Notes From Our Nest

The rest of our newborn photos are ready. They speak for themselves!

Noah Stephen VanderBaan

Cue big tears and oohing and ahhing…

My good friend, Amanda Hein, took Noah’s newborn photos last week. She posted them on her blog today to give us a sneak peek of his gorgeousness. I’m thrilled with how they turned out!!

Take a look at Amanda’s Blog

Thank you, Amanda! These are priceless. I, of course, teared up immediately upon seeing them–especially those of Kabe and Noah together. Kabe’s such a natural!

xoxo

Surprise! Noah Stephen VanderBaan was came a week early and we couldn’t be happier. He was born on Thursday, September 24th at 5:01 pm. He weighed in at 7 lbs 12 oz and measured 19.5 inches in length. Check out some of the amazing shots we had taken at the hospital…

http://photographybyquinn.com/clients/noahstephenvanderbaan.php

Photo Credits: Quinn Mullin (Isn’t she truly gifted?! She made our sleep-deprived little family look fabulous. And, she came just after Noah had a little unpleasant boy-procedure done. He was rather grouchy for her and she still captured his cuteness! )

We’ll post more about our little man later…Basically all you we can say right now is that he’s here and we are totally in love with him!

xoxo

Our friends, Shannon and Brian welcomed their son into the world yesterday morning and I can’t help but brag for them for a second. Trust me, he is absolutely gorgeous.

Oliver Brian was born this morning at 8:53am. He weighed in at 7 lbs 8 oz and measured 20 inches long. Everyone is doing great!

Oliver is the first of the baby boom that we’re experiencing here in the Windy City. I can’t wait to meet the rest of the little guys over the next few weeks and months!

What a better day to start blogging again than Kabe’s 31st Birthday?

To honor his special day, Crystal put together a little something: http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/daS6wtKC1uRb6SqU

We’ve been so busy for the past 6 weeks that I haven’t had a chance to upload any of my pictures onto my new computer. So, if you have a cute photo of we can post, email it to me!

xox

Last weekend Ma and Pa VBaan and Mom and Art came to visit us at our house. We celebrated Ma VBaan’s 39th birthday! Here are a few photos that show us enjoying our backyard patio and our wonderful new patio furniture…

Jan, Art, Me, K, Jim, Maridell

The birthday girl!

MY patio chairs (K's are the swivel ones)

K in his patio chair (the reason we bought this set)

I did a quick makeover on our upstairs guest bathroom. It all started with a towel bar…and it spiraled out of control from there!

I was changing out the ugly oak and brass towel bars in our upstairs bathroom when I discovered that the previous homeowners didn’t remove one of the towel bars before painting their bathroom. Seriously. All I was going to do was update the hardware in the bathroom. But, when I came across a giant white spot on the wall, I had to take matters into my own hands! I removed their medicine cabinet, as well.

I painted the ceiling, walls, (Mom did the) trim, and the cabinets. Take a look!

The closest I have to a "before" photo. You can see the color of the vanity.

The first coat of paint

And….drumroll, please….here is the finished product!!!

The "new" cabinets look great!!

This is just a close-up so you can see the wall color.

Ah…all in a hard day’s work. Pretty soon, we’ll have pictures of bathroom makeovers numbers 2 and 3. We’re moving right along with some of the updates. Many more are on our “someday” wishlist.

Love,

M

My wonderful friends Kim, Meighan, and Quinn threw me the most amazing baby shower on Saturday. I am touched by their thoughtfulness and overwhelmed by the sheer adorableness of it all!

When I told the girls that the nursery was going to be decorated in greens and blues, they took off with a color palette for the party. The darling invitations set the tone. They were created by my good friend and business associate, Lynda Junge from Greenstar Creative.

My Baby Shower Invitation

Then, without even knowing about my new birdie blog…they came up with a bird-themed shower. How perfect is that?! You know you have good friends when they can read your mind. It was the most darling theme I’ve ever seen. And, yes…we’re having a boy. But, I’m still a girl! They did a great job of making my party a balance.

Quinn, who is practically a professional photographer, took great photos of the event. Here is a shot of the sweet little nests that were at each placesetting. The eggs are Jordan Almonds.

The bird's nest with "eggs"

Here is a roomshot that shows the chair covers and centerpieces. Wow!!

The adorable set up at Meg's

Look at the handwritten place cards. I wish I had handwriting like Quinn’s!

My place card

Here is the delicious spread. Everything was absolutely wonderful!

The yummy eats

And, the dessert! All of the ladies were raving about it.

Delicious desserts

Here are some shots of me opening gifts. The gifts were just too much! I can’t believe how generous everyone was. Our baby boy is going to be set!

Quinn's touch on her card

Becky gave baby his first Illini item!!

K calls the baby "Bort" after a Simpson's episode...oy!

Darling diaper cake from Kim...look at the monkey ribbon!

Here are a couple of special photos. If you haven’t heard, our baby is going to have many friends. Look at all of my girls! Fun fact, most of them are having boys, too!

Melissa (9/09), Meighan (9/09), Me (10/09), Andi (11/09), Sarah (11/09), Leah (12/09), Kristie (2/10)

And, the excited Grandmas-to-be…

The Grandmas!!

I can’t thank my friends enough for planning a memorable shower. As soon as I get a copy of the slideshow they made for me (Yes, a slideshow! They thought of everything.), I’ll try to post that!

Love you girls!!!
M

Help! My camera is lost somewhere in my new house and I can’t take photos of all of the projects we’ve been doing. Ack! A picture is worth a thousand blogs.

I guess you’ll just have to read and imagine the wonderful things we’ve been doing around here…

We spent the weekend in Michigan with K’s folks and his BFF, Kevin. On Wednesday night we drove up to Grand Rapids. I had a lovely day with Ma VBaan on Thursday shopping for home items and a dress for my baby shower on Saturday. Girls, you are going to LOVE it! On Friday, we drove further north to Traverse City. Traverse City is so green. If you know me and my love of trees, you know I heart that place! The weather on Friday wasn’t great, but we managed to find time to enjoy a sunny boatride, a delicious dinner, and a bonfire. Saturday was absolutely perfect and we even got a little sun. Alas, we had to leave to get home and do some work.

On the drive home from Michigan, we saw the coolest thing. As we were entering Indiana around 9:30, we were able to see fireworks going off from all of the towns along the Interstate. Now, I’m not sure that this is the safest time to drive since all of the people on the road are also trying to see the fireworks and they aren’t paying attention. But, we had fun!

Sunday, we got an early start. We picked up a new vanity for our basement bathroom, a mirror for our upstairs bathroom, and a bunch of paint (including nursery paint!). We had one of those 10% off coupons for Lowe’s. It was awesome! If anyone has any other home improvement coupons they aren’t going to use…please send them along to us.

When we got home, K ripped out the 40 year old vanity in the basement and got to work trying to figure out how to install the new one. Of course, it isn’t going to be as easy as we thought!

While he worked on that and mowed and trimmed around the yard, I painted the nursery. It’s a beautiful color of pistachio green. I LOVE it. Ok…time for my piece about painting while pregnant. Thank you to all of the well-meaning people who are concerned for my unborn child. However, painting with latex paint while pregnant in a well-ventilated room is perfectly fine. The major danger of painting during this time is falling off the ladder and injuring yourself.  If you don’t believe me, google it. Seriously! And, although I do appreciate the concern, there is no way I’d do anything to harm our child. So, please let it rest!!!

Enough about that! On Monday, my Mom and Art came and helped us again. It was awesome! We painted trim in the nursery, bathroom, and upstairs guest bedroom. Art also helped clean up the place a bit. Since they have an awesome mini-van, they were able to pick up our patio furniture on the way in. To celebrate, K grilled the most delicious BBQ Chicken for us and we ate using the new table and chairs. Unfortch, the mosquitoes decided that we looked like a delicious feast and our dinner was rather rushed.

Well, hopefully I’ll find my camera soon so I can post photos of the upstairs bathroom makeover and all of the progress we’re making around here. Luckily, if I don’t find it by Friday, I have a certain camera-happy mother-in-law visiting us and she always has hers…

Love,
m & k

It’s been a long, but incredible week. I can’t believe that last week at this time I was driving into Chicago to meet the moving guys at our storage unit. Here’s a recap of last week:

Monday: We drove into Arlington and stayed with the fabulous Foster Family.

Tuesday: We closed on our new house! We immediately drove over our U-Haul and started unloading (well, Kabe did). This was another 96 degree day. Poor guy!

Wednesday: I drove downtown first thing in the morning to meet the moving crew from Midway Moving. We had a start time of 7:30am. They showed up at 8:15. Somehow we were charged for a 7:45 start, though. Ugh!! After a long morning of pointing and directing furniture, we wrapped up and I started unpacking the kitchen. My mom and Art arrived around 9:00 pm after their trip to Seattle and Vancouver. They went straight to work helping me wash dishes and unpack more of the kitchen. It was great!

Thursday: Mom and Art have a minivan, so we put it to use! We picked up the kitchen table and the GRILL today. They also washed cabinets, stemware, and dishes. Art moved a ton of boxes. They are my heroes! I can’t thank them enough for ending their vacation on a hard-working note. Hopefully they have recovered. I could use more help! Only kidding, Mom.

Friday: JAIME IS IN TOWN! Ok…I’m not complaining, but it took me 2.5 hours to drive to Midway to pick her up. Then, we drove another 2 hours to Kim’s house in Tinley Park for our girls’ weekend. We saw NKOTB on Friday! I was protesting because I felt a little silly being at a New Kids concert at the age of 29, but it was actually pretty entertaining. My only wish is that Jon would have sang. He’s so cute now! However, Joey Mac (that’s what they are calling him) did perform “Popsicle,” which was always my favorite song.

Saturday: Jaime and Kim came to see our house. And, Kim brought Baby Zach (He’s 7 months old already). I tested out some of the baby stuff we have with him. He seemed to like it all!!

Sunday: I can’t even remember what I did on Sunday, but we were going nonstop all day long. It involved something like 3 trips to Home Depot and a missed BBQ with our friends. Sorry, Sarah and Jereme!

Monday: I crashed.

Tuesday: I started painting ceilings and bathrooms. The weather was so perfect to have the windows open! Don’t worry, I discovered a low VOC paint at Lowe’s. Did you know that regular old Olympic Paint is lower in VOCs that other typical paints?

Whew! What a crazy week. I’m so glad we are in our new house so I can start doing all of these projects I’ve been thinking about since we bought the place at the end of April.

Peace,
M