debut

I know you all just want to see pictures of our newest family member.

Sometimes he has a hard time opening his left eye.

Nothing is better than sleeping with a new babe.

Doing his foot prints.

not fitting into the smallest sleeper we had for William. I know William fit in this for at least his first week. Not even for Joseph's first day.

Just a sweet baby.

My husband the talented multi-tasker. joseph stops crying intantly when Russ bounces on the ball.

Flabergasted (sp?)

This is a guest appearance by me, Russ. I felt I needed to take the liberty of sharing my thoughts on today from a different perspective than you will get from Debbie. First, let me tell you what today is. Today is the day that baby Joseph came into the world. It was truly amazing. My intentions for doing this post are literally purely in praise of my totally incredible, totally amazing wife. I have never been more in awe of a person's strength than I was today. I have had some clues in the past but it is official today, my wife is a stronger peson than I. I won't go into too much detail but I will say she began labor at just after 2:00 am and was a complete champ through every contraction. She made it look easy today. I am of course not insinuating that it was easy because I know that it wasn't. But, today will be an everlasting testimony of the metal of my wife. I have been so close to tears for the majority of the day.......Joseph just started crying and I need to go help Debbie. I will finish by saying once again that I am so proud of my wife because of the truly noble spirit she is. I will forever be in awe of her. I am the luckiest. I love you Debbie. You are my first, my last my everything.

russ

Hello Diapers

That is a greeting my son learned from a friend at school. But that is not what this post is about. My sister Connie and sister in law Ashley threw me a cloth diaper shower. We were already planning a bridal shower with the genus theme Connie came up with, I see London I see France, lets get the bride some underpants. That shower is going to be off the hook and I am sue you will see a post about that when it happens. Anyway I insisted they use the same theme for my shower. 1. Because is it cute 2. Because we had the decor and such for it.

I mean seriously - look how cute. The cloths pins say "I heart Paris" and "cheers" and there are many more.

We had raffle prizes for those who donated to my cloth diaper fund. Everyone was so generous and I am so grateful. I love my new cloth diapers!

a headband made by Ashley - so cute!

A fabric necklace and bag made by yours truly.

An awesome red velvet cake

Making the yummy sandwiches - I have to say also that my mom came and helped me clean my whole house and finish projects I was never hoping to get done. I love her so much for it.

The yummy sandwiches.

Gracie loves to help in the kitchen.

I love the rest of the pictures so much.

Obviously fun was had by all.

Cankles

After going to the baseball game Friday night (lots of walking) and the basement sale (posted about here) my feet grew a couple of sizes.

That finger print would hold there for quite awhile.

Luckily after sitting down with my feet up all night and part of the next day they shrunk back down to a reasonable size.

I'm not into sports

But you invite me to a box sweet were they feed my hot dogs you can bet I will be there.

Russ and I went with his boss and his wife Mark and Michelle to a Diamondbacks game. I am pretty sure they played the Dogers and they lost. It was fun to get out with Russ though.

Here we are at the Christian rock show afterwards.

It was really a fun night, but my feet were a little swollen at the end of it all.

Dog days of summer

I am not sure why I take Gracie to the mall once a week just to ride the carousel. It is so hot walking to and from and we usually only stay long enough to just ride the carousel. But look at her. She was in her newly purchased Belle dress with cowgirl boots pretending she is Mary Poppins.

This is her saying "tally ho!"

She just loves it so much I can't help it.

It also means we stop by Russ' work cause he is really close and that is always fun. On this particular day we picked him up and met Connie at Joe's Farm Grill to try some of their hot dogs from their limited time "Dog days of summer".

Little did we know we would be back twice to try more of those delicious dogs.

Now September is over and hopefully it took the heat with it and now we have to go back to the Farm Grill to get some pumpkin shakes and let our children run amok under the citrus trees.

There's not much better

than a Sunday nap. Usually I am in the mix of blankets with them. I think this Sunday I was too warm and got up.

But they slept just fine. Maybe it wasn't warm for William because he wasn't wearing a shirt.

And Gracie is just a really good sleeper.

Every Sunday afternoon I look forward to this.

Meanwhile

While I was making the corner for baby Russ brother in law came to help get us a new tub put in. Because ours looked like this.

I should have gotten closer to the bottom. It was a kind of dirty that could not get cleaned. They thought I should be the first to break the tile since the new tub is for me to birth in.

Too bad I was not string enough/too nervous to actually break through.

Russ had a lot of fun though.

Once they got it all broken up.

Russ (and a lot of the house) was very dirty and dusty. and William wanted in the picture.

I will always take my children's picture.

Almost ready for the tub.

Just looking at this picture makes me want to take a shower. It was not fun living in this house that weekend.

But now it is all finished and beautiful. There are a few touch ups with paint and a light fixture to put up and then I will post some pictures.

Lets just say that I am relieved to have that project mostly done.