children when they get older. It’s not all about them, but rather how I see things I’m going through. My future generations can look back and see what a goofball their great-great-great-great Grandma was. My advice would be to be true to yourself, set goals, and connect with people who are doing what you’d like to do. Reach out to them. A mentor is a great advocate to have. This goes for any aspiration.

10. Like most parents today you’re in super-overdrive: writing for your own blog (www.babymakingmachine.com), writing for BabyCenter, working the “real” job as a news anchor, and raising your daughter. How do you keep up with it all?

Yes, I work full-time as a reporter and anchor at a local news station, blog for fun, and as a freelancer, dabble in photography and videography, and chase around my sweet little girl–But of course she and my husband come first on the list in real life.

I keep up with it all by writing a lot of to-do lists, and tackling tasks as I feel like in the mood to complete them. I get a lot more done faster when I’m feeling inspired to do it, and I’m pretty good on a deadline. Sometimes I have to take a step back from my personal blog to get things done, or learn to say “no” when I really can’t take on an extra project. I’m not the best at balancing, but so far, I’ve been pretty good at juggling.

Thanks for sharing your story and great advice!

Now, on to the baby pool contest details:

Celebrating the arrival of Baby Borget #2 wouldn’t be complete without a baby guessing game. As part of their game, we want to toss in a prize to make it more fun for everyone. So we’re giving a $50 Visa Gift Card to whoever comes in #1 in the pool

The rules:

1. Guesses will be accepted until March 18, 2013, or until Jenn goes into labor – whichever happens first.
2. All are welcome to guess, but only residents of the continental United States are eligible for the prize.
3. Winners will be determined by the point system outlined here.
4. If the winner is someone who didn’t set up an account, they MUST have their email entered in the system so we can contact them via email. If we can’t reach the winner for this (or any other reason) we will go to the 2nd place winner and so on until we reach a winner. (So, sign up on the website and enter a valid email address to make sure we can reach you.)
5. Remember, guesses left in the comments on this page do NOT count towards the prize. You must sign up at whatsinmybelly.com and Join the official baby pool (click Join at the top right of the pool page.).

Click here to join in the Baby Makin’ Machine Baby Guessing Game!

Like free stuff?

After you enter Jenn’s baby pool, be sure to enter to win Burt’s Bees Belly Butter over here. (You have until Monday, Feb. 18, 2013 at 11PM EST on this one.)

Want to join other sweepstakes?

Check out sweepstakes advantage to join other online sweepstakes.

We’ve received quite a few e-mails from people asking how friends without e-mail or Facebook can participate in their baby guessing game. I find it hard to believe that people don’t have e-mail, but you never know. It’s also pretty common that people just don’t want to sign up on another website just to guess when your baby will be born. So, we finally got around to adding this feature to the website. Starting today,  pool administrators can now add predictions for their friends and family. You can still invite everyone to enter on their own, but for those who can’t (or for those who are just too lazy) just get their prediction and add it for them!

Add predictions to your baby pool without asking friends and family to sign up

You could print out our baby pool template and pass it around at your baby shower. No one needs to sign up, just collect the form and add the predictions to your pool through the Pool Settings tab.

Here’s how:

1. Login to your account and go to the pool you want to add predictions to.
2. Click the “Pool Settings” tab.
3. On the submenu, click the “Add Predictions” tab.
4. Click the purple button that says “Click here to enter a prediction for someone else!”
5. Enter their prediction info. (You must enter their first name, last name, gender prediction, relation to the baby, weight prediction, length prediction, hair color prediction and eye color prediction.)
6. Click save and you’ll be taken to the All Predictions page and see the new prediction.

You can add as many predictions as you want, just repeat the steps above for each new guess.

Keep Asking People to Sign-Up to Get the Full Experience

I’m sure there will always be people who don’t want to sign-up on another website. But, I also want to remind everyone that there are definite benefits to having an account on the website and entering your own predictions:

1. Get an email notification when the baby is born, so you can come back and see who won the baby pool.
2. Leave a personal note for the family and friends on the message stream.
3. Get updates on the pregnancy if the parents are posting messages to the pool.
4. If you have an account, you can keep a list of all the pools you participated in on the My Pools page.
5. A future update will allow everyone to change their predictions on their own (by sacrificing some points from their final score).

In other words, this feature will make it easier for everyone to participate, with or without email or Facebook, but you should still encourage people to sign up and enter their own predictions. It just makes it more fun!

Having Trouble?

We’ve tested this out and it’s working, but we have a small staff of 2 people, so it’s likely some things might not work properly. If you have trouble with this feature (or anything else on the website), please let us know: help@whatsinmybelly.com

Ok, so I’m a little way behind on this post, but it’s time to congratulate the winners of the Bower Baby Pool! As some of you may know, Katie Bower was nice enough to run an open baby pool here at WhatsInMyBelly.com and we offered up some prizes for the top 3 winners. (If you missed it, here is the original post about the whole deal.)

Well, we were shocked to see how many people jumped into the pool. Here is a breakdown of all the numbers:

Total Participants: 907
Total Guesses: 763

We’re not quite sure why people joined the pool, but didn’t submit a guess. If you were one of those people, leave a comment here and let us know. We already have some changes in the works for the game, and any comments we get help us fine tune it, so please share your opinions – good or bad!

So, Katie’s due date was originally November 5. As with many pregnancies, that day came and went and as she closed in on 2 weeks late, they went ahead and called in some magic to move things along. Weston Bower was born on November 18, showing all 763 of us that we are not very good at predicting the future. Maybe the 144 people who joined the pool, but didn’t submit their guess had it right? But, no one guessed the right day this time around (the last guess was November 15), but as always, there is still a winner due to our point system.

I also have to make a comment on the baby weight. Since Weston was brewing so long he arrived at a grand total of 10 pounds and 3 ounces! Most people did not guess that high, but there were a few who got it right: Karen Brown (11th) and Nicole Ruehlow (322nd).

To see the full list of guesses and see how everyone did, click here (you’ll need to log in to see the full scoreboard).

Now, on to the winners:

1st Place ($100 Visa Gift Card)
Holly McGee Austin (Monroe, NC)
499 points

2nd Place ($50 Visa Gift Card)
Laura Shilling (Battle Creek, MI)
422 points

3rd Place ($25 Visa Gift Card)
Ashley Davis (Pleasant Grove, UT)
406 points

Laura, if you’re reading this, email me! We need your mailing address to get your prize out! morgan@whatsinmybelly.com.

And we can’t play this game with out poking some fun at the person who came in dead last. Looking at the results the person who came in last was… Katie B. And I think that was Katie testing out the site and putting in something crazy so she didn’t win her own pool. So, the official dead-last winner is:

Last Place (Surprise coming your way!)
Massie Bailey (Buffalo Junction, VA)
30 points

I should probably add in a disclaimer here – I’m good friends with Massie. I have to call her out for not doing her research because she guessed it was a girl, when we already knew it was a boy! Good work, Massie! You will get a surprise in your mailbox soon!

Moving on…

First, I have to say, I love Katie Bower and her Bower Power Blog. Back in August, I was reading her blog and saw that she was expecting baby #2. So, I contacted her on Facebook and asked if she wanted to run a pool on WhatsInMyBelly.com for her readers. We offered to put up some prizes to make it a little more fun for everyone. Knowing how popular her blog was, I kind of expected her to either not respond at all or come back with a “sure… but what’s in it for me?” Instead, she responded and said she’d love to do it and was excited that her readers would have the chance to get some prizes.

Now, I expected this to be a little popular and drive some new visitors to our website (hopefully a few of which would be pregnant and start a pool of their own), but the response we’ve gotten has been well beyond our expectations.

We launched the first version of WhatsInMyBelly back in March and it’s now in version 2. The website was steadily growing as search engines began to pick it up, and other local media outlets like RichmondMom.com and Macaroni Kid Richmond began to mention us. We’re very thankful for any mention we get out there, but when Katie mentioned her baby pool at the end of this post, our traffic exploded immediately. So much so, that people trying to make a guess in her pool took the site down for about an hour until Daniel worked his magic and got things running again.

October has been a huge month for our website in general, but most of that is due to Katie’s baby pool, which now has 729 predictions. This surpasses my baby pool which held the lead at… 56 predictions (weak, I know). As you can see in the screenshot above, each time Katie mentioned her baby pool on our website, the traffic skyrocketed. Even after the mention we noticed about double the traffic we usually get on an single day.

So, to say the least, we love Katie Bower and her website, and we simply can’t do enough to thank her for running her baby pool on our website. 

There is Still A Little Time to Join the Bower Baby Pool

One of Katie Bower's Pregnancy photos. I took this from her blog, so click the photo to see her blog post with more photos.

Now I also have to mention, if you are reading this before midnight on Halloween, and you haven’t made a guess in her pool, we extended the original deadline to midnight on October 31, so head on over to her pool and make a prediction for your chance to win one of 3 Visa Gift Cards. When you’re done with that go bookmark her blog – it’s well worth the read.

Are You an Expectant Blogger?

So, with the huge success of the Bower Power Baby Pool, I think it goes without saying that we want to do this again. If you have a blog (don’t worry about how many readers you have) and you’re expecting, please e-mail me. We simply don’t have the cash to offer prizes for every pool out there, but if bloggers are using our website and linking to us, we’d like to thank you in some way. If anything, we can link back to your blog. So, get in touch with me and let me know if you have a website and you’re running a pool with us. Send me an e-mail: morgan@whatsinmybelly.com

One More Thing – Tell Us What You Want

This is a bit off topic for this blog post, but we are currently planning the next changes and upgrades to WhatsInMyBelly.com and we want to know what you, the users, would like to see improved on the website. If you have a second, please take this survey. The only required fields are the ones where you pick the new features you like the most, so it will literally only take you a few seconds to do it. Your answers will help us decide what to add to the website next.

When you create a baby pool on WhatsInMyBelly.com, you will automatically get automated e-mail notifications about your baby pool, and so will any participants in your pool. This has been a part of the website since day 1. We don’t mean this as spam, we just want users to be able to get some kind of notification when there is activity in their pool.

The default setting of these notifications were set to send all pool administrators and pool users an email if there was a new prediction or a new message in any pool they use.  You could also turn these notification on and off at any time under the “My Info” link after you login.

However, it quickly came to our attention that some people couldn’t find this setting (my fault for putting that setting under such a vague title – UI designers make mistakes too!) and if they were participants in a pool with a lot of predictions they were getting flooded with e-mails they didn’t want. We planned to tweak these e-mails to reduce the amount of notifications everyone received, but as of Monday, we still hadn’t gotten to it.

Well, Monday evening The Bower Power hit us. Katie Bower of bowerpowerblog.com started her baby pool, we offered up a little prize money, and within a few hours we realized we had a bit of a problem on our hands. Baby Bower #2 pool had over 60 predictions in just a few hours. [As I'm editing this post to go live, it's pushing 300!] Apparently the combination of a super popular blog and a little prize equaled a lot of sudden traffic on our site.

We expected a fair amount of traffic but never expected the surge that came immediately after Katie’s blog post went up. Needless to say, Daniel and I went to work around 9:00 Monday night to try and tweak the e-mail notifications and hopefully avoid flooding inboxes with unwanted e-mails. Daniel immediately halted outgoing notifications and instead queued them while we worked

We decided to combine all the individual notifications into one daily notification e-mail that would summarize all the activity in a user’s pools. So, instead of getting tons of separate e-mails, the most you would receive is 1 e-mail per day, if there was activity to announce.

Here is the way the previous notifications looked:

WhatsInMyBelly.com old email notifications

Unless the user turned off notifications, they would get one of these e-mails for every message or prediction in any of their pools. Too many e-mails were going out and I’m sure quite a few people out there were a little frustrated. (In our defense, if anyone actually read the details at the bottom of the email, it did tell you how to turn off the notifications.)

Anyway, so by about midnight Monday night we had a new e-mail notification system in place. We think this will make everyone much happier. From now on, if there is activity in any of your pools you will get no more than 1 email per day with a summary of all activity. You can still cut off these notifications if you prefer (login to your account and click “My Info”)

Here is a sample of the new email activity notifications:

WhatsInMyBelly NEW email notifications

So, for now, we think we have a better e-mail notification system but I’m sure we will have to make plenty more changes in the future.

The Trouble with Popular Friends

Ok, so calling the Bowers “friends” is a bit of a stretch… and by “stretch” I mean they probably read that and now consider me a stalker. I don’t personally know them, but like many of their readers, I consider them friends, particularly after what has happened in the past 24 hours. As I stated before, Katie started her baby pool on the website Monday night and mentioned it on her blog. Today, as people continued to make guesses for Katie and Jeremy’s baby, their traffic combined with a few other sources of traffic, and started to slow WhatsInMyBelly.com down. At one point on Tuesday morning, it wasn’t loading at all. Luckily, Daniel made some changes and had things running smoothly again within an hour.

Monday night was a late night, and Tuesday kept us on our toes, but we’re thrilled with the response everyone has had to The Bowers Baby pool. We can’t wait to see photos of the baby, and see who comes out the winner in the largest pool we’ve ever hosted.

Thank You, Thank You

A sincere thank you to ALL our website users. Thank you for using the website and thank you for being patient while we continue to improve how it works. And, of course, a huge thank you to Katie, Jeremy, Will and Baby Bower #2!!

As you all know, this website is completely free for anyone in the world to use. We’ve spent a ton of time building it and tweaking it, and hope to make it even better. However, if we can’t successfully build up enough traffic to attract a few sponsors and advertisers, eventually this little side project will have to give way to “real” work. As someone who has been a freelance web designer for over 10 years, I’d love nothing more than to work full time on this website and other self-initiated projects. (Don’t get me wrong, I love client work, and I’m eternally grateful for every bit of work I’ve ever received  but after 10 years of bringing other peoples’ ideas to life, I’ve really enjoyed making my own idea into a reality for once.) We’re still a LONG ways from making that a reality, but what we saw yesterday does give me some hope that maybe something could come of this little project.

Thank you all for keeping my little dream a reality … at least a bit longer.

[And one more note: If you have any feedback at all - positive or negative - please e-mail me at info@whatsinmybelly.com or just leave a comment on this or any blog post. I read all comments and appreciate all feedback. We want to make this website the best it can be.]

On top of running their blog, raising their son Will, and being a professional photographer, Katie is expecting baby #2 in early November. We thought this would be  the perfect opportunity to start our Expectant Parents Spotlight. At WhatsInMyBelly.com, we want to feature Expectant Parents who are taking advantage of every day and doing great things – all while growing their family. If you or someone you know would be a good Featured Expectant Parent, shoot me an email – info@whatsinmybelly.com.

As part of our first featured parents, we asked The Bowers a few questions about pregnancy, parenting and life in general. Here is what they said:

1. So, tell us about the Bowers. Who are you guys in a nutshell?

We are just average run-of-the-mill folks that are like everyone else out there – working hard and playing hard   We actually met on a blind date and it was the perfect unexpected beginning to a life full of surprises.  I think if you had to describe us to perfect strangers, I would say that Jeremy works in sales and I am a stay-at-home mom who plays photographer who also blogs…we both have amazing families and hope to teach our kids to love God, their country, their family and others.  And 80′s music

2. You already have one son, Will, so you have been through pregnancy and early parenthood. What is the #1 best tip you could give to parents who are expecting their first child?

“This too shall pass.”  It works both ways – the bad stuff (like the sleep deprivation, the morning sickness, the cholic) eventually it will pass.  But so will the good stuff – the sleepy baby bubbles, the slow crawling, the fat rolls on fat rolls…it all flies by so it’s just the perfect advise to cherish each moment.

3. Did you do anything special or creative to announce pregnancy 1 and 2?

I told Jeremy about our first with a slideshow. We surprised Jeremy’s dad & stepmom with a couple Gramps & Grammy t-shirts.  I videotaped our #2 announcement just so I could remember his face.  We tried for a longer time with our second so it was definitely more exciting. [Katie announced her pregnancy on her blog in a this heart-felt video. And more about their pregnancy announcements here.]

4. You have been through a few baby showers by now, so what is your best baby shower tip? What is your favorite event or game that anyone could add into their shower?

Best baby shower tip?  Probably to not register for a single toy.  Toys will inevitably become part of your house…and they are cheap.  Diapers on the other hand…notsomuch.

As for my favorite baby shower event – I love the idea of birthday cards.  Each person gets a blank notecard and draws a number between 1-18.  They then write a note for the baby to open on that birthday.  It’s such a special thing to see what family & friends were wishing you before you were even born.

5. Most of these questions seem to be geared more towards Katie, so we have to get Dad involved here. Jeremy, becoming a father is an exciting (and stressful) time. What is the #1 tip you would give to guys out there who are going to become a father for the first time?

Be willing to help without being asked.  Do things you wouldn’t normally do, just to help out around the house.  If you have an older child, be aware that you might need to spend a lot more time at first caring for them when the newborn arrives.  Arrange for help for your wife if she normally does cleaning, cooking and laundry.  And frequently remind her that she is beautiful and that she is doing a great job.

6. My son is 2 1/2 and like everyone says about 2 year-olds, he has his “Terrible 2″ moments. So, I have to ask all parents this: What is your favorite way to get your toddler to burn off some energy? And, when he does act out, how do you handle it?

We love cousin time, play dates and swimming at Nana’s house to burn off energy!  And Will lives up to his name – he is very willful.  So when he acts out, internally we question everything we know about discipline and want to curl up in the fetal position and quit….but we know that he responds best to consistency and firm boundaries.  That means that time outs happen in the Lowe’s plumbing aisle, Lightening McQueen is a very very special treat and Jer and I have daily talks about what we did right, did wrong and how we can improve.

7. What is your favorite food and drink during pregnancy? (Jeremy, you can chime in here too.)

Katie

First pregnancy: soft jumbo pretzels & hot vanilla chamomile tea.  This pregnancy: cold green grapes, donuts & chocolate milk.

Jeremy

Pizza & Dr. Pepper

8. Favorite book, tv show, and/or movie to enjoy while you are expecting? (If you even have time for these things!)

We watched everything with our first pregnancy…we had time.  Now?  Does Jungle Book 2 count?

9. Ok, last question. One look at the Bower Power Blog, and you guys seem like Super Parents. (Seriously, are there really only 2 of you?) You are running your blog, taking photographs, working on your house, raising one child while expecting another, and I am guessing there is even more going on. How do you do it???

We don’t.  A lot of stuff gets pushed to the back burner.  We prioritize family time and project time above personal activity time, date nights and cleaning the house.  And sleep doesn’t happen a whole lot either.  Our parents are extremely hardworking and they set amazing examples of how to put in sweat equity and invest in family.  From the outside, it may look like we are Super Parents but in reality, we are only super at two things - keeping our head barely above water and loving our boy

Great answers and great advice! I don’t know about you, but I find the Bowers very inspirational.

Now, on to the baby pool contest details:

Celebrating the arrival of Baby Bower #2 wouldn’t be complete without a baby pool. As part of this pool, we’re tossing in some prize money! This pool is open to anyone, so go make your prediction!  (Sorry, prizes will only be sent to those in the continental United States):

• 1st place (highest total points): $100 Visa Gift Card
• 2nd place: $50 Visa Gift Card
• 3rd place: $25 Visa Gift Card
• Last place (lowest total points): Surprise Gift Bag

The rules:

1. Guesses will be accepted through October 29, 2012 October 31, 2012 or until Katie goes into labor – whichever happens first.
2. All are welcome to take a guess, but only residents of the continental United States are eligible for prizes.
3. Winners will be determined by the point system outlined here.

Click here to join in the Bower Power Baby #2 Pool!

Provide for the Baby’s Future Education

If you’re putting some real cash into the baby pool, why not split the pot with the baby? I have good friends expecting a baby, so I secretly started a baby pool for them. Everyone who is participating is asked to chip in at least $10. The winner of the pool takes half the pot and the other half will go into a savings bond in the baby’s name, or it will go to the parents to start out their Virginia 529 plan for the baby’s school savings. What better way to start saving for college?

Make it Part of the Baby Shower

With WhatsInMyBelly.com, it’s easy to integrate your baby pool into the baby shower. After you create your pool, look under the Share tab of your pool page, then click on Share on Paper, and you’ll find an option to print out cards to hand out to your guests at the party. Or, simply pass around a laptop or iPad and let people join your pool on the spot. It’s a fun way to keep involved through the birth of your new addition.

Add Fun “Thank You” Prizes

When you’re expecting a baby, many expecting parents get tons of gifts at multiple baby showers. How do you say “Thank you” to all your friends and family for the outpouring of love? You’d go broke trying to buy everyone a nice gift, so why not make a game of the thanks? For everyone who attends your baby shower, give them a pick in your pool, and offer up one nice gift to the winner. Prizes that everyone loves could be as simple as a restaurant gift card. Be creative and have fun with it. With out first child’s baby pool we made buttons reading “I am the Baby Whisperer” to the top 3 participants. With our second child we gave the person who finished last in the pool a gag gift. I guess we’d call him “The Baby Screamer?” (That one goes out to Sherry.)