More Lovely Gifts to Share!

Here are a few more gifts I wanted to share!
Bath time!!!













It's hard to tell in this picture but this blanket from Aunt Kate has Leona's name embroidered on it!













Nanda brought these from Brazil, the t-shirt says "my mom and I have something in common, we both love the same man." :)

















Here are two beautiful baby blankets! The elephant blankie is from Glenn & Garry, it matches our little animal theme! The beautiful quilt on the left was handmade by the talented Gertie! Check out her blog post about making the blanket HERE! Leona is such a lucky girl. Thanks everyone!

Shower Gifts for Leona!

I hope no one minds but I wanted to share pictures of some of the super sweet shower gifts given to little Leona. Thank you everyone! I can't wait to share these all with her. This isn't everything, but I'll definitely take pictures of all of the thoughtful gifts, especially when we get to use them! :) I can't wait.

Baby Shower

Thanks so much to everyone for coming out to the baby shower on Sunday! I had so much fun spending time with friends and family, it really meant the world to me. Thanks Amy and Jen for all you did to make the shower special! Here are a few pictures, click here to see the rest. :)

Thanks Amy!

First of all, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! I hope you had a wonderful day! Here are a couple pictures from Amy's NYC visit. We had tons of fun getting ready for the shower, setting up the Christmas tree, and putting together Leona's crib! Thank you so much, sis!

Fun in Oregon

Here are a few pictures from our lovely Thanksgiving trip to Oregon. Thanks guys for an amazing time! We had fun hanging out with the whole crew at the coast, and a big thank you to everyone for not getting too upset when Anthony dropped that whole pumpkin pie.




























Here's Amy with her two wild pups, Gizmo and Loki.


















Here is fearless Loki chasing Anthony down the beach.

Baby Training the Dog Take 1

After a ten day stay at grandma's, Josie returned home. Grandma purchased an 18 inch baby doll to get Josie ready for the real baby. The video shows how day 1 of training went.

Nursery Mural!

Last weekend after a lovely brunch at Melinda and JJ's (thanks for having us over, guys!) Jen and I headed back to work on the baby mural. At first I was afraid that the paint colors we picked out were too subtle, but they turned out to be just right. We got a late start but the painting went so quickly, and was really fun! Thank you Jen!
Here is a picture of the wall before:













Anthony took these pictures of me and Jen painting in cute aprons and damp socks. (It was a blustery day!)

























And ta-daaaa!!! Below is the after picture! Our lovely birch forest is almost complete! The only thing left is to add some woodland creatures. We're going to paint in a few birds, squirrels, and maybe Jen will hide a little bunny in there to represent lady Josephine! I'll post pics once that's done (and soon we'll have a little crib to put in the forest, yay!)

25 weeks!

Here are the most recent baby pics! These were taken about two weeks ago, and we were so excited to see her little profile for the first time.
















This is a 3-D version, you can see her little hand up over her face and her legs are bent up so her knee is right by her head, too. She's rocking the fetal position, though the ultrasound lady (who was very nice this time) assured me that she has plenty of room to stretch out in there. She said baby Leona can kick things around and make more room for herself at my expense. :) Good for her! She's been very gentle so far though, it feels like a little jellyfish swimming around in my belly.

A Day in the Park

Nursery Ideas!

Even though our nursery is really only the right side of our bedroom I think we can make it super cute! There is plenty of room for baby furniture so I think it will work out just fine for our little Leona Belle. I thought it would be really nice and soothing to go with a foresty color theme, with woodsy creatures and trees! I'd love to have a Where the Wild Things Are color palette (I know this is very big right now, but I still dig it.) These may not be traditional girl colors but we all know ladies like forests and adventures too, so there. You may remember that a while back I'd decided to start making stuffed animals. Sadly I only completed this one little top heavy elephant, but I think he'd love to be incorporated into LB's nursery too. Do elephants and forests really go together? In Leona's room they do!

We've been looking at a crib from Target, a dresser and glider from Walmart, that cute forest pillow from Urban Outfitters, rug from Home Decorators, and an floor lamp from our living room. Here's a little mock up of what it could look like all together. What do you think?

And here is a bedding set I found at Albeebaby.com that brings in the forest colors and elephants! Perfect, right? And it's on sale!

I've really been loving the forest wall decals and wallpaper I've seen around, and think it would be pretty easy to paint a lovely birch wall with some birds and maybe a little squirrel or two behind the crib. I might try and get my talented buddy JJ to help me with that. (What do you say, Jen?) Below is a picture of a cool decal you can get on Etsy. I'm thinking it would be cool to paint something like this but with less contrast, like a golden beige background with white trees, gold birds, etc.

Lastly I've really wanted to buy a print or two from an illustrator I love, Jen Corace. I haven't been able to track down any of her forest prints so I might email her directly. I think nice art would look really amazing on top of the birch forest, if it is a nice low contrast. Here are a couple of her pieces that I love love love. That about wraps it up for ideas, what do you guys think?

Daddy's First Post

I just wanna say that I am super-psyched that I am going to be the father of a baby girl. It still doesn't seem real, but I guess the pictures below show otherwise. Modern technology really is wonderful isn't? I also want to say how much I love my wife and how much I admire her for weathering all the ups and downs of being pregnant. She really is a remarkable gal!

My, how she's grown!

Here is little Leona Belle in her first picture on July 30th.
She's only 9 weeks old!

Now here she is on August 21st, at 12 weeks old!













And this picture is from yesterday! She's officially 19 weeks old now, almost halfway there. The ultrasound lady said she was being stubborn and hiding, but I think she's just shy.


















This is supposed to be a 3D picture, too bad we can't see her little face. I wanted to see if she has Anthony's eyes. It's kind of cool though that you can see the umbilical cord. The doctor told us that she's a bit small, so they might have the due date wrong or she could just be a little baby! :)

It's a girl!

Today Anthony and I found out that we're having a baby girl! Leona Belle it is, we're so excited. I ran out and bought her a pink Ramones onesy and her own website, leonabelle.com. That's not ready yet but will be soon. This is our first blog post so I'll keep it short, we're baking a strawberry cake to celebrate the news. Yay!!!