Shower Time!!

On Saturday, I had my first baby shower! It was at my sister's house in McKinney and my mom and old roommate helped to host. They did a fantastic job! My nieces were even in attendance and they are great little helpers! I love you McKenna and Sydney! It was great to see some of both of our extended families and friends, including one of my college friends, Carrie, who came all the way from Tampa, FL. We had a good visit, although it is never long enough :-( . My cousin, Valeri, made the cutest Teddy Bear cake to go with the decor of our nursery. I can't believe she had the time with 6 kids at home. She is quite the superwoman! Sam and I were so blessed by everyone's generosity! Among the gifts, my family got us our stroller. We will get miles and miles of use from it. We got several other must haves including: a baby monitor, bottle sterilizers, grocery cart cover, sleep positioner, several blankets, toys, booster seat, a play gym, butt paste ;-), and a PINK Bumbo. Yeah, that's right, I said a PINK bumbo. Apparently, the stores cannot keep these things on the shelf and Sam has made it clear that a pink one just won't work for his son ;-)!! I guess I will just have to exchange if for a purple one---just kidding, Sam!!

God's Gift...

What lead Kim and I to pain-stakingly undertake the large stencil over the crib? For inquiring minds, allow me to explain. In early August of 2006, Kim and I found out we were going to have a baby. It so happens that 8/9 is my birthday. So exactly 1 week early on August 2nd, Kim decided to surprise me with the best birthday present I could ever get... fatherhood. Before I arrived home from work, Kim went out to buy an early birthday gift to surprise me with the news. While she was out shopping she walked by and saw a Christian-themed children's book. Intrigued by this book, she picked it up to look through it. The first page she opened to read the above verse, 1 Samuel 1:27. As some of you may or may not know, Kim and I had been trying for almost a year to get pregnant and were considering the path of fertility treatments before we discovered the news. So, the months and months of tears, praying and hoping finally paid off. We were truly blessed. Oh and did I mention not only does the verse itself directly apply to our situation (1 Samuel 1:27), but my name is Samuel, this is our first child, and I was 27 at the time. GOD IS GOOD!! Not only that, but only a few months later we learned we were having a boy!!

Check out the crib...

Here's the place where the little one will spend many quiet hours resting... yes we naively believe that... eyes closed, and fingers crossed (Thanks to Uncle Randy and Aunt Penny for their generosity). Regardless, I guess soon enough we will get to test the durability of the nice, new baby bedding. Call me frugal (or something less tactful), but why hasn't someone started the trend of covering the bedding/crib in plastic? Sure it's an eye-sore, but think of the savings! Oh well, as you can see Kim did a phenomenal job picking out our (manly) "baby chic" bedding. The crib will convert to hopefully stand up to the infant, toddler and teen years. We will just have to see how well the little guy treats it! You will also notice the awesome wood-working. Thanks to Kim's dad for all his help with the crown-molding and chair railing. This room was previously just a skeleton of what it is today.

Come On In!

Here's the entrance to the nursery. No, you are not imagining it. Both the entrance to the room and the closet door open into one another... clearly the latest in home engineering technology. I can only imagine the unintentional punishment those doors will undertake in the near future. Additionally, I know they are too tiny to distinguish, but rest assured the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Tech Red Raiders are proudly touted via the world-renown relic that is the pacifier. In case you were wondering, the pacifiers can be seen in the upper portion of the hutch, in the cabinet below the manly finger puppets).

I WANT TO ROCK!

Yep, you guessed it... a shot of the place where momma (and poppa) will spend many hours rocking the little man. This chair is so comfortable and add rocking motion to that... I just hope our son falls asleep before I do when it's my turn to rock him. Oh and as far as the title of this picture, I openly apologize for the blatant 80's rock song reference (Twisted Sister for those with inquiring minds--yes I'm embarrassed I know that). Anyway, as you can see my wife once again hit one out of the park single-handedly matching the reds in the curtains, (custom-mixed) paint of the teddy bears' shirts and blanket lying on the chair. I now know decorating the nursery is truly an art form!

Another shot...

Yet another shot of the little Wolfe pup's den.

Teddies, Teddies everywhere...

As you can see from the previous pictures there are quite a few of these little guys lining the nursery. Actually, there are 47 to be exact. These bears consisted of a 2 part stencil and required lots of concentration and touch-up work. So armed with acrylic paint, a plethora of brushes, and a hair-dryer in order to speed-up the drying process, my lovely wife worked tirelessly over a week or so to get these finished. In her perfectionist, yet caring, nature my wife benevolently refused my offers to help... and as you can see from the nursery pictures, it is a good thing she did. I never knew I had such an artistic wife!!