One Month to Go!

Lillian only has one month left to "cook"!  Our estimated due date is one month from today and we are READY.  We have been preparing for parenthood for a year and a half, so we have no excuse not to be ready!  With all the amazing hand-me-down clothes we receive from Lillian's cousins, Holden and Layla, she is going to be one well dressed little girl!  I've been able to share the wealth with a couple friends who are also expecting little girls. 
Her nursery is complete.  Holden and Everett help break it in, every time they come over, they take out their old toys and say "I have one just like this".  It doesn't seem to occur to them that mom has cleaned out their toy bins and sent their baby toys my way! 



Our friend Sarah gave Lillian the changing pad & cover with the cute monkey!  Coincidentally, our friend Amy gave her the cute basket with a matching monkey that fits nicely on the table next to it, holding all her diaper necessities!



Mike built these shelves for Lillian and I filled them up in no time!  The elephant on the left is a night light from Uncle Robert and Aunt Casey from Thailand!  The finger puppets are from grandma, the books are a conglomerate from several friends.  The L I L Y is from Leslie and fits the wall just right.  The "Lily, You are my Sunshine" is a handmade gift from Aunt Kim.  The elephant is a handmade drawing from Holden.  And the two white circles on the top shelf center stage, are Lillian's guardian angels, her twin brothers foot prints.



The safari animals are pictures from Mike and Aunt Cathy's trip to Africa 5 years ago, when they climbed Kilimanjaro.  We "babied" them up by adding whimsical safari animals to the mats.  The double bed is a reminder of how small our house is!  It won't fit down the stairs for the basement bedroom, so it stays.  Holden & Everett are sleeping over tonight, but I have a feeling Courtney will be using it alot this summer so Mike can get some sleep!



And finally, the glider where I will spend countless hours snuggling this little girl tight.  We draped Nanny Kay's hand stitched quilt on the back so it has a prominent position in the room! 



I'm 36 weeks pregnant and definitely slowing down!  Yard work is extremely difficult.  I try so hard to pull a few weeds here and there but have to take a break, the old lady garden kneeler pad helps a lot, but I still have to get up and move it from time to time.  So needless to say, Mike has ramped up his garden participation this season!  He planted lettuce, spinach, onions and carrots last weekend.  It'll be a few more weeks till we can safely plant other vegetables in Colorado. 

Our baby chicks are growing nicely, Mike will have the chicken coop complete by the end of this weekend.  And not a moment too soon - they're outgrowing their Rubbermaid tub in the shower!  Stay tuned - pictures of this handcrafted chicken coop will be coming soon!

Our New Arrival

No Lillian didn't come early, but we do have 3 new arrivals in the house!

    

Last weekend Mike and I drove to a farm north of Denver and picked up our long awaited baby chicks.  We ordered them back in February from an ad on Craigslist.  Mike's been teasing me about getting chickens and a goat to help keep us more self-sustainable for years now.  While the goat is still a little too much to contemplate, I agreed chickens wouldn't be that much much work (and more important they won't wreak havoc on my garden like a goat would!). 

Of course, the family had to come over and meet the chicks.  I wasn't sure how Holden and Everett would react but both warmed up to them right away!

As I took this picture of Everett, he spoke his first clear sentence any of us can remember.  He quite clearly said "She is so cute!".  The next morning as Kim drove him to school he cried the whole way saying, "Courtney's House!, "Courtney's House!".  I guess my chicks have won him over!

Most of our friends and family are really excited for us and hopeful that we'll share fresh eggs with them!  But there are a few naysayers in our lives who think getting chickens just weeks before our baby arrives is a little crazy.  I think a lot of this doubt is stemmed from people just not understanding what raising chickens is all about.  We've done our research, Mike is in the process of building a chicken coop right now.  The most important requirement is keeping them safe.  Chickens are easy prey to wild animals.  Our neighborhood is home to fox and raccoons, but, I'm more concerned about keeping Droste out! 

The chicks live in a Rubbermaid tote in our downstairs bathroom with a heat lamp on them 24 hours a day.  It won't be long till they're too big for that tote!  They've already doubled in size since last weekend when we brought them home!

March Madness

Yeah, I know it's April now and March Madness is over, but the title is still appropriate!  Before Rob and Andrew got lost in the woods (which seems like months ago not last weekend!).  Casey hosted the most wonderful baby shower for me and little Miss Lillian, with a March Madness theme of course! 

For those of you who don't know, my sister Casey, is the most wonderful chef! 

And my sister-in-law, Kim is the craftiest person I have ever met, she created all these awesome decorations!

 (check out some of her other creations and redecorating ideas on her blog  http://kim-toomuchtimeonmyhands.blogspot.com/ )

The two of them create masterpieces, magazine worthy.

Casey further incorporated the March Madness theme into the baby games by creating a bracket game of her own!  All guests signed up as they arrived, she paired us up and we raced to see who could gulp an ounce of water out of a baby bottle first.

I have the best girlfriends, and Lillian is so lucky have so much love and support already.

Mike and I are overwhelmed with STUFF!  Does one little girl really need so much?  We asked our friends to please keep it simple.  I requested hand-me-downs, consignment gifts and of course hand made gifts (which I treasure the most!).  My friend Kay made this hand made blanket...

It was the most talked about gift at the shower for sure!  She cross stitched the whole darn thing, depicting what she hopes Lily looks like (if she has straight brown hair we may have to give her a perm Kay said!).  I cannot even imagine the hours and love that was poured into making this blanket.  Kay embroidered her name in the bottom right corner, this blanket will be Lily's favorite for many years to come. 

Thank you Nanny Kay!

My mom also wowed everyone with her creativity.  She gave me three outfits that I wore as a baby along with a picture of me wearing each outfit.  Several of my friends who are mothers already looked at each other and said, "I would never have thought to keep things like that!".  How organized is she?

I can't wait to introduce Lily to this world!
Stay tuned for pictures of her nursery as I get it organized!