Grandma Gary and Great Aunt Nina

This weekend Grandma Gary (Gwennie's middle name is Iris - after this grandmother) and Great Aunt Nina came up for a nice visit. For those of you that have met Grandma Gary, you all know she's pretty reserved....watch out when Gwennie's around!! She's pretty smitten with this baby! Corbin and I were both commenting on how happy both Nina and Iris were to meet Gwennie and how much fun everyone had. Here are a few more pictures from the visit

1 Month checkup

Today Gwennie had her 1 month checkup at the doctor's office. So far she's doing great...10 pounds, 21 inches long and healthy! The doctor said she can start a little rice cereal in the nighttime bottle to sleep a little longer (which both of her parents are very happy about!).

Easter Weekend

This weekend was FREEZING... literally! After layering the baby and ourselves in fleece and everything else, Saturday we headed over to watch the 2nd annual Easter Egg hunt hosted by Carson, Cannon, Cole, Brenda and Barry Clough. The whole neighborhood looks forward to this event (especially the parents who can enjoy a glass of wine or a beer while the kids are occupied with eggs). Gwennie got a little chilly during the hunt so her dad brought her inside to "warm up" (AKA watch the Masters).

Saturday night we drove down to Sparkle City to Aunt Lynne and Uncle Bill's house for our first overnight adventure. Since the Webb family Easter Egg hunt is about 3 1/2 hours from Charlotte, we decided to start from their house so we would actually make it to the hunt on time....or 40 minutes late since we are never ontime now that the baby is around.

We piled Lynne, Bill, Corbin, Gwennie, Rachel and Natalie into the car and were surprisingly not the last people to arrive! Gwennie was a big hit and behaved herself. Everyone had a great time and I (Natalie) was lucky enough to find the money egg. For those of you that don't know, everyone donates a few bucks to the hat and we split up the money, someone hides it (usually VERY well...under trees, in snake holes, buried with the fire ants) and the adults and children all run around trying to find the eggs....or in the adults case the cash!

Then we drove over to the family cabin to take a few pictures and headed home. The last set of pictures was our failed attempt to get a nice shot of Gwennie...she was much more interested in dinner.

Click here to see the pictures

Charlotte Easter Egg Hunt

Yesterday the whole family joined the Fishers and the Linny Brown over at Charlotte Country Club for the annual Easter Egg hunt. Crawford did pretty well in the 0 to 3 catergory. Gwennie and I looked on and coached from the sidelines!

Here's a picture of Gwennie with the "wacky wabbit" aka Mr. Hardin Minor who is the highlight of the hunt (other than the candy and the easter eggs).

Click here for a few more pictures from the hunt.

More Pictures!

Here's some updated pictures of Gwennie in her new favorite onesie...thanks you Gladys!!

Click her for pics

A little late...

OK... so we tried to get this up on Tuesday when Gwennie actually turned 2 weeks old but as you can see we aren't moving that fast. Click here to see Mommy's other "tries" at getting this picture.

Gwennie's "other" mom

As you can see Ginger likes her new sister. Ruby is also pretty interested in what Gwennie is doing but seems to like to watch the baby more than interact with her. Whenever the baby cries, Ginger checks things out to see if she's OK and constantly wants to lick the baby. If anything, Gwennie will have the cleanest head around!

Here's a few more pictures from today....click here

1 week old with the Hiccups

Well, we finally got some video uploaded. For some reason there is some earlier stuff here from the hospital and the first bath but the main video is from Gwennie hanging out in her bouncy seat battling the hiccups again. She seems to get them about 2 or 3 times a day.

More pics

Hi,
Aunt Lulu came over yesterday and took some great shots of everyone. Corbin's learning how to download video with our new camera so expect to see some movies soon.

Click here for Lynne's Pictures

First Few Days Home

Well, we made it home safe and sound and now are enjoying the lack of sleep and landing of the grandmothers. Overall both Susan and Verna have been very helpful and we don't know what we would have done without them. They have been doing all of the laundry, hovering over the baby, making dinner, hovering over the baby, walking the dogs, hovering over the baby, doing the dishes, and ofcourse hovering over the baby :-)

Gwennie is going to be a diva at this rate but I know she loves having her grandmothers around as do her parents!!! No harm in giving the baby tons of attention, she's pretty cute (we are a little biased though).

Here are more pictures from the last few days including the ride home. Click Here

Introducing Gwendolyn Iris Meek

Well, 17 hours and 1 C-Section later...Gwennie finally decided to come out and meet everyone. This is a picture from the camera phone so it's not too clear. Corbin will be posting more pictures either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. So far everyone is doing great. Gwennie is weighing in at 8 lbs, 11oz and is 20 inches long. She's just like her father in that she loves to sleep. Hope everyong is doing well!

Click here for a few pictures of Gwennie

Weekend Projects

This weekend Corbin and I decided that spending the weekend relaxing was for wussies! Instead, we decided it was time to stop talking about the new bed we needed and to go out and get it. I had been talking about this fabric headboard I wanted to try to make and so at 8 AM on Saturday morning...project build a bed started!

The first step was moving the bedroom furniture downstairs. As most of you know, we are expecting a baby in 3 weeks so I figured this was the fastest way to induce labor...not so much! It's Monday and I am no closer to labor than I was last week.

Here's a picture of the furniture down in the guest room.

So, once the furniture was moved downstairs we had to get rid of one of the extra mattresses. I never would have thought the craigslist in Charlotte would be as fast as the Boston craigslist but free is free so we posted an add at 9 AM and by 9:30 we had someone coming to pick up the old bed in the guestroom.

Then Corbin headed to uhual to pick up a truck, the new bed and some plywood, I went down to the fabric store to pick up the materials and we met up back home at noon to start putting together the headboard.

By 5 PM, everything was done. Here's the headboard without any pillows so you can see what the finished project looks like.

Huh????? What's this white stuff?

As you can see here, the girls had their first experience with snow. For the first time since we moved here (almost 3 years ago) it is snowing in Charlotte. Apparently this is not normal and basically the entire city has shut down. I like to call it a "retail storm" because as usual, all of the bread and milk in the area is gone and people look like they are preparing for a blizzard! Run...buy up all the firewood, we could be stuck at home for weeks!!! We are supposed to get about 3 inches which will then turn to freezing rain. By tomorrow it should melt and life will be back to normal.

Baby Shower

This weekend friends and family traveled from all over to attend Natalie's baby shower. What a fun weekend! The Saturday events included brunch at Providence Cafe and yummy Edible Art Cake...who seem to think my child will spell her name GWYN :-)

Corbin's mother's side of the family included Susan, Aunt Lynne, Aunt Anne, Aunt Emily, Cousins Page, Rachel, Emily, and Clay. Corbin's father's side of the family included Grandma Iris Gary, Aunt Nina, and cousins Megan and Caroline.

Natalie's mother Verna and Aunt Pat fly out from Arizona. And last but VERY not least Natalie's friends Jess and Parrish flew in from New England, Heather from Baltimore, from Cary/Rocky Mount were Allie and her mother Lorena. From Charlotte were Melissa, Michele, Kristin, Brenda, Linny and who can forget Janet. A special thank you to Janet, Allie and Verna for planning the shower, Jess and Ashley (who could not attend but was missed...Happy Birthday!) for making the cute favors and Parrish, Melissa, and Heather for the cake. Click here for pictures from the weekend

On a side note...another very special thank you to Lynne, Faryn & Kamryn for the huge box of clothing & gear!!

I can't believe I am saying this...

I can honestly say I LOVE this stroller. We don't even have a kid yet and this thing seriously is pretty amazing. For those of you who haven't gone through the mortal hell of heading to a baby store to check out strollers, let me enlighten you...Corbin and I folded, unfolded, shook, tried to break, dropped and tested all of them. Then we went home and read consumer reports and were even more confused, then we got sucked into the latest new thing (www.orbitbaby.com very cool strollers but still weren't sold on them) and finally decided to pull the trigger and got the Bugaboo Frog.

As you can see we immediately put it together and starting driving it all over the house. I even went so far as to try to get the neighbor's kid (Crawford...who immediately said "No nanni, baby stroller, I big girl!") and the dogs to try it out but nobody would have any part in it. Guess we will have to wait for the little poop to arrive in March!

Christmas in Arizona and the Crib Project

Happy New Year! For the Christmas holiday we traveled out to Natalie's parents place in Goodyear, AZ. Corbin's mother Susan joined us in our week and overall a great time was had by everyone. Natalie, Corbin, Susan, Verna, Mel, Aunt Pat, Uncle Frank and Natalie's cousin Chris all enjoyed a week of food, food, football and more food. Susan was the only active person in the bunch and managed to go on a few hikes in the area, what a trooper! We also visited the Heard Museaum, enjoyed Mexican food and Susan bought a new pair of authentic cowboy boots to bring home with her.

Once we got back home, by some stroke of luck, one of the Microsofties happened to be selling his almost new baby bedroom set so we decided it was a great purchase. Luckily the crib, changing table and chest of drawers (not pictured since the nursery is so teeny...for now Natalie is enjoying her new dresser!) are a beautiful cherry wood that match the glider Mel and Verna gave us for Christmas! As small as the room is, everything fits well, there's space to walk around and we even have a spot for the small white bookshelf at the end of the crib for future baby readings! For pictures of the AZ trip and the nursery, click here.

Oh yes, and a special thank you to Clark Spencer for sending Ginger and Ruby the yummy smoked bones!

Lake Christmas Weekend

It's that time of year again! We headed down to Lake Bowen for the Webb family Christmas. Which now includes 2 new Webbs....Gini and Alexandra Webb! Russ Webb married the wonderful Gini (and is now a step-father to her awesome daughter Alex) on December 1st. And promptly told his sister Rachel and mother Eileen to keep it a secret!

So we get there, meet Gini and about 2 seconds later I hear..."wife, where are you wife" and find out they were married in Hawaii (BTW..they live there) on the beach. I'll post pictures of their wedding soon enough.

Overall it was a great weekend, lots of fun and a good time for all. Click here for Clay's pictures from the weekend.

Hi Mommy...Ho, Ho, Ho!!

It's that time of year again. Crawford headed over to the Charlotte Country Club on Wednesday for pictures with Santa and to show off her new dress. As you can see, there was lots of other fun things to play with including decorating trees with stickers, face painting and LOTS of food (of which Natalie, Janet and Andrew made sure to get plenty of). Click here for pictures from the party

On Thursday Crawford then was a huge hit at the Little Church on the Lane Nursery School Show....Her mommy and daddy were very proud!

Watch Out Paris!

Yep...Mrs. Janet Fisher is giving Paris and Britney a run for their money. Sorry the pictures aren't any better, they were taken with a camera phone

Janet decided it was too much work to grow long hair so she took a page out of the Paris Hilton handbook and had her hair dresser put extensions in. As you all know I (this is Natalie ofcourse...Corbin does not keep up on hair lingo) couldn't keep my mouth shut on this and for the last two weeks have been calling Janet's upcoming hair unvailing "ho hair."

As you can see the finished product was much better than we anticipated.

Football at Notre Dame

Well, we went up to watch the beating of UNC vs. Notre Dame on Saturday and were pleasantly surprised. Yes, the Tarheels lost by 19 points (45 to 26) but compared to the Clemson slaughter, this was fun to watch! I think we confused all the Notre Dame fans when the entire Tar Heel section would start clapping when we actually held the Irish to a 3rd down and you should see what happened when they had to punt!!!

Most of the conversations of the weekend talked about the new UNC Fooball coach - Butch Davis- but overall it was a fun time. Joining us up in Chicago were Matt &Michele Kislowski (Happy Birthday Michele!!!) and Kristin & Mark Bordeaux.