Christmas!! (a picture is worth a thousand words .. )

With Hudson being born the beginning of December, we jumped right in to one of the busiest times of the year: The Holidays  Christmas time! At 5 days old, Hudson went with Mom and Dad on his first outing to the grocery store. We had plans to host our friends Christmas party Dec. 10, so we had some work to do! Hudson loved his car seat and slept the entire time we were out and about! Thankfully we have a great group of friends that brought most of the food for the party and cleaned everything up at the end of the night! (Hudson and I went to bed hours before everyone left the house) So, party #1 - Hudson 6 days old - success!

Friend Christmas party 2011

My family arrived 5 days later to spend the weekend at our house to celebrate our family Christmas! They were also great about doing pretty much everything (laundry, cooking, dishes, cleaning, etc) while they were here. It was honestly more work for me once they left!

Our family Christmas - complete with a visit from Santa! :)

While staying with us, my mom did a great job of capturing some of our Christmas decor in the house.

Christmas Decor 2011

Just a few days after celebrating with my family, it was time for Cory's family to arrive in town and spend Christmas weekend with us! Again, a blast - and very easy for us!

This was the first time most of the family met Hudson - That means lots of family pictures!  Hud is the first grandchild/great grandchild on this side of the family. Makes for a very special, spoiled little boy! :)

Gidley Christmas

Gourley Christmas

Christmas Day we started off the morning with our little family of 3 :) We slept in, had some coffee, and opened our gifts from Santa that were in our stockings! Let the traditions begin!!

Santa Christmas stockings

Later that afternoon we also had our Christmas party with Grandma Kris and Grand dad Fred! They sure enjoyed their first Christmas with their only grandson!!

1st Christmas with the Gourley's

So, this has been our first 3 weeks home with a newborn baby! Wild and crazy to say the least :) Now it's time to try and figure out what our new normal will be with a baby at home without all the friends, family, and parties filling our days! I'm looking forward to quiet days at home, mommy time, and hopefully finding some good activities in the area with other new mommies and their babies!

Hope you all had a very merry and blessed Christmas and happy New Year!

Hudson Frederick Gourley :)

Ahh.. the joys of motherhood! I've been planning on writing this post for the last 25 days - just sitting down to the computer this afternoon :)

    > Joy #1 of motherhood: no time to sit at the computer with two free hands to type with because I'm too busy holding/entertaining my precious son.

So, at this time I'd like to introduce you to our son, Hudson Frederick. Born December 4, weighing in at 7lbs 6oz and 20 1/2 inches long!

Our first family photo :)

     > Joy #2 of motherhood: Hudson's eyes focus on me when I'm holding him, or when he's with someone else and I talk, etc. :) He knows I'm his mommy and I'm the only one that can be that for him

Don't you just love those big blue eyes?   :) :)

Hudson has been a great baby so far! He is sleeping well (only waking up once a night on average, giving me 3-4 hour stretches of sleep at night!) He's fairly content during the day, and when he's not it's usually because he needs something. I'm working on figuring out what those things are! We're starting to learn what his adorable cries mean and how they're different. He also has the cutest pouty face ever! I'll try get a good picture of it sometime so you can all enjoy it with me :) (that face goes along with the dirty diaper cry) He loves his "daddy time" at night when Cory gets home from work. They spend it doing "tummy time" on the floor and "crawling". (Cory puts his hands on the bottom of Hud's feet so when he pushes against them he scoots across the floor on his tummy) :)

     > Joy #3 of motherhood: My husband enjoys being fatherhood as much as I am enjoying motherhood :)

     > Joy #4 of motherhood: The best thing I can think of to put in this blog to describe the experience so far of having a child is:   :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)  etc

Hudson even enjoys his nursery! (even though he doesn't like sleeping in his crib, he enjoys his "baby chair" that sits on the floor right next to his crib!) My brother painted the jungle leaf canvases above the changing table. He's so talented!

Jungle Nursery

Getting ready ..

So, I don't remember if I mentioned this at all before, but a few weeks ago at one of our Dr. checkups for the baby, our doctor mentioned our due date. She said "December 2". We've been going by the due date November 27 the entire pregnancy, so I asked if there was some confusion in the paperwork or something. She looked it up in the computer - and "nope, sorry. We must not have told you we changed your due date!"  Can you believe that?! I think it should be illegal to change a pregnant lady's due date in the last month of her pregnancy! It's like a bad joke..

Ok, I know  - I may be overreacting just a bit. It is only 5 days difference. But it's a completely different month! Another bad joke for a pregnant lady - to have a mom who had 4 children and all of them were born 3-5 weeks early and then it's not passed on to her one and only daughter! :)  (love you anyway, mom!)

Well now that I'm done "venting" about all of my last few weeks of being pregnant frustrations I will say that I'm thankful that it's gone this way. Really.. I have to remind myself quite a bit, but I've had about the most normal, uneventful pregnancy possible - which is quite a blessing! So, on Thanksgiving Eve I'll be thankful that I'm still carrying this super heavy, rib kicking, pelvis pushing, back pressing child in my warm, protective womb.


A few weeks ago Cory and I went on one more fun outing before CJ is born. We went to opening night performance of "Wicked" here in Des Moines! We ate at Splash restaurant before hand, and being no cameras are allowed in the theater, we took a memorable picture at dinner instead.

I've been extremely swollen from head to toe 5 days during my pregnancy. 

This was one of those days. 

wooowza!  :)

Let it snow!

This is what we woke up to in West Des Moines today! 3 inches of snow :) It was beautiful! 

(mainly because I know it's melting as I type and it will be gone again before I can be sick of it!)

So, for today - Let it Snow! And tomorrow, Let it be 50 degrees again! :)

Happy Halloween!

We had a busy weekend at the Gourley home! Cory's parents came to town for the weekend. We were celebrating his dad, Fred's, birthday! They have this joke - for about 6 months surrounding Fred's actual birthday, they use it as an excuse to celebrate :) But this was the actual event. We had a lot of fun enjoying each others company and, of course, delicious food every chance we got!

In addition to it being his birthday, it was also Halloween weekend. We were invited to a party on Friday night. Wait, let me back up and explain this first: Ever since Cory was in college (or maybe before) he has dressed up as a bowler for Halloween. Last year was our first year dressing up together. I didn't allow his bowler outfit to make an appearance at all!

We went as pilot and flight attendant instead :)

So, this year we had to get reeeal creative!

With my big belly and all this year..

My idea  :)

Aren't you proud?? He was so excited when I suggested he be a bowler this year, and I be his bowling ball!

So, the party was a lot of fun - and I took a lot of grief for allowing him to be a bowler again, but got a lot of credit for making it new with my bowling ball :)

We also had our childbirth class on Saturday - 6 .. yes, S - I - X hours of listening to a lady talk about all the crazy weird things people might want to try during labor. I think we decided about 30 minutes was applicable to us and any normal pregnancy. Good entertainment though! And I think we're both happy we went. :)

Pregnancy.

So, I've been blaming being pregnant on pretty much anything and everything lately - including slacking off on my blogging! I just can't seem to think clearly or completely .. no less get creative enough to write something interesting enough to read! I'm hoping that CJ's arrival will help inspire me a little bit. Until then, bear with me :)

We got a new camera this past weekend in preparation for having an adorable baby at home doing adorable things all the time!  (wishful thinking, I know..)  I had my brother experiment with it a little bit in taking some "baby boiler" pictures. (Cory's term)

Here are a few pics before edits!

We're still waiting on our furniture for the nursery - stressing me out a bit! But, I'm trying to be patient and wait until November before I call and ask,  " where on earth it is and when we're going to get it?!?! "

                           {pause.. breathe.. and .. stay calm}  :) 

Once it arrives I'm looking forward to posting pictures of our completed nursery all ready and waiting for our precious little boy .. (assuming it arrives before the baby does!)

the past few weeks..

Well, it's been a busy few weeks! I keep taking pictures of all the fun going on and think "I should blog about this!" then I go another week without getting caught up - guess that's going to take some practice! So, here are a few of the fun things that have been going on:

Baking.. 

                     ..thanks to wedding gifts :)

 The Boone's "famous" chocolate chip cookies

Made with my brand new Kitchen Aide mixer!

          

  The cookies were packed up and sent to Drake's freshman dorms 

where my brother and cousin just moved in!

 Homemade bread!

 Made with my brand new Bread maker!

Celebrated Mom's birthday..

We did so many fun things this day! We started off with coffee from Petals and Perks, then crepe making (etc) lesson with Marge, and a tour of landscaping at Mom and Dad's house. From there we headed on a fun filled trip to Beresford, SD where we had lunch at an old train depot station turned coffee shop, competed in a "best dressed" challenge at a consignment shop (my team won!), and toured a few gift shops, and of course - more coffee :). Then we hit the road again - back to Sioux Center where we ended our day at the beautiful home of Kim Hoogland where we watched The Proposal in their 14 chair theater room, followed by an excellent dinner and relaxing time by a bonfire overlooking the lake. Picturesque, isn't it? :)

Painting..

Master Bedroom transformation!

Michael and Cory moved the furniture, Mom did the rolling, I trimmed, and then Michael.. took a nap! ha :) We got the entire room painted in a day, and final pictures with new furniture and bedding will posted soon!

Wedding shower..

                The Boone aunts threw a wedding shower for me this past weekend. They had a theme for it - a new experience for me and very fun! An "Around the House" theme set the mood for the shower with a touch, smell, and hear game for around the house items, and everyone was assigned a room of the house for their gift item. Very neat idea! 

                A few captured moments from the fun afternoon:

 Mom and me with our delectable lunch spread

 The Boone Aunts - wonderful hostesses!

My lovely cousin, Erin, who opened her home to us all :)

So, that's been our crazy life for the past few weeks. Tons of fun! And more to come!! This weekend we're headed out to Las Vegas where Cory's partner is getting married! Hopefully lots of fun memories and pictures to share when we get home!

..happy birthday to you..

We celebrated Cory and Bobby's birthdays on Saturday!

Friends came over to our house to grill out, take over the kitchen, and play games in the back yard! :) We had a blast relaxing, chatting, cooking, ..and entertaining Frankie Jr (top right with Mommy, April)

Sunday was Cory's actual birthday. The day started off pretty normal - slept in and went to church. Cory got to choose what he wanted for lunch after church - pasta at Bravo Cucina! yuumm.. 

After spending a few hours at work in the afternoon and opening his present from me and CJ (that's our baby's nickname until he's born and we can tell people his real name!), Cory decided he wanted to go to PF Chang's for Chinese food for dinner. Fun surprise when we got there - live music outside! So we sat on the patio :) Then we walked over to the movie theater and saw the new Harry Potter. Kind of a bittersweet activity - it's the last Harry Potter movie and we've gotten quite attached over the last few months going through the whole series of movies! Overall - awesome weekend..

I'd have to say though, my ultimate highlight of the entire weekend (and Cory's too) was CJ's gift to his Daddy.. That night after we got home from the movies, CJ was getting pretty active so I had Cory rest his hand on my tummy while we watched some tv - he felt his little boy move for the first time!!  

"Happy birthday, Daddy" :)

Getting started!

Hi! So, here we are.. starting a new chapter in my life as a newly wed, an expecting mother, and now also the proud new owner of a blog!! :) Give me a bit of a break while I figure it all out.. I'd love to have a super interesting, good looking blog to get started with, but I don't know how to do that yet! :) So we'll just start with this and hopefully I can figure some of it out as we go!