Barnyard Bathroom

Here are some pictures of Anthony's project from yesterday, a newly painted and decorated bathroom for Baby Favry. Nannie had discovered that Khols had an entire farm friends bathroom line which matches our nursery decor perfectly...and it was 50% off this past weekend.

Anthony painted the walls a nice blue, the same blue as the bottom half of the nursery walls. We were able to purchase all the barnyard accessories shown below, toothbrush holder which has barn doors that open and show little baby sheep, horsey soap dispenser, piggy soap dish, and rooster cup holder. We even scored a piggy trash can!!








Even the barn doors on the towels open. Its a really cute set.



The bathroom looks great and I know the baby will love it. Even Callum can enjoy it when he visits Auntie camp next.

Lastly I leave you with a picture of CM relaxing in her new glider.....

Final week of 2nd trimester

This week marks the final week of my 2nd trimester, next week I enter the 3rd trimester and will have only 3 short months to go!! New things are now happening including the fact that a little monkey is making it harder and harder for me to take deep breaths; something I anticipate only to become worse in the coming months.
He also gets the hiccups now which is really neat, my whole stomach just pulses and Anthony too gets to feel his little hiccups. When we went to lunch with DH on Friday my stomach barely fit in the booth, it was a small booth though, NOTHING to do with my growing abdomen. Next week I have my final monthly visit, after that I start to see the doctor every two weeks, I also have my diabetes testing and Anthony and I have our grand tour of the hospital!

Santa was good to Anthony and I again this year. Some of the gifts we received were a new pink purse, pajamas, pink slippers, makeup and Mama Mia for me. A cast iron pot, slippers, hess truck, ove glove for Anthony; and a digital picture frame for the family. We also got several gift cards which I can't wait to use for some new clothing items come spring!! Even Baby Favry got gifts including a crocodile outfit from Danielle, a rocking horse from Grammie and a monkey from Nannie which is currently waiting in the crib for our little Monkey's arrival.

We've been very busy traveling and are enjoying a day at home. Chelsea got a new years hair cut and is now napping while Daddy watches football.

Stay tuned for pictures tomorrow as Anthony tackles another project, a new bathroom for Chantel!!!

Christmas Brunch

Yesterday depsite the winter weather, over 50 people showed up to Nannie and Boppie's Xmas brunch. It was a day filled with yummy food, family and friends.



As you can see above, Anthony and David were in charge of the pancake station, I think Anthony won. Anthony made his original yummy pancakes and Dave presented a variety of chocolate chip or Henry's special fresh blueberry pancakes. In addition to pancakes we had Aunty Carol's scrambled eggs, DH's Ham, pork raost, homefries, sauasage, bacon, strata, quiche, danish, bannana breads and much more!! Everything was delicious!!! For dessert we had make your own sundaes with every red and green topping you could imagine.

Santa or Mrs. Doubtfire came and everyone present received a present. Even Baby Favry got in on the action and received a rainforest toy for his new crib. I think his daddy enjoyed it more last night as he sat in the nursery listening to the waterfalls and animal sounds.

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Due to the weather it took us about 2 hours to get home, but we made it home safe and sound.

Yesterday was also a special day as it would have been Nana Courtney's 90th birthday!! Mum had her special xmas memory bear on display and we even sang happy birthday to nana as she was there with us in spirit. Some people got emotional, but I blame it on hormones........

Here is Nana on her 88th birthday...

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It was a great brunch and everyone enjoyed themselves. Nannie are you busy planning next years's yet?

Winter Thoughts

Hello, Kristin here...As I type this we are having a steady snow fall, the first for us for the year.

Anthony and I ran to Target today to pick up a bookcase for the baby's room. We found it online and it matched perfectly so we went to get it as they only had one left. As there was a Stop and Shop next door we decided to run into to pick up our quiche fixings for Sunday's gala...yes we were crazy. It made us think of some of our own winter meanderings.

Why does everyone run to the store to get bread and milk? Why milk and bread? There were literally people there in their slippers grocery shopping all frazzled and acting like the world was ending. One lady had her cart full of oranges and stew meat yelling at her daughter they needed to stock up for the storm. Another lady parked her motorized cart in the middle of the exit, good spot. And we noticed several IDIOTS attempting to use the self scanner for the first time. As we heard " please remove your bananas" 78 times, Anthony started to have a nervous breakdown of his own.

Why do people run out to "top off" their gas tanks. If we are having that bad of a storm, you aren't driving anywhere!!!!!

Anthony mentioned, why do people think its a smart idea to pour hot water on ice to melt it?

Anywho...the furniture arrived for the nursery and it looks fabulous!!! Anthony put the bookcase together today and then we hung letters on the wall Nannie had bought us spelling the little guy's name! The room looks so cute. Chelsea has been spending all her time in there watching her daddy very closely. Today as I put a few books, a pig, and some onsies in the drawers, she sniffed every object closely and approved. She is such a good girl!! We even spent some time in the glider today watching the snow as daddy hung the letters.

Now we are snowbound, we have no milk or bread and both our cars are on empty...we also have no batteries, a half a roll of toilet paper, and no detergent so we are wearing dirty underware. Someone come and save us.

Baby Favry's Room

For the past two days, I have been working on the nursery. This certainly proved to be the biggest home improvement project I have ever done. The first step of the project was moving all the furniture out of the room, which Jared helped me do over Thanksgiving weekend. The next step was to take everything off the walls, fill all the holes and sand them down before I painted. I then taped all the molding, which is always a pain.




Yesterday I spent 2 hours at Home Depot. I had to pick up the paint, primer, new blinds, a new fan, trim for the chair rail and an nail gun. When I got home, my first project was installing a new ceiling fan with lights. I have never hung a fan before. Overall, pretty simple except for the fact that you have to balance the 30 pound fan in one hand while you try to use a screw driver in the other to secure it to the ceiling. Once the fan was up, I started to prime the walls, starting first with cutting in the trim. After almost 4 hours and 4 coats of primer I had the walls primed. As you can see from the picture above, the walls were bright orange and it seemed that no matter how much primer I put on, the orange kept bleeding through. Make note of my advertisement for Hub Glass (compliments of DH).




This morning I got up early and started painting the upper portion of the wall. Before I could paint, I had to draw a line across each of the walls to mark where the chair rail was going so I could paint down to the line with the top color and up to the line with the darker color. Once I got done with the top color, I began with the lower wall color. Once done, I had to let the walls dry for an hour. While the walls were drying, I set up my new compound miter saw which DH had given to me. I also set up my new nail gun, which took me a while because I first had to read how to use the air gun and how to work the compressor. Mind I tell you that I have never used a compound miter saw nor an air gun, so needless to say I was a bit nervous using both tools.

Once the walls were dry, I began measuring and cutting the chair rail and hanging it using the air gun. The air gun was awesome! It sunk finishing nails right below wood surface in a blink of an eye. I had thought the chair rail would be difficult due to having to make beveled cuts in the wood to fit in the corners, however, it went really well. Each of my corner ends lined up with no gaps! It also helped that I had my little helper holding the level for me.



Once the rail was up, I filled in the nail holes and sanded down so that I could paint the trim. Painting the chair rail was a pain and time consuming. After the chair rail was painted, I taped the top of it and touched up the top wall color. Final step in the project was to hang the new wood blinds. We got new blinds so that we could darken to room when the baby took a nap. The blinds that were in there were transparent and with the sun hitting that room all day, it was not conducive for nap time. The wood blinds were a pain to hang but they look awesome.

So FINALLY......Baby Favry's room is done:




It feels so good to have to room done. It was a huge task but what an incredible feeling of accomplishment having it all done. It is crazy thinking that a baby will soon be occupying the room...I cannot wait!!

Favry Christmas Party

Last night Kristin and I had our Christmas party. I believe we had about 10 people here, so it was a small gathering but good nonetheless. The party was at 6pm, however, our friend Adam (my bestman) got down to our house around 3pm. We decided that to grab something to eat before our friends started coming. We went to the Vodoo Grill, which I think is one of my favorite places to eat. Great food that's inexpensive all in a unique setting. For dinner, I had pulled pork serviced over french fries. Their pulled pork it out of this world! Kristin got Creole, which is very spicy. To offset the burn of the spice, she got a piece of warm corn bread. I do not think the baby enjoyed the spice food because Kristin said he was moving all around while she was eating.

After dinner, we went for a field trip to Home Depot, how every party should start. I wanted to go to Home Depot to pick up radiant heaters to hang from the garage ceiling so that it would heat the garage while we were out there last night but also when I am out there working. The heaters were very inexpensive and pretty easy to hang. For the few moments they were on, they threw off great heat. I stress they being on only a few minutes because they ended up blowing our circuit breaker several times. Unfortunately, we were only able to keep one on. The other source of heat came from the grill which was in the garage. It worked quite well too! Below is a picture of Adam and I hanging the heaters.



As always, we had a lot of food. We decided to keep it simple and do only appetizers vs. a meal. We had the typical chips, dips, cheese and crackers. We also made a bread bowl, mozzarella sticks (not as good as Ortiz' on Thanksgiving), pizza bites and poppers. Of course we cannot forget my homemade beer, which was awesome! Light hoppy beer with a hint of pine. Was very smooth and tasty. For fun, some of us decided to play a competitive game of beer pong in the garage (pictures below). I took the title of beer pong champ having won 3 Team matches and 1 single match.






People left around 11pm. After they left, Kristin, Adam and I watched some TV before heading to bed. Adam left early this morning. Another Sunday Kristin wont be home. Last weekend she was at a Christmas party in New Hampshire. Today she has to go to a bay shower in northwestern CT. I have to give her a lot of credit because through out her pregnancy, she has never cancelled plans she has made and still runs around as crazy as she did prior to being pregnant. I think she needs to slow down though because I can tell she gets tired more easily now. The both of us cannot believe that she has been pregnant for 1/2 a year! Time has flown by since we found out we were having a baby and now we cannot wait until we got hold the little guy in our hands and yes, even hear him cry. With the start of my vacation Tuesday I will start working on the nursery. I cannot wait until it's all done. Below is an updated picture of Kristin. Her belly is nice and round now as the baby moves up.

Good Afternoon. Kristin here with an update.

Not much terribly new. I am unable to post a picture of me in my new pajamas at this time, please stay tuned for further updates.

I had my check up today and everything is still normal and great. Chantel's heart was strong and I checked out perfectly too. I had another growth spurt Sunday night I think. My doctor agreed, I'm measuring much bigger then the last visit, she said the 5th month you usually see a big spurt then at 7 months again. I'm starting to feel it, I notice my belly more now when I'm bending over to put my shoes on or pick up something ( like a paperclip of course as I shouldn't be lifting, bending or stretching). Anthony and I are all signed up for our childbirth prep classes and begin in January. I can't believe how fast time is going!!!

Here are some pictures from my Thanksmas lunch Sunday. I went to Casey's house with Kim for a girls only Thanksgiving/Xmas lunch. We had turkey with all the fixings, it was very good and as you can see below we all needed a nap after.


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So that's about it. Gotta run to drop of some mail and pick up my vitamins, Chelsea is excited and waiting by the door.

Tata for now.

Lazy...

Yeah I know, we have not done a blog in a while. We have thought about it but yet still did not write one. To be honest, after Thanksgiving last week, I just never got around to it.

Sunday I went to the Pat's game. Overall, it sucked! Between it being cold, windy and rainy, the Pat's played awful. They looked like a high school team vs. a professional one. We got to to the stadium at 12 to tailgate and the entire time we froze our asses off not to mention how soaked we were. By the time we got into the stadium (3:30), the rain picked up as did the wind. To be honest, the best part of the game was leaving! Don't get me wrong, I was excited to have the chance to go but, well....

Monday both Kristin and I were off. Our day was packed with running errands. Most noteworthy was the fact that we finished registering! Babies'R'Us was empty which made registering that more enjoyable. All we had left was to register for cups, beginner spoons and forks and graduate bottles. We also made some changes to some of the items we previously registered. Kristin and I also ordered all the room `decor, which should be arriving in 2-3 weeks. Perfect timing because my goal is to have the nursery painted by the end of this month. Additionally, the furniture should be coming in either next week or the week after. Now, we unfortunately will not be able to take a picture of the nursery or show any of you if you should come to our house because the babies name will be on the wall. SO, I guess you'll just have to wait until April!

This has been a nice short week for me. As I mentioned earlier, both Kristin and I were off Monday and today I am working until 11am (1/2 day). Next week I am traveling to Colorado Monday-Wednesday, work Thursday and off Friday. The following week I only have two days in the office then I am off from through first week of January....exciting!!! Too bad my lovely wife could not get time off.

Tomorrow Kristin, my mom and I are heading to the cemetery to put Christmas plants at my father's and grandparent's grave. Kristin also wants to make a pit stop at the consignment store. Not living up in the Rocky Hill area or even remotely close, she does not get a chance to get there often to claim her money and/or drop off clothes. Last time we dropped off a lot of stuff after having cleaned out the babies closet. Sunday should be a quiet day. Kristin is heading to a Thanksmas brunch with her friends. I on the other hand will be spending a wonderful morning at the grocery store and watching the Pat's game in the afternoon. Unfortunately, I will not be enjoying any homebrew because we drank it all on Thanksgiving...the entire keg! The good news is that next weekend, my Hop-Nog will be ready in time for our Christmas party. Jared helped me last Friday brew my next batch. This week it has been in the first stage of the fermenting process. Today I will be transferring it to the second stage then into the keg next Friday to carbonate in time for the par-te. Speaking of Jared, I want to pubic-ly spank...err...thank him for helping me move all the furniture out of the nursery last weekend.

Before I end, below is an updated picture of Kristin at just about week 23 (1 day short). Chelsea also decided to show us her side profile. The baby has been moving all around, which is exciting for Kristin to be able to feel him moving. He has already developed a pattern of sleep and awake time. Every day around 2pm he seems to like dancing around as Kristin likes to call it. Kristin for the first time Tuesday was able to put her hand on her stomach and feel him kick. Up to this point she has been feeling him move around inside but not able to feel it when putting her hand on her stomach. My little buddy though seems to enjoy teasing his father because he stops moving every time I put my hand on her stomach. He's a teaser, just like someone else I know!