Picture-Palooza Part II

Installment Two:

Abrielle's Blessing

My older sister Heidi totally came to my rescue in so many ways this past week.
I was worried that Abrielle was going to grow up and not have one decent baby picture.  I was having all sort of anxiety about how I was going to survive my children's Spring Break and how we were going to have a little fun along the way.  I was a little anxious and sad to have to bless our beautiful Abrielle without any family here to support and enjoy the special occasion.

I was more than THRILLED when my sister Heidi asked if she could come down and spend a few days with our family for Spring Break. 

Thanks Heidi for coming to my rescue and providing me with everything I wanted and needed!

We some how manage to have 9:00am church every time we have a newborn.  I struggle getting to church on time as it is but add a nursing, puking newborn and it's a recipe for never ever getting to church on time.  I had lots of help from my sister Heidi and we still walked in the door of the chapel at a minute or two after 9.  

Abrielle was as good as gold and she had a beautiful blessing.  There is only two things I want my kids to remember about me, and that is that I love them and that I love the Gospel.  My heart was so full of joy to see we had some family and friends present and to hear Abrielle be blessed by her daddy who holds the priesthood.  He blessed Abrielle that she could learn about the gospel from her parents and through their examples.  He blessed that she could learn from her brothers and sister's abilities.  He told her how glad we all are to have her come to our family.  

After church we had a few friends from church over for a nacho bar.  

We missed the opportunity to have a photo of our family together after the blessing, and while I'm disappointed about that I can be glad for the beautiful pictures Heidi captured of Abrielle in her blessing gown.

My mother made this blessing dress 24 years ago for my little sister Cozette, since then it has been the blessing dress for all of her granddaughters.  It is gorgeous!

Without further ado here are the pictures.

Picture-Palooza

Installment One, Abrielle's photo-shoot.

Photos taken and shared by my talented sister Heidi.

 

 

Picture of Perfection

Many, many more pictures coming soon!

Thank you, Thank you Heidi dear for sharing your talent and taking these beautiful pictures of Abrielle. I treasure them and my heart is full of gratitude for these precious keepsakes. 

Dear Aunt Heidi, Uncle Eric and Aunt Cozy

Both Abrielle and I are ready to poke our eyes out over my photography skills. We sure wish you were around to help us out. 

 

I'm getting good at catching grumpy faces and ugly green binky shots...

 

And looks of annoyance...

And one eyed squints...

Uncle Eric just told me I needed some practice but I think it's quite obvious I didn't inherit the photography gene (nor do I own a Nikon).  Which Is too bad because there is so much cuteness to be captured. 

After like 100 photos I gave up on getting a good picture and Miss Abrielle and myself went to bed. 

For now we'll just have to dream of the good old days when my siblings were close and great photos of my kids were abundant, because the truth is we are all stuck with my photography skills now, and all I can do is offer my sincerest apologies for butchering just about everything!

Abrielle Elizabeth Giovannoni

The Mr. and I welcomed a beautiful and healthy baby GIRL to our family February 2, 2013 @ 11:06 pm. She weighed in at 8 pounds 3 ounces and was 20 and 1/4 inches long.  

 I think she has her daddy's eyes and forehead...

And his long long fingers...

And look how long those feet are!

 She was also lucky enough to inherit her daddy's long long toes too.  Sometimes I consider telling people my children are born with 20 fingers, because I've never seen toes that are as long as fingers before. 

She's another bald beauty.

Well almost bald...She has a little bit of dark hair.

We named her Abrielle (think Gabrielle just drop the G) Elizabeth Giovannoni, 

She might hate us forever for giving her a name that is 27 letters long,  but I look at it like this, we can call her Abbie, Brie, Elle, Liz or Beth all of which are short right?  

She is an ANGEL baby,

We cant kiss those chubby cheeks nearly enough!

We are all smitten.
Our little family is complete.

Interesting side note:
The Mr and I were married February 1, 2002 : 2-1-2
Dylan was born on the 2 (of May) : 2
Livie was born the 12 (of November): 12
so we have our second set of 2-1-2
Isaac was born on the 21 (of March): 21
and Abrielle came on the 2 (of February): 2
and those two complete our third set of 2-1-2.
2-1-2 must be our lucky numbers.

Farmhouse Bed Frames

I put off posting pictures of the bed frames I built becasue I wanted to be able to finish up my boys room before the baby came and take before and after shots to post as well.
But as with most eveything in my life, things aren't going according to plan.
The beds are built and painted now and we were just about to put orders in for new mattresses when one of our vehicles decided to die.  So now mattress money gets funneled to new car fund and the beds will just have to wait. 
In the meantime I can at least show off my handy work so far.

This was right before I painted them white.

Irrelevant side tangent*
Notice the garage door near the bottom, the paint is a little speckled.
We received a notice from our HOA claiming we were in violation for the condition of our garage door and that it needed to be fixed or legal action would be taken!  Sheesh....are you serious?

Sunday Snippets

Our Week in Review Jan 14-20

• Back in December Dylan's fourth grade school class was supposed to put on their version of the nutcracker, but the director got ill and the play was postponed to until this week.  Dylan was cast as a Russian Baker. 

He did a great job!

I accidentally left our cameras SD card in the computer and didn't realize it until I went to snap some pictures and the camera wouldn't work.  I quickly grabbed Derik's phone from him and tried to record some video of his performance instead, only to discover I wasn't recording after all.  It just wasn't my night!  Thankfully a friend gave me a copy of the photo's she took as well as some video her husband shot. 

• Both Alivia and Dylan came home with awards from school.  Alivia's award was for being an excellent student.  Dylan got an award for being kind and thoughtful towards others.  Nothing makes me happier than to have something positive to reward my kids for.  
• I whipped up a delicious batch of Blackened Cajun Chicken Alfredo for dinner this weekend.  I forgot to make some bread, so I sent the Mr. to the store to grab some garlic bread.  I'm not sure what they put on that garlic bread but a couple of hours after I ate it, I had some pretty intense and consistent contractions  for about 3 hours.  It was in those few hours I remembered just exactly how birthing a child feels and I was renewed in my efforts to not rush having this baby! 
• Some how I managed to miss the fact that my Dr. is expecting.  She saw me on Friday and a half hour later she was in the OR having a C-section of her own.  I'm not sure who will deliver my baby now, but my Dr said she'd be back to work in a week and plans on delivering me...That's a wonder woman for you. 
• I finished deep cleaning our house so now I hope to have a week of relaxing in store.   I have a whole bunch of things I want to get sewn, so I'm hoping that's what I'll get to spend my time doing.   I learned however that the kids are out of school on Monday so I'll have a little less time (for myself) than I thought.