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

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

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

We didn’t officially celebrate Father’s Day today, since we’re not technically parents, but I still wanted to do something for the dad-to-be. Just for fun, I picked up a cute onesie and a book called “The Dads’ Book for the Dad Who is the Best at Everything” for him. The book is by the same people who did “The Dangerous Book for Boys“. K LOVES that book! I’m sure we’ll have to get it for our little guy.

Pre-father's day gifts

Oh, and I had to include this picture of my tuckered-out man after all of his hard work today. Not only did he move all of our belongings by himself in the 80 degree heat, but he was battling allergies all day. Those kleenex are only from the last hour…

Poor guy!

I just got this lovely sentiment as a part of an email from BabyCenter.com:

In the past few weeks, the top of your uterus has risen above your belly button and is now about the size of a soccer ball.

Reading that made me feel queasy and huge. How could one of my organs be that big?

Then, I found an illustration and I understand what they were talking about:

It’s hard to believe it was only three years ago that we were dancing the night away with our friends and family, toasting our leap into married life. What started with a dream wedding has only gotten better as time goes on. It is our hope and goal that “the happiest day of our past…[continues to]…be the saddest day of the future.”  (That was my high school yearbook quote. I was so wise at 17!)

With this in mind, today  seems like the perfect day to start documenting the next phase of our journey…Parenthood and Homeownership in Suburbia. Only a few short months ago, this type of life seemed like a prison sentence that we’d never subject ourselves to willingly, but now we’re beyond-excited for the big change. Don’t get me wrong, we thoroughly enjoyed being yuppie city kids without a care in the world and plenty of time for our hobbies of eating out and sleeping in. But, now the world is going to be bigger than the two of us.

We wanted to start this blog to share a little peek into our lives with you, our friends and family. We hear that becoming parents is hard work so we’re definitely going to need your support, reassurance, hugs, and love in the upcoming years. Hopefully by reading the daily ins and outs of our family, you’ll feel more connected to us and our cozy little nest.

love,
m (and k)