Avery's first bath

Avery's first bath, she liked being in the bath, but man did she cry as soon as we took her out!

Avery's photos at 2 days old

Here are photos from Avery at 2 days old, taken by the hospital infant photographer:

Introducing Avery Elizabeth Dahlem!

Avery Elizabeth Dahlem was born at 8:14am on May 14th, 7 pounds-5 ounces, 18 inches long.

Mommy is recovering now from the C-section, and Daddy is excited to hold and rock Avery!
 
 

 

At the hospital ready for birth!

Here is mommy ready for the C-section. She is nervous but I know she will do great, we can't wait to see Avery soon!

Almost baby time!

Here are our last photos before we headed to the hospital for the C-Section!  We were goofing off because the camera started taking multipe shots in a row when we put it on the self timer!

Beach Day

On Sunday we went to the beach to take advantage of a nice hot day here.

We went to a new beach that we’d never been to before, called Kure Beach.  (Depending on who you ask, it is pronounced one of three ways: 2 syllables “Curry” like the Indian food, or 2 syllables “COOR-ree”, or 1 syllable “Kurr”. All 3 work, there is apparently no consensus!)

Kure Beach is one island in a string of islands south of Wilmington.

It is low key without a lot of other people around.

We have a beach house rented here for the last week of July that we are going to stay in with two other couple-friends that Colleen grew up with.

We wanted to get to the beach one more time, this was our second-to-last weekend without being parents!

Baby Shower #2

A few weeks ago, Colleen’s classmates threw her a shower at their house, and they were so generous! They got us a new Pack ‘n Play, plus some other wonderful gifts! It was a very generous thing to do and was very much appreciated. Thanks classmates!!!









 After the shower Jim picked up Colleen with Kylie in the car, and we went for a short walk/hike on a greenway trail near the shower location in Morrisville. Right now this about the only way to exercise being 8 months pregnant!

It's safe to say that Kylie's favorite part was the car ride!

Then Colleen had to finish up her science experiment for one of her grad classes.  She was checking the difference in growth in herbs/plants using Miracle Gro vs Organic fertilizer.  After careful measurements the conclusion was...no difference could be found in the growth rate between the two from this experiment.

Strawberry Picking

This last Saturday we took advantage of a new “pick your own” farm called DJ’s Berry Patch, which according to Google Maps is only 2.9 miles from our house!

It looks like it is out in the country, hard to believe it is that close to our house.

We picked a full bucket of strawberries that were very tasty!

Colleen was able to pick berries even with her 8.5 month beach-ball-belly in the way!

After we were done picking we had some of their homemade strawberry ice cream to cool off from the warmth of the afternoon.

Later in the summer they will have pick your own blueberry’s so we are looking forward to that too!

(These are cell phone pics, the quality may be a little low)

Weekend Randoms

This weekend was some more great weather, it felt wonderful outside in the 80s.

Our cat Millie loved lounging out on our patio set.

Our raised garden is starting to come into shape.  We have romaine lettuce, bell peppers, and broccoli starting to grow.  We're going to plant zucchini and summer squash soon too.

Jim was really sick on Friday, but felt better on Saturday as we were able to go to the Durham Bulls game Saturday afternoon.  (Some of you from out of town may remember the movie Bull Durham based on the team).  They are the triple-A team of the major league's Tampa Bay Rays, and as part of the final spring training game the Bulls played the Rays.

Here is a panoramic view from our seats:

Between innings they had a baby buggy race, where two guys had to push strollers down the field with a baby doll, then diaper the baby, then push the stroller back.  One guy was so far ahead he did a cartwheel on his way back showing off, only to trip and then lose the race!  It was classic, but also made us laugh as soon we will be diapering babies a lot!

When the Bulls hit a home run the big bull in the outfield lights up his eyes red and smoke comes out his nose, you can sort of see it in this picture when it happened during the game, kind of funny

Jim liked seeing a historic rail car near the stadium as we walked back to our car.

We have no idea what is was though, it said no trespassing private property.

Last weekend our friends Mike and Lisa who live near DC came down to visit.  For some reason this is our only picture of their visit while we were out to eat

We also went bowling, ate some fried pickles, played trivia at a bar, and saw the important sites in town such as the Amtrak station and the airport terminals.

And, even though with the warm weather it's hard to believe, but it did snow back in late January and we never posted pics.  Here is a pic of our house

Kylie in the backyard playing in the snow

And other random snow pics from our neighborhood

There were pink blooms on the trees that looked neat against the white snow background

Notice everybody sledding right past the sign "Please Keep Off Slope"

And our neighbor's pool looking so blue in the snow!

And here is the latest shot on Colleen's growing belly!  34 weeks and counting!