Baby Kaylee

Well it has been a few months since we posted and while we havent done anything to the house...a lot has happened. As you probably know baby Kaylee arrived August 22, 2011 at 3:51pm. She weighed 7lbs 2.6ounces and measued 19.5 inches long. We are all doing great and enjoying our new adition.

Cindy a dear family friend came over last weekend and helped us take some adorable pictures of Kaylee at 2.5 weeks old. Enjoy.

More Beautiful Baby Stuff & A Fence!

Belly Bump photos to come next week and I will try to upload a few sonogram photos too! Kaylee is growning great and in the 45-50% growth, which is just perfect. She is just over 4 lbs. and we have just under 6 weeks to go till we meet her. Last Wednesday, we got a great sonogram shot of Kaylee's right hand...all 5 fingers and sure enough, she already has daddy wrapped around her litle pinky! Evidence by the sonogram. :)

Now, lets talk about the fence. If you've seen our past posts you've seen the jungle that was our backyard. Last summer we had our pool completely emptied, cleaned, replastered, retiled and filled. The pool was beautiful, but the whole pool area still seemed dirty to me. Now I know exactly why. The previous owners hadn't replaced the fence in 35 years and it was rotten, had the old pointed style top, and was dirty, ugly and falling down. In preparation for the new fence we cut down a lot of the overgrown brush and bushes which helped clear up that area, but the real difference was putting a nice, new, clean fence up. The transformation is amazing. The new fence is an 8 ft cedar fence which gives us and our neighbors privacy, but without the overgrown jungle look. See below.




Now that the fence is finished, Bryan and my Dad can begin construction on our final project for awhile. The deck. Our goal, once the fence was replaced was to replace the rotten deck leading down to the pool and extend it around the concrete decking of the pool to give us more seating, and more usable space around the lower section of the yard/pool area. The pictures below are of the stairs and old decking to be replaced and extended, then the lower portion where our pool equipment is will be decked and the pool equipment will be covered, and the final picture shows the drop off behind the pool that will be coverd with deck level with the pool decking.




And then back to baby...my favorite topic right now. We had the most beautiful baby shower in Austin, thrown by my very dear friend Misti. So many of our friends and family were able to come and we were showered with wonderful gifts for Kaylee. She will undoubtedly be the best dressed lady in town for years to come! I was also amazed and impressed with the talents of my friends and family. They made some of the most beautiful blankets, booties, hats and other items for us and Kaylee and I want to show them off!
This is a hand crocheted pink blanket that Bryan's mom made for Kaylee. Beautiful details and so soft.


Norma also made this adorable pink hat with flower trim and buttons and two pairs of booties for Kaylee! Just adorable!

This is a bath set made by my mom's best friend and dear friend of our family, Rosellyn. It is 2 washcloths, a hooded towel, and a robe. It was all made with the same fabric as the nursery is decorated in. So adorable.

Rosellyn also made this great smaller blanket out of the flannel fabric matcing the nursery. It is perfect for traveling and using in the car! So talented.

Rosellyn also made this super cute shopping cart cover. It is purple with a rainbow/polka dot inside. It has two pockets and several straps to attach toys for Kaylee to play with while mom and dad are busy shopping for groceries!

My good childhood friend Marie made this travel bag for us. She said it is perfect for the park and beach. It is handmade out of plastic grocery bags and newspaper bags so it is waterproof and sturdy. She said she uses it all the time around sand as it is easy to shake out and clean. What a great idea and so creative.

Chrissy, one of my best friends from high school made this adorable diaper cake filled with goodies for Kaylee.

She also sewed this beautiful pink, green and cream quilt. It is amazing and matches the pack and play colors perfectly. I had no idea she knew how to sew. And so beautifully.

This is another handmade quilt made by our dear friend and fellow Texas Longhorn, Terry. She made it with jungle animals to match our nursery and it is beautiful.
And while this isn't homemade, I do love it. Misti and her family gave us this. It is our pack and play for downstairs with a built in bassinette and changing table so we don't always have to go upstairs to change Kaylee or put her down for a nap. It is so cute and such a nice gift.

Baby Bump Photos and Nursury Pics

Well, I updated you all with nursery pics a few weeks ago and we have continued to work on it. Actually, at this point Norma, Bryan's mom, has continued to work on it and I have tried to help a little without getting in the way! :) She has been a Norma has made 3 fitted sheets for the crib, 1 fitted sheet for the bassinet, and a bed skirt for the crib! All with our cute little animal print! It is so adorable and she has done a wonderful job. Norma, her husband Bob, and Bryan's sister Rebecca also gave us our crib mattress so we could start putting all these sheets on it and show them off! Thank you so much...the crib looks so complete! We have one more blanket my mom is working on that is a little thicker, but in the animal print as well and then all the bedding is done! Yeah! Check out these adorable pics!





So I have some sad news. Bryan and I have been taking pictures of our little baby bump from the very begining and a few weeks ago our computer crashed. I had uploaded all of our pics to the wrong hard drive and we lost them all. I have no belly pictures from before 20 weeks now! :( Very sad. I thought I would go ahead and upload the ones from 20 weeks, 24 weeks and 30 weeks! That is really when the baby bump started growing by leaps and bounds anyway! :)




And finally...you would think we would have put the house projects on hold, but oh no...we have to finish a few more things before the baby comes! Bryan and I went out of town for his nephews graduation a few weeks ago and Mom and Dad surprised us by painting the main hallway around the staircase and the upstairs hallway a beautiful tan color I had picked out. I had no idea they were doing this until we got home and found it! They did a beautiful job and the hallway is so warm now. Plus our pictures look great hanging on the wall now that it has a fresh coat of paint. They also took all the bedroom doors down upstairs except the master and painted them as well. No more yucky brown doors! Thank you so much Mom and Dad! Check it out...





But wait...there is still more...
One of the big projects we wanted to do this summer was redo some of the backyard fence so we could finish fencing off the pool (safety reasons...keep little Kaylee from being able to just get down to the pool area) and also redo the stairs and decking down to the pool. (Also partially for safety reasons and also for looks...the old stairs and the jungle down there were not a pretty sight and they were a breeding ground for bugs! Yuck. We are having the fence done this next week. They are doing an 8ft cedar fence all the way around, which will be beautiful and help with some of the privacy. Then when they finish the fence, Bryan and my Dad can finish the pool fence and the deck/stairs around the pool. It will be so nice and much safer for all of us. I can't wait to see it! Here are some before pics. The first is what it looked like when we bought the house and the rest are since they have cleared things out for the fence and deck.

The Nursery

Well, we have been working on two more big projects...the nursery and the fence around the pool. First we will talk about the nursery...do you know how much fun it is to decorate for a baby! So much fun. Well before we could start decorating we had some work to do. When we first moved in I scraped all the wallpaper off the walls in this room, but that left one wall untextured. Also the ceiling still had popcorn texture. So our first order of business was to scrape the ceiling. My dad did a great job getting all the yucky popcorn down and then he and Bryan retextured the whole room (all walls and ceiling). Then on to the paint. We did some neutral colors that matched the fabrics we had picked for the room. My mom was helping paint since I am not supposed to be around the paint fumes. She ended up painting the top half of the room 3 times because Home Depot screwed up the color. We caught it before she started the bottom half. Then we added the cutest border. It is actually a fabric border...the same fabric line that we used for the linens and curtains and for the bassinette. Cute little jungle babies. Then I stained some wood border pieces to go above and below the fabric. It looks adorable. Then we moved in the baby furniture and emptied the non baby stuff out of the closet to make room for baby Kaylee. We will be leaving the bed in the room for now as we have no where else to put it. My mom, Bryan's mom and I are busy finishing sewing the bedding and a few other things for the room. It is really coming together though.

Some before pictures...




Working on the room...




And now...ready for baby Kaylee...





Second big project, which is really the boys project is to put a fence up around the pool. We tore down all the bushes and trees that were surrounding the pool and dropping crap in it, plus they were cracking and ruining the retaining wall around the pool so they had to go. Then we found out about the baby... So a fence must be up to keep kids and babies from crawing into the pool area. So Bryan and my dad have installed a 4 ft fence around the pool that still allows you to see the pool and see through the fence, but no kids or babies can fit through. A nice piece of mind.

Before pics...




And now...



Next projects...new blown in insulation in the attic and finally starting the deck and stairs down to the pool.