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!

Chick On the Run...

The chicks have been at our house now for a few weeks and it's amazing how fast they are growing. They have been really easy to take care of and so far only one crazy event has occurred. Although, as we speak to other chicken friendly neighbors, this will be the first of many chicken stories we will share.

One night we went out to do our nightly changing of the water and refill of their food. After we filled up their supplies we were playing with some of the chicks, although they are mostly freaked out when we try to "play" with them. All of the sudden I said to Jason, "Wait a minute....I only count 5 chicks!" (if you don't know we have six). I immediately started to back out of the garage and told Jason, "I can't deal with finding a dead chick...I'm pregnant!". Jason started to search all around the box. The problem was the box was up on a shelf, so if the chick decided to take the plunge to the ground, both of us thought there was no way she would have survived. As I was standing in the doorway, waiting for him to find our little chick I happened to look down in the corner at the bottom of the stairs. Nuzzled in, behind our mop, there was Toula laying on her belly (that's how chicks sleep) with her eyes closed. I quickly got Jason's attention and he ran over to check on her status. We couldn't believe it, but...SHE WAS FINE! It was quite the distance for such a small animal to travel, but I guess the mop was keeping her warm enough to survive.

After this happened we decided to move the chicks into a larger temporary home. We also added a roost and as you can see in the picture Apollonia is enjoying herself. Jason has been working really hard to get their coop finished and so far it's looking great. Below is a photo of the "coop in progress"...those chicks are going to have a great home!



I also added a video of the chicks just hanging out...I think they are adorable :)

Happy Birthday Bella!

We want to wish our beautiful, wonderful dog the best birthday ever. Bella was born 3 years ago and 6 weeks later we took her home. I can't believe she is already 3, it seems like just yesterday she was so small she could curl up and fit in Jason's hand. We think that Bella is truly the best dog in the world and is the ultimate "man's best friend". She has brought us so much joy over the years and we hope for many more!

Bella when she was a puppy (about 8 weeks old)...


Bella at 3 years old...

Happy Mother's Day!

We both want to wish our mother's and everyone's mother a wonderful Mother's Day. It's a great tradition to reserve a day to thank mother's for everything they do, although they deserve to be honored everyday for their hard work. I'm so excited to be celebrating as a "mother-to-be" this year. We know we will take lots of great advice from all the wonderful mother's that came before us.


This year Jason and Baby Girl Dzubinski surprised mee with a bouquet of flowers, that smell delicious! Also this morning they took me out to our favorite breakfast place, Kerbey Lane. I spent the rest of the day relaxing and now Jason is making a great dinner for me. It was the perfect way to spend my Mother-to-be Day :)

Bringing home the chicks...

Today the Dzubinski's started a new adventure. As you know, we have been interested in having backyard chickens. If you decide to start with chicks, they have to stay inside under a heat lamp for 60 days. So, today we made a drive up to Georgetown Feed Store and purchased six baby chicks!


We wanted four chickens, however there is no guarantee that you wont end up with a few roosters or the possibility of a chick getting sick. So, we purchased 2 Light Brahmans, 2 Americanas, and 2 Bantams. We're not sure what type of Bantams they will turn into because they were all in a pen together, but hopefully at least one will be a Silkie.

We decided to name the chickens after female characters from movies that we both enjoy. One of the Americanas is Apollonia and the other Toula. One of the Brahmans is Clementine and the other is Angelica. The gray bantam is Satine and the yellow bantam is Lucy. Try to see if you can figure out the movie :)



Now Jason needs to start work on the coop so these little gals will have a place to live in a few months!

Bella getting to know the new chicks...

Easter Weekend Part 2

After the dog walk we grabbed a bite to eat and hit up our next community event. The 1st Austin Funky Chicken Coop Tour was going on from 10am til 4:30pm on Saturday. We were both extremely excited about this event because of our recent interest in "backyard chickens" around the neighborhood.

About 3 months ago Jason noticed that a house that is on our normal walk with Bella had about 8 chickens in their backyard. We were extremely surprised to see this because we were both under the assumption it was illegal to have live poultry within city limits. Then shortly after this discovery we found out our neighbor across the street had chickens and suddenly it felt like chickens were popping up everywhere in Austin.

The Funky Chicken Coop Tour provided us with a back stage pass to having backyard chickens in Austin. We were able to talk with the owners, ask questions, and see a huge variety of different coops. It was such a blast! We ended up going to about 10 different coops and rated them on what we liked and disliked. Our favorite one happened to be a coop just a couple of blocks away from our house. We liked it because it had a fairly large chicken run area and also incorporated a garden to provide shade and nutrients for the chickens.

Our favorite coop...



The tour definitely inspired us to start looking into adding some new members to the Dzubinski household. Although we do need to get our nursery done first, Bella may need to prepare to adjust to more than a baby here in a few months.

This is a picture of another coop we found interesting. It's a called a tractor because it's on wheels and people move it around to get different parts of their yard fertilized by the chickens.