Welcome Home!

Krissey and Londyn finally got to come home today. Thanks to everyone for their love and support (and comments!). We're so lucky to have such a precious and beautiful little girl. It's so nice to have them in the comfort of our own home. At her final checkup this morning, we found out she cracked a collarbone during delivery. Not a complete surprise, since it's fairly common, but it definitely adds to the stress of being a new parent. Anyway, the hospital was nice, but...yeah. Here's some more pics to fuel the baby fire that's taken our friends and family by storm: (for those new to the blog, click the pics if you want to see the details)

Grandma Pam made this beautiful beanie for Londyn. As much as we love it, it's just a little on the big side, so she only got to wear it for a few seconds, but it's adorable. Thanks mom, ;)

Her hair really is curly, but you'd never know it after wearing her cap all night!

Londyn loves her mama!

She'll grow into it. (and out of it, I'm sure)

And we're home! She was great getting into her carseat and loved the car ride home.

The vote is still out on who she looks like. We're working on getting some baby pics of me and Krissey to give you something to compare too. Thanks again for everyone's support.

L is for...

Londyn!

After a visit to the doc on Tuesday, we weren't expecting this little one until next Monday. We're not complaining that she decided to visit a few days sooner. Krissey's water broke later Tuesday afternoon, and after almost 25 hours at the hospital little Londyn Noel is here! Besides her parents being extremely tired from the lack of sleep, everyone is doing well. For those who care about vitals and not pics, Londyn came in at 7 pounds and 10 ounces and is 20 inches long.

 

More house...

As you can tell projects have consumed our life for the past few months. We haven't forgotten the nagging call for pictures of the rest of the house. We've mostly wrapped up the baby projects so we put the house back together, and now you can enjoy more house:

Okay, so it's just the dining room and kitchen, but it's our dining room and kitchen. It's pretty popular down here to put tile medallions in the front entryway, so of course we had to put one in as well. It gets more comments on it than any other part of the house. Seriously. People walk in and stare in awe at our floor. We keep that part of the house clean. Real clean. (You know, because of the staring?) In other news, Krissey is enjoying parking the car in the garage. She was really excited to tell me that when I got home from work today. I mean really excited. I didn't think it was such a big deal, until I she told me it was the first time she's ever parked in a garage. I highly recommend garages. (Especially after reading about Doug and Marilyn's spray paint fiasco. Yikes!)

Oh yeah, and it's Christmas time. We thought about buying a real sized tree, but why have just one when you can have three + Santa Claus? You see my point. What I carefully hid from y'alls view is the final baby project. (hint: it's not Krissey's belly)

38 Weeks Down...

...and two to go! (But who's counting anyways?) This one's for you Becky mom.

Nursery

Krissey's hit the nesting phase of the pregnancy, she actually hit it awhile ago, but her husband finally got around to helping her and she finally selected the bedding that she officially loves. So here's room two in our wonderful tour of the house. It's not quite done yet...still need some touch ups and we're repainting a night stand and dresser, so there should be a part two. Anyway, since you've already stopped reading this, and are now just looking for the pics, here they are:

It was a lot of work, but it's 90% done, we still need to do another coat on the stripes and the bottom row of diamonds (Krissey can't bend over that far...y'all understand why). We originally tried to tape off the diamonds, but we kept getting off towards the sides, so we did them all free hand. Because we're that good. The cradle pic up top isn't in the nursery, but it relates. We got a hand me down from some members of our ward who were moving out. It looked old and outdated, so Krissey decided we could do something about it. She sanded it all down to strip the old stain off, and then we tried to find some more modern looking wooden spindles. There aren't any, not on the web, not any. So me, loving the awesome combo of metal and wood, suggested we used wrought iron. I think the results look awesome, but we'll let y'all be the judge of that. The last pic is the drawer pulls for the dresser and night stand, they'll be the same red as the stripe, so we'll update that as we go. We found the pulls at Hobby Lobby in case you're curious. 2 rooms down...the rest of the house to go.

My New Best Friend...

Ok, so this whole heartburn and acid reflux thing is killing me! Every single night I end up with a massive burning in my chest that continues all the way up my throat. It is so bad I do not have the energy to do anything the rest of the night. I eat Tums like they are candy and all it does is take off the edge, but they don't relieve it. If anyone has any ideas on how to relieve heartburn for a preggo lady, any advice is welcome! I have tried a few things I found on the internet to eating an entire tablespoon of mustard, yeah that's right, I ate an entire tablespoon of mustard. I don't recommend it, it burned the whole way down and it was nasty!!!

I've got an electric guitar...

I know everyone really only cares about two things on this blog. Number one: the little girl that will be hanging out with us shortly, and two: seeing pictures of the the house, which are a couple of months over due. Really. I know. So rather than make excuses on why we've yet to throw up some pics, how about you check these out, and enjoy our home...one room at a time. Today's special: the garage.

Since everything is new, we've worked to make sure we get everything the way we want it from the start. So we started with the floor...

...and a water softener...

...and finished with a garage door opener.

Now before y'all tell me what a great job I did, Krissey actually helped out quite a bit, including painting the majority of the floor. She just happened to be behind the camera for most of it. Anyway, one room down...just a few more to go.

Teaser: Coming soon in 3D!

This baby's gonna be cute. Darn cute.

Fiesta!

Today we got to experience our first Balloon Fiesta! What is a Balloon Fiesta you ask? One word: Awesome! Ever since we made the big move down here, that's all anyone talks to you about. It's not just talk, they're pretty serious about ballooning. It might have to do with this crazy thing called the Albuquerque Box. Josh has watched the balloons all summer during his morning commute, there's normally four or five balloons somewhere over the valley.

We even get a wake up call most weekends by the sound of the propane burner by some balloon flying over our house. Last Sunday we caught this guy lurking around:

They even have a museum dedicated to ballooning, we went last Saturday for "Smithsonian Museum Day" (it was free). They have everything from the origins of ballooning, to the big gas balloons they fly over oceans and round the world trips. Pretty crazy. They also have a balloon simulator. It's pretty cool, and Josh did pretty well for being a newbie.

Luckily the other guy in the picture knew a thing or two about ballooning and was an excellent coach. It's a lot harder than it looks (at least that's what Josh kept telling me) for only having two controls. You get points for a good take off, navigating, and how close you can land to the target you are aiming for. Josh ended up getting about an 82/100, which was pretty good because a professional pilot flew before him and got an 88.7/100.

Anyway, back to the fiesta, we had some hookups for a sweet parking pass (thank you so much Tyler!) and made it to the park around 6:30ish A.M., slightly before the "mass ascension" (sounds like a Catholic term) where all the balloons take off. Despite the huge size of the park, they have to stagger the balloon start times so everyone can take off safely. You get to walk directly on the field where the balloons are launching. You can walk right over to the pilots and crew and talk with them and ask them questions, while they are blowing up their balloon. Anyway like someone has mentioned in the comments, a picture is worth the rest of this post so here goes:

That's just a handful of the fun. Josh went through an entire camera battery this morning. This was one of those experiences that is indescribable, the pictures do not do it justice, and you just have to experience it within your life. So, add this onto your list of things you just have to see. Tonight is the evening glow, so perhaps they'll be some more ballooning in store for the blog. In the meantime, the fiesta goes through next weekend, so if you're hankering for a quick get away come on down, we love visitors!