Baby Shower

Last weekend Jason and I had a couples baby shower for Baby Girl Dzubinski. It was a wonderful time getting some of our family and friends together to celebrate with us.

The shower was held at my dad's house and thank goodness. Orginally I was thinking we could have it at our house, but as some of you may or may not know, our house is quite small. We had about 25 people show up, so it would have been jam packed. Our guests included Jason's parents (who made the trip from Midland), his sister, her husband, and their son (from Fort Worth area), and his other sister and her husband (who live in Austin). Of course my Dad was there, since the party was at his house, and my brother was also able to make it in town for the party (from St.Paul). The rest of our guests included friends from the area. It was a great group of people and I think everyone had a wonderful time.

The food included bite size sandwiches (smoked salmon with a cream cheese spread--delicious and my favorite!, chicken salad, and roast beef), a pasta salad, a wonderful fruit salad (woohoo! for summer and yummy fruit), mozzarella with tomato and basil, salami on cucumbers, and of course--chips and salsa. For desert we had a wonderful Tres Leches Coconut cake from Russell's Bakery in Austin.


After everyone ate some food and before we dove into the desert we had to play at least one game. Of course as many of you might know, baby shower games are often very silly and catered more to the "woman only" showers. So we decided to play: Blind Baby Food Tasting. I have to say it was really hilarious, just to see people's facial reactions to some of the foods and then what people wrote down for the flavor. I think the one that stumped everyone was called: Ham, Pineapple, and Rice (it was as awful as it sounds). Our friend Pam Ross won the game and so she got to feed Jason a bite of whatever favor she wanted (can you guess? Ham, Pineapple, Rice made another appearance). I would recommend this game to anyone having or throwing a baby shower, especially if it is a couple's shower. Everyone played and had a great time laughing their heads off.

After the game we got to the cake and the presents. We got some wonderful things from everyone. Of course it's always great to get some essentials for the baby-- a mattress, a high chair, a diaper bag-- but we also received a huge amount of clothes, that are all to cute to even describe. I have to say Baby Dzubinski is going to be one fashionable lady.

The shower was wonderful and we are both so thankful to everyone who was able to make it. We are so excited about the baby being here soon and are so happy we have such a great supportive group of family and friends surrounding us.

P.S. Of course Jason had to try one of the gifts out on Bella when we got home--this is the baby carrier from our friends Anuj and Pam...

The Coop is Done and the Chickens are Living the Good Life....

Today at 8pm the McCluckski family finally moved into their permanent home. It's been a long journey from having them on the first day to spending the last 6 weeks getting their coop done. The end result is a great home for the chickens and we think they will have a very happy life.

For the first time I was actually able to help Jason with the coop. Most of the construction was not in my field of expertise. However, today he needed help with painting the coop, which was right up my alley. We were able to buy some dark red paint at Lowe's in their discount section for only $3, which was great! We also had some white paint left over from painting the windows in both our bedroom and the nursery. We decided to paint their house red and used the white for their door and some trim. The color couldn't have been better...a nice "barn red".


The last steps Jason had to complete today were building the ladder for the chickens to get from the run to the coop and covering all the sides with the poultry mesh. Of course it was about 100 degrees today, so when noon rolled around we both needed a break. Jason started work back up around 4pm when he was hoping it would be a little cooler. I went out around 7pm and helped him with the last stages. Thank goodness my dad let us borrow his staple gun or it would have taken probably three times as long putting up the mesh. When we stapled in that last piece and everything was complete, a huge wave of success rolled over us both (although I imagine it was a larger wave for Jason who did 99% of the work).


We brought the chickens out to the home. Below are some more photos I took of the chickens getting accustomed to their new house. The whole process was very exciting, especially for Bella. Although after about 30 minutes she wasn't even interested in them anymore. They are still having some trouble getting use to the ladder. Currently they walk down about halfway and then flutter the rest of the way down. We also had to help them into the coop at the end of the night. I'm sure it will just take them a couple of tries before they are experts.










I'm so proud of Jason for building a wonderful home for the McCluckski's. I'm even more happy that we actually have them out of our garage and the smell of chicken poop can stop traveling throughout our house :)

Here's a video I took of when we first put the chickens into the coop...
(I love the look on Bella's face)




What will be the next adventure for the Dzubinski's? Oh yes....Baby Girl is due in 8 weeks!