so in love

We are so so in love with the newest member of our family.

Gavin Russell

Monday, November 28 at 7:39am

7lbs. 4 oz and 20 inches long

We have never seen so much pride and love on the faces of these two...



 He is such a perfect little baby.  We've barely heard a peep out of him.

With c-sections our hospital stay is longer - but we are loving this time that we get to spend with just him, getting to know him and cuddling him as much as we can before we go home and have to share him with 2 other people who are very much in love with him too.

39 weeks and 2 days

We are so excited to meet our new little blessing...

(pictures by Andrea Siebert Photography)

 (Thanksgiving Day marked 39 weeks, but this picture is from 37 weeks, sorry I haven't taken a more recent one)

We have TRULY enjoyed the excitement this little baby has brought to our house,

before it's even born.

Taylor was only 16 months old when we brought Mason home - she pretty much didn't have a clue what was going on and didn't seem to care too much.

This time, it is so fun having kids old enough to

count down the days,

to give us name suggestions,

to ask constantly after each of our friends have had their baby "is it our turn yet?",

to cuddle against my tummy every morning wondering if the baby is awake yet,

to sing "Jesus Loves Me" and "Twinkle Twinkle" in sweet little voices by my tummy,

to be THRILLED to be told they get to be the first ones in the room to see the baby.

For fun, leave us your guesses - boy/girl and name!

(especially since we haven't decided on a boy name yet - maybe your suggestions will help us!)

thanksgiving day

Our Thanksgiving Day has been a bit different than ever before.

It's the first year ever that we haven't been with other family eating a big feast.

Instead, we'll be with Dave's family tomorrow, and my family the rest of the weekend before this baby comes.

So, today we did something new...

 Our first ever fresh cut Christmas tree!

 We'll see if this tree lasts till Christmas.  Last year we wanted to throw ours out before Christmas even got here.  And then we did end up putting it on the curb Christmas afternoon while the kids were napping.

And this evening , Papa and Nana are joing us for a tradition we started last year, our own family THANKS dinner...

mixed match dinnerware

napkins and placemats from the garage sale bin

a center piece made by the kids and Nana

but nevertheless - FANCY and memorable

and set up to surprise the kids when they wake up from nap.



Last year I went pretty fancy on the food too - some yummy steak and potatoes from Pioneer Woman cookbook.

This year we almost did prime rib, then we realized it was $50 for a rib roast.

So we got a brisket out of the freezer instead.  Cheesy potatoes, rolls, salad and pie.

I love this tradition.  I don't think it will matter if we have fancy food or just spaghetti - I hope this will always be a tradition for our family!

So today we are thankful for this sweet time together, as a family of 4.

Before we become 5.

our family

 These pictures will be outdated VERY soon, so I figured I should share them now.

I drug and drug my feet for months about whether to get family pictures taken.

I've never been that into having my picture taken when I'm pregnant, but I also kept thinking that I would maybe regret not capturing this season of our life in pictures.

And then I was super nervous about waiting till I was 38 weeks to do them.

So hoping I didn't look like the rhino that a lady back in July predicted I'd look like by the end. 

I was so thankful that Andrea could get us in for a family session.

She did such an amazing job!

 (Dave had no clue what he was suppossed to be doing with his hands, we kept telling him to make a heart. I kind of laughed when i saw this one, but it's still cute!)

I am so thankful for these pictures, and can't believe we will be a family of 5 so very soon!

pinterest

If you don't know about Pinterest - that could be a good thing or a bad thing.

When I first started Pinterest I spent more time on it, but it's slowed down a bit.  I check it when I'm bored, sitting in front of the tv while my hubby watches House Hunters or other random shows on Discovery or History channel.

But I what I like the most about Pinterest is actually DOING some of the things I've pinned.

Even just simple ones.

Like creating a snack shelf with preportioned snacks that the kids can grab on their own.

I did one in the cupboard and made one of the bins in the fridge into a snack bin for them too.

It doesn't look all organized and nice - but it is, really.  And besides, what's the point - it's for the kids, it wouldn't stay that way anyway.

 Pretty sure this is going to be a great thing once this baby comes.  Sometimes Mason gets the unhappiest when I'm not able to get him a snack when he wants it.

 On my to-do list before the baby was to reorganize my office and get rid of lots of stuff.

I pinned this on pinterest (it's really for a sewing room), but I thought it would be great in my office as a work table.

Mine is definitely not as pretty with all the fabric, but it is so great for all my business stuff, and some of the kids' craft stuff too.

I've added more bins since this picture.

 The hour or so after naps and before dinner can sometimes be the toughest part of our day.  The kids tend to need something more creative to do.  So one evening while I cooked, I quickly showed Dave this picture I had pinned...

 So Dave created his version of it, and it definitely kept our little guy's attention.

I ran across this idea for Taylor's birthday party...

But decided to make it non-seasonal so it could be used anytime.

And my favorite pinterest project so far is inspired by these frames...

You can purchase them at Organic Bloom or Orange Blossom on Etsy  - but I really didn't want to spend that much on a frame.  So my hubby attempted to come up with something for me after pinning this on Pinterest.

I made my pattern by only drawing 1/4 of the design and then folding and cutting so it was symmetrical, and then traced it on the wood.  I tried to keep the shape pretty simple to make Dave's job easier, I wasn't really sure what he could and couldn't do with that saw.

 Dave did the cutting and sanding, and then I added paint.

(sorry for the awful lighting)

This frame is going in the nursery, possibly over the crib.

I just need the perfect picture for it.

I think our next project is going to be something else for the nursery -

Book shelves made from gutters.

You can check out my Pinterest boards here. 

Happy pinning!

counting down the days

Man, I guess I've been busy around here lately.
We are counting down the days till Baby Balzer.
And I don't have anything to post other than some randomness,
so here you go...

I have been in need of a new phone for months.

So the search was on, well actually the REsearch was on...

Droid Bionic (which is 4g and Newton is suppossed to get gettign 4g in the next few months), or the Iphone 4s.

I realized quickly I couldn't really ask opinions from others - I had to do the research myself.
I either was talking to an Apple lover that would never consider another product, or I was talking to someone who tried everything they could to never buy anything Apple.  It was kind of frustrating. I just wanted to know what phone was BEST! 
Even going into the store and asking questions didn't get me very far - I could tell very quickly that the sales rep had a strong dislike for one over the other.  When all I wanted was facts.
In the end - it really came to a draw for me (and in lots of articles as well) as far as quality of the phone, comparing specifics, etc.
Where one phone beat in one area, another beat in another.
Both have the awesome pixel camera and HD video that I'm super excited about!  Especially when I don't have my big heavy camera with me.
I came to the conclusion that either pick I'd be happy with.
So I made my final decision on price - the Iphone was quite a bit cheaper

So my first day with an Iphone was nothing like in my dreams.
I mean, from what I heard from others, this thing would rock my world and leave me to desire no other phone.
Instead, it spazzed out while we were still in the store buying it.  Then continued to be pretty crazy all night.
Day 2 - started working better so I began to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Ooops.  Completely froze, turned off and on by itself randomly over the course of several hours and then never came back on again.

Phone calls to Verizon, to Apple, visits into our local Verizon dealer (not Verizon store I'm told!),

total frustration, everyone telling me different things.
In the end a Verizon advisor with Apple told me I needed to walk into my local store and demand them to give me a new phone and that I couldn't be nice about it.
Well, let's just say I didn't get a new phone that day.  Maybe I should have taken my hubby.
But hopefully we finally got somewhere and I'll get a new one next week.
Then I'll really let you know what it's like in the Apple World.

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Today is my last day with anything big on my calendar - YAY!
Now it's just some cleaning and organizing and getting ready for baby - 2 weeks to go!

I have been feeling really great lately - not even close to miserable.
And then I got sick - dumb sinus infection

Now I'm pretty miserable, and mad too. And scared of getting bronchitis again.  Not how I wanted to spend my last 2 weeks before this baby.

I'm hoping it goes away fast!

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Baby Balzer still doesn't have a name.

We had one girl name pretty settled on - and then we added a 2nd out of no where.
And our boy list really hasn't progressed any.
I'm thinking at this point I'm going to have to just write it in on the calendar and make sure we sit down and do this!
My sister, who is having a girl in Feb., freaked out about us choosing their name, so she had to give us the first initial of their girl name so we could make sure it wasn't the same.
We're safe - I think.

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Speaking of my sis.  I got an early Christmas present for her.
A new diaper bag!

I picked out this one  from JJ Cole - doesn't it look yellow and gray to you?
It's not.  It's orange.
I still love it - but when you open it up expecting one color and get a total different color, it's kind of shocking.  I could exchange for one with red and gray instead, but I think I'm lazy and I like it enough to keep it.

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I've been a little worried lately I'm going to forget what to do with a newborn.
I've been told it will all come back.
But oh man, it feels like it's been forever.  Hard to believe almost 4 years.
I can't wait though!  We are so excited to meet our little one, to find out if it will be a boy or a girl, and to see Taylor and Mason with their new sibling!

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Through some of our big organization projects over the last few months, my office got a new look, and our spare room in the basement where we keep a bed for our visitors and lots of junk did too.  I organized my sewing stuff and made a place to have my sewing machine out all the time.  I surprisinggly have been down there quite a bit!  In fact I finished making burp rags that I bought fabric and cloth for 3 years ago and never actually did. I made myself use all that fabric before moving on to my new stuff I just ordered.
Here's just some of what I've done...

 lots of burp clothes, and some receiving blankets...these were some of my favorite gifts to get with Taylor and Mason!

I decided with all these new babies all around me, plus a handful of others that are far away, it will be nice to have some gifts on hand.

I did a crib skirt too - but I'll hopefully post some pictures of the nursery (the little that is done), soon.

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I'm almost completely done with Christmas shopping!  It's been on my list of things to do and I've been slowly knocking things off.  Mostly online.  I even think I got the kids' stocking stuffers done!

And then I remembered I needed another stocking.

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It's crazy how back and forth the pregnant comments have been lately.

In the same week, I heard "you're due THIS month, wow, you're not big at all"

and I heard

"oh honey, you STILL have 2 weeks to go, I feel so bad for you, are you sure you're not having twins?"

Maybe it's a matter how how often these people get out.

But it's definitely confusing to me.

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Okay, I'll stop there.

There's good chances you haven't made it this far.

I think I'll have some fun pinterest projects to post coming up soon.

And hopefully some of the nursery.



halloween 2011

Halloween started off with a little fall program at Taylor's PreK.  They got to wear costumes and sing a handful of songs for the moms and dads.  She told me later she was embarrassed during the program because we were there.  But she decided we could still come back to the next one.

 We went super simple on costumes this year.  As in, I had them pick something from the dress up baskets, and we didn't get things out and actually finalize much till the night before.

Taylor was going to be a princess (go figure), until Nana came home with this poodle skirt outfit from a garage sale.

 I had a feeling this little guy was going to be disagreeable when it came time to put the costume on.

I was right.  He went back and forth all day saying he was and wasn't going to wear his knight costume.

Luckily, in the end, we got it on and out the door.

 Our friends hostessed a Trunk or Treat, so we met lots of friends there. It was way better than having to walk door to door, and so fun getting to see lots of our friends' kiddos.

 Nothing like spinning kids like crazy after they've consumed lots of candy already.

I was just waiting for someone to puke.

After an hour of trunk or treat and our 3 family/friend stops that usually takes 1-2 hours in themselves, we were done. 

Now to make all this candy disappear quickly, with no memories of it left behind.