Hogwarts Halloween!

So, I'm a sucker for Harry Potter. I've loved the series since discovering it almost 10 years ago and it has ignited my passion for reading again! I have since read so many books that I'm sure David figured I was finally losing it! ;)

This Halloween, in honor of the final Harry Potter movie, I decided to throw a Hogwarts Halloween party! :)

As with any good Harry Potter party, you must have a platform 9 3/4 sign. So, I decided to create one. We had some plywood hanging around so I had David cut it to the size I wanted (a little bigger than I probably needed) and I got some paint at Home Depot (Behr Ultrao Paint and Primer - Chianti). I painted the sign and let it sit for a day. I then got some yellow gold craft paint, black craft paint and white craft paint and got to work on the details! I printed off the words in Microsoft Publisher (FrankRuehl) in outline mode and cut them out, placed them, traced them with a pencil and then painted! Phew!

Next time - I'll just pay the extra money and by vinyl lettering so I can just place and go! This sign looks great from a distance, but the lines aren't perfect up close. :(

You also must have a brick wall to enter Diagon Ally (or to get onto the platform). I didn't get a good picture of it (next year!), but you can see it in front of the door in this picture. I got some brown fabric from JoAnn's and a large sponge and the remainder of the paint from the sign, and got to work! It took a few hours, but turned out fantastic!! I though the paint might be too dark, but it was perfect! Just make sure you have more than a sheet underneath to catch the extra paint... :)

Another important piece is the Golden Egg and some Dragon Eggs. :) Luckily, I had a large egg from Easter, so I got some gold spray paint and had fun! :) It turned out great. I also go some stone textured spray paint and painted some small eggs for dragon eggs. This Easter, I'll look out for some large eggs to add to my collection.

I also thought it might be fun to have some wands as part of the decor so I purchased some bamboo shoots at Micheals, used a bush trimmer (hand held) and cut the shoots into pieces that were about wand length. I stained them with some wood stain (Red Chestnut) and they looked really cool! I also found some rose bush sticks (which were remnants from when we cut down the roses in our yard) which were even better as wands due to their unique shapes and darker color.

Because we had some plywood, I thought it might be fun to make some gravestones in memory of those who died fighting He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. I traced the gravestones on the plywood and Dave cut them out. :) Then I spray painted them with Primer (which helped the gray color) and then the textured stone spray paint - which turned out fantastic! Then I painted some words on using the white craft paint. I think they turned out great!

I had to readjust my sign because the screw holding it up wasn't strong enough. This is what it looked like on Halloween. :)

My party was a kind of potluck type thing (well, kind of) because it's usually more fun when everyone brings something. So, I found this yummy Hershey Pizza and it totally fit in with the qwerky Howarts theme! :)

I'll post a picture of my costume when I can find one. (I had one taken at the church party, but forgot to take one myself!) I was Hermione Granger. :) Accent and all!

At the party, we had Berty Bots, every flavor beans (really Jelly Belly's because I have not desire to taste puke or ear wax). Next year I promise to take more pictures! Overall, the party was tons of fun. We played Harry Potter scene it and Pictionary.

It wasn't my best party, but there's always next year! :)

Update... again! :)

So 2010 was an incredibly busy year! If you're Facebook friends with me, you've seen all the pictures and received all the updates. If not, sorry! Between a new baby, being laid off, studying and passing all 4 parts of the CPA exam within 3 months and finding a new job - it was a busy year! :)

Will is now 21 months and he is already proving that boys are a handful! He is in child care right now and seems to find a new way to prove how cleaver he can be (with the cuts to prove it!). He is actually starting to talk a little more clearly which has been fun these last few days. :) He is an absolute daddy's-boy and we love it! He adores David which I know he enjoys.

Bellah is 5 and started Kindergarten this year. She loves school and has impressed us with how bright she is! She's already ready, writing and doing some arithmetic! ;) I hope her love of school continues to grow as she gets older. :) She did so well with dance class last year that we are doing it again! We're also trying gymnastics and she LOVES it! It looks so fun, I want to do it! :D

Well, I've gotta run, but I will try to update this thing sooner than later - see you around! :)

Love ya!
JB

Life With A Newborn Part 1

Well, since it's been a while there are TONS of pictures to post so I'm doing this all bit-by-bit! :D



Well, Will was born on Monday, January 25, 2010 and on Tuesday Bellah had to leave school early with a fever that didn't get better. By the time we got home from the hospital on Wednesday afternoon, Bellah had been to the doctor who informed us that there was a Pertussis (Whooping Cough) outbreak going around and she had all the symptoms and so she needed to be quarantined away from the baby (since if he got it he could die...). And since the test results took 5 days (I KNOW!) before we would know if she was positive, you can imagion how wonderful those first few days were...



The test ended up coming back negative (though about 3 months later she got it for real!) and the quarantine was over! (THANK GOODNESS!) She was dying to hold him, so we set her up on the couch and let her see what being a big sister was all about!



Will Newborn:



She immediately thought he was the coolest thing since sliced cheese (which she still does!) and enjoyed being a big sister!

Sisterly love!

If we put Will down anywhere, Bellah was right there trying to play with him. She lovers her little brother soooo much! :D

Will One Month:

Babies are wonderful and so cute when they sleep... and sleep... :D

When I had Bellah at Darnell (Fort Hood), the nurses tought me a way to swaddle that I had never seen before (and still never see) in which the baby's hands are next to his face instead of by his side... the way they are in the womb... So both my babies have loved being swaddled like this... :D

Once Will got a little closer to 2 months, I was able to dress him properly for church! :D No suits yet... they don't make them in baby size... :( [just 12 months and up!]

I'm wondering if Austin Powers is going to be one of his favorite movies! ;)

It seems that babies inherently know how to box!! ;)

By three months, will was holding his head up pretty well! :D

This is one of my favorites!! He's soooo cute! Just like his daddy! :D

Gigi, (my mom), got him an elephant which he LOVES! Up until around 6 months it was the only way we could get him to sleep... Will LOVES to have his face covered when he sleeps and so we would put this elephant next to his head and the ear over one of Will's eyes and he would turn his head and nestle in the elephant's ear and pass out - THANK YOU GIGI!! :D

We went to visit Gigi for Easter... here's some pix (more to come later).

Soooo hungry!

So I LOVE the newborn-baby stage of life... I love nothing more than to be with my babies and watch them grow. I've been blessed to have babies with sweet cries and good temperments and I am grateful that the Lord has sent me these sweet angels to love and teach.

More updates coming soon... we have soooooooo much to catch up on!

Love ya!

DB, JB, BB & WB

Update: Coming Soon

Ok - so I've been super busy the last 6 months with having a baby, being laid off, celebrating David's 30th birthday, Bellah's 4th birthday AND taking and passing (we'll know next month) all 4 parts of the CPA exam that I have neglected my blog. :( But, my last CPA exam is tomorrow so look for an update some time next week! :D

JB

Welcome Home Will

On January 25th, 2010, we welcomed our first son, Will Austin Boyd, into the world! At 8 lbs 13 oz and 21 inches long, Will was very healthy.




As a tribute to my pregnancy with Will, here are a few pix from the pregnancy.

This is me in October.. I was 23 weeks preggo!

This was taken at the end of November... I was 29 weeks preggo.

This is me 38 weeks preggo... quite a belly! :D This was about a week and a half before Will's arrival.

On January 25th, somewhere around 4pm, I started having some regular stomach pains. Since I had just experienced some false contractions (on the 21st) I was reluctant to label these pains as contractions.

Around 4:30pm they started becoming noticeably regular and around 4:50 they became a bit more painful. I was still at work so I got up and walked around, wondering if they would go away, but they didn't.

When I left work around 5:30pm, they were between 8 to 10 minutes apart. Not wanting to get my hopes up, I continued to track them until around 6pm when they started getting more intense. At 6:15pm I decided that they weren't going away and that we should probably head to the hospital.

I called my doctor and left a message and then called the hospital to say we were on our way. Well the hospital said they would rather my contractions be 4-6 minutes apart when I came in, so, reluctantly, I decided to wait a little longer.

Well, about 5 minutes later, my contractions were between 5 and 7 minutes apart and to the point where I was snapping at Bellah and unable to talk and concentrate during the contraction. I told David that we're going to the hospital and this time, I'm just calling my doctor to let her know we are going. (I had called her previously to tell her the hospital wanted us to wait.)

After dropping Bellah off with a friend (thanks Syndee!!), we got to the hospital around 7:30pm... and boy was I in pain!

We walked in, very slowly, and they got me in a room and checked me and I was 5cm... I was not going home. They said we'd be having a baby before midnight. David started sending mass text messages to my Labor/Delivery group list in my phone and was thoroughly enjoying himself when people were thinking it was me texting.

I had to wait for my doctor to get there for my epidural, so around 8:45pm-ish is when I finally got my epidural. This one was different than with Bellah because it was more of a block epidural where I would still have control over my legs. It was very weird and I got a huge burning cramp in my booty when they stuck the needle in, but my contractions were much better after that.

After the epidural, my doctor broke my water and discovered that there was meconium in the waters. To reduce the risk of any further ingestion by Will, they flushed out the uterus with a saline drip. They also decided that instead of being put on my stomach, they would take Will to the side and get a deep suction into his lungs and stomach right after he came out. (Luckily, everything was fine with Will and there were no complications from the meconium.)

Then, around 9:35pm-ish, my doctor had me push twice at which point I had to wait for her to put on her "baby catching gear"... I guess she didn't realize how good of a pusher I was! lol :D

One more push and at 9:47pm, Will Austin Boyd joined our family. A healthy baby boy. Although he was a little bigger than Bellah was (I think she was around 8lbs 9 or 11 oz) he didn't have near as many rolls as she did! :D He was a cutie from the start - we were both smitten!

This is him after they put that gunk on his eyes. The nurses said some of the red on his face was probably bruising because he came out so fast!

And here's our first shot of mommy and son the next morning. :D

And another pix! This is in our recovery room.


And a close up. :D

The labor/delivery nurses were great and the hospital food was pretty good. Will stayed in the room with us and was a good sleeper and eater! It was hard to get any sleep after he was born (we didn't get to our post partum room until around 1am) because all I wanted to do was look at him and hold him. :D

I am working on getting more pix taken of the little man, but adjusting to a new baby takes a lot of work... especially when your older baby has a possibly contagious illness. On Tuesday, Bellah had to be picked up early from school due to a fever. And when it didn't get better the next day (it actually go much worse) we had to take her to the doctor's and were told she definitely has a small ear infection (which is what I thought it was) but that since there would be a new baby coming home, she could have pneumonia or pertussis(which can both be deadly to a new baby) and that until we find out what she has, we would need to do our best to keep Will and Bellah separated.... yeah...

So, unfortunately, because of that complication, Bellah hasn't adjusted to Will's arrival as well as we hoped. She's always been a mamma's girl and when mama is around the baby so much because of feeding and sleeping and all that - it's been difficult for Bellah to understand what's going on and made this transition pretty stressful. We finally go the results back from the Pertussis test today (after over a week) and she doesn't have that nor did she have pneumonia.

What a week!!

So, here are some pictures of the little guy from his first days at home.

This is on our bed (we were washing the sheets since they needed to be washed!)

All snuggly warm. :D


Here's a pix of him in his crib... :D

And another...

And one of him in his paupsaun... he hasn't quite developed a like for this piece of equipment yet. :D

And another pix. :D

Hopefully now that I'm not working for the next few months, I can update the blog more often.. though I would bet on that just yet. :D

So, we finally have our newest member in our family and David's parents finally have a grandson! :D Happy days!

Stay tuned for more adventures in parenting! :D