Spring Break: Warning- Photo Heavy!

Today is the last day of my spring break! It's been a whirlwind week that started off with a fabulous weekend in Atlanta with family and friends. We had our first baby shower, graciously hosted by my sister-in-law, with some input from my mom as well. It was a lot of fun and was such a nice opportunity to see everyone. And of course, words can't even express how awesome it was to see how excited everyone was for us & Baby Hesser. He's already SO lucky & spoiled!

Beautiful table- love the toys on the vase & the mason jars for the super yummy punch!

Marcia did an amazing job with food!

I definitely enjoyed myself :)

Dad-to-be with friends from high school. These ladies are awesome & hilarious, and we can't thank them enough for always supporting us!!

The gorgeous and amazing ladies in our family!

Following our trip to Atlanta, my mom headed back to MS with me to build the nursery. It's been such a fun project! Thank you pinterest! We were so so lucky to have both sets of parents contribute some of the big furniture, and we were also given the beautiful changing table from our friends. And really, there is absolutely NO way it would look anything like it does now without my mom's help. She was able to actually implement my visions (or pins from pinterest). It went from an empty room with a lone crib to this:

View looking in from the door. Ty painted the walls for me (Behr Misty Surf), they're a really pretty gray-blue. The curtains were sewed by my mother, they were in progress in this picture but they're completely done now! I LOVE THEM.

Nightstand (Ikea!) and our super comfy swivel-glider Little Castle chair. You can't really tell in the photo, but it has navy blue piping with a navy pinstripe. The white blanket was a gift from Ty's parents, handmade in Iowa!

The beautiful crib, I am SO in love with it. It is very sturdy and you can't tell from the crib skirt, but it has a pull-out drawer on the bottom that can store all of his extra sheets, mattress pads, liners, and blankets!

He already has friends waiting for him in his crib (don't worry, they'll be removed once he actually sleeps in his crib). I decided to not do a bumper since they are not recommended for safety purposes. My mom is making him a quilt that will match this set- did I mention how awesome she is?!?

We got his car seat! It feels so real with that in the room, waiting for him.

Ty finished & re-painted the dresser and installed new knobs. It looks so much better than before- I wish I had thought to take a before & after shot.

How adorable are these knobs???

I can't believe how much stuff he already has. How cute are his clothes by the way?? And these are JUST the ones we hung up. He already has drawers full of sleepers, onesies, and pants. We were given so many wonderful outfits from friends. I never realized how much fun boy baby clothes can be! I can't wait to play dress up (although I'm sure that will lose its luster very quickly)

The beautiful changing table. The top three bins have his fitted cloth diapers (yeah, we're trying it! If anyone has any tips, please let me know!!), inserts, and his prefolds. I'm still trying to figure out the bottom three. So far one has burp cloths and another has his bibs. I'm sure everything will change once he's here. I just like playing with all his stuff!!

I had to include this bear, he's already been through a lot with us- he's tried out the crib, car seat, his carriers (he fits well in the Moby wrap), and as you can see, he's modeling one of our newborn sized cloth diapers (they are sooooo adorable).

So his nursery is pretty much finished, I just need to get stuff on the walls. We're getting close to having the basic essentials (plus some!) for survival with a newborn, I can't believe how much stuff babies need! We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends and family members that have gifted us wonderful things! I really can't thank everyone enough. I knew we had amazing people in our lives, but everyone has gone above and beyond in celebrating Baby Boy.

We also toured the hospital where I'll be delivering. That made it all super real. I thought the 2nd trimester took forever, now I can't believe that I'm already 2 weeks through the third trimester. Baby Boy has gotten bigger- I can definitely feel the difference. His current favorite hang out is at the bottom of my ribs on my right side. Not exactly the most comfortable, but he makes doing my kick counts easy since he moves so much and I can't miss it.

Now its crunch time for exams- they start at the end of this month. It's so nice to have most of his nursery done since there's a possibility I won't be back until exams are over. YIKES.  I have a feeling these last 10 weeks are going to fly by quickly.

Three years later...

In an effort to keep those that we love in the loop, we're bringing back this blog! It's funny to look back at what we were doing 3.5 years ago and how much is different now!!

For those keeping track, we still live (mostly) in Mississippi with our THREE dogs. Ace and Bella are 3.5 years old now- they've changed a lot in that time!

Bella girl

Love this picture of Bella & Ty

Ace Bud

We fostered Layla during the Mississippi River flood in early Summer 2011, and well, she's our crazy mutt now. As much as Ty tries to complain about her, they've totally bonded and he wouldn't be able to give her up for anything!

Who could refuse this face? 

Layla looking a little more dignified in her favorite spot- the couch!

One thing is for sure, I'm not allowed to foster any more animals. Clearly, I'm not good with the whole "temporary" thing! Of course, there's not any time/ room for any more animals!

The Hesser Family circa Nov. 2012

 For instance, I'm finishing up law school- December 2013!! We're SO close! And as of the end of next month, Ty and I will officially be done with the whole "long distance" fun. He's stuck with me for good after that. Thank goodness! I've loved (for the most part) working on my degree, but I can't wait to get back to our life together. And then of course, the biggest and craziest change in our life would be this:

We're Pregnant!!!

Baby Boy Hesser is officially arriving sometime around June 10, 2013. We DO have a name all picked out, it's not a secret- so feel free to ask either one of us if you're curious! And now for the belly pic, as promised...

Don't I look great?!?

HAHA. Just kidding, that would be me 2 days shy of 9 weeks. We've come a long way since then...

2/10/13- or a day shy of 23 weeks.

27 weeks. Excuse the horrible picture, this was taken at the end of the day, right before bed. I swear I don't normally look that big! But I'll try to take another picture in the next week or two and we'll see for sure :)

So that's it! We're just a few days away from the third trimester!!

A few things about my pregnancy so far: Overall, Baby Boy has been treating me really, really well. I've been SO lucky. I didn't have much morning sickness at all in the first trimester. I've gained about 7 lbs overall (I'm expecting that to change quickly- we'll see if I keep you updated on that aspect! haha). And he is SUPER active. Seriously, pretty sure he's been practicing soccer with my internal organs, and he's got a good kick already! I've been feeling his movements since just before the 16th week- pretty ridiculous! Ty can feel him too most of the time. So I haven't had any freak out moments or a hard time with the "kick count" because he is constantly in motion. The only problem I've really had is falling asleep at night- because of course that is when he is most active.

The week after next is my Spring Break, and our first baby shower. We're so lucky to have so many wonderful people that love us and care for us. I wish we could get together with everybody but time/school/ distance makes that so difficult. We will be traveling to both South Carolina and Florida  later in the summer so hopefully we can see people then- WITH a baby! With my mom's help, I'll be using most of my spring break to put together his nursery. My goal is to get most of it done, because I'll have exams soon after. And by the time exams are over, we'll be 35 weeks and I'm guessing it will be a bit harder for me to get stuff done :)

Thanks so much for caring so much about us, we love you all and can't wait to show you Baby Boy when he gets here :)

Love, Ryan & Ty

Time Flies!!

I apologize for the ridiculously long break in between posts. We will try to be better in the future :) A lot has happened since then! We found homes for 4 of the puppies (Ally, Bruiser, Sarah, and Tebow) and we kept Ace and Bella for ourselves. It's been quite an adventure having them, and I can't really remember what life was like before them- except maybe quieter! Here is a quick rundown of what we have been up to:

In November we:

• visited Florida to see family and see Ben & Shelby get married!
• Hosted the entire Bailey and Hesser families for a big, fun Thanksgiving out here in New Mexico

December:

• Started puppy obedience classes (oh how far we have come from this point and how far we still have to go!)
• Took 4 days and drove to Myrtle Beach, SC to see family. We took the puppies with us!
• Drove from MB to High Springs, FL to have Christmas with my family! It was fun. The puppies LOVED it there!
• Left the puppies with my family, and traveled to Seneca, SC to have a belated Hesser Christmas with Scott, Marcia, and Ty's parents!
• Spent an awesome New Years in Savannah, GA with even more awesome friends!

January:

• Made the trip back to New Mexico from Florida in 3 days. Crazy!
  
• Flew out to Philadelphia 5 days after we got back from Florida to attend Cass & Mike's amazing wedding, while there we rented a car and spent a wonderful few days with my aunt & uncle in Maryland. Fun times!
• Pups graduated from their first obedience class, and went straight into their novice class. They are also taking a puppy fun agility class and they LOVE it!

There are no immediate plans to travel for us and we are enjoying it. We loved all of our trips but there is something to be said for not having to live out of a suitcase for awhile. We just joined a gym and that has been keeping us busy. It's no Gator CrossFit, but it will do for now :) Ty is able to do all the CrossFit workouts with their equipment and that makes him happy. I have been taking BodyPump classes (kind of like CrossFit Jr.!) and some dance classes. Fun, sore times ahead for us. I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of the pups. We are pretty much like those annoying parents that don't talk about anything but their kids. Sorry! Wait til we actually have kids, yikes. Oh and I mean wait.. like 5 years :) haha.

We miss everyone! Come out and visit!

Circle of Life

I have been meaning to do a blog post on the puppies and I will get around to actually doing that. Let's just say that they are crazy and fun and keeping me busy and sleepless! I will post a picture at the bottom of the post so that everyone can see them.

Today was a rough day for us all. We lost Dutch- the Hesser's family dog and the original Australian Shepherd. If it wasn't for Dutch's sweet nature and great temperament, we would never have even looked at getting an Aussie puppy. He was a wonderful dog and was loved by everyone he met. Even though we have known that this day was coming for awhile, it's still very hard. Between our families, this is the 4th dog we have lost this year. It makes me wonder sometimes why we even want to have another dog when it hurts so much to lose them. But, we both have to remember that we wouldn't trade our memories and experiences with them for anything. We were very lucky to have Dutch in our lives and we will always be thankful for the time we had with him. I can only hope that the puppies we are taking care of now, will bring as much fun and happiness to their future families as our past dogs have done for us. RIP Dutch, Xena, Pearl, and Ginny. We love and miss you.



and the youngest dogs in our lives:

PUPPIES!!!!

Ty and I have been talking awhile about getting a dog. We really love Australian Shepherds but we wanted to find a dog that was from a shelter. Well, when I looked yesterday and found Aussie puppies at a nearby shelter, we just had to call! It turns out the puppies are only 5 weeks old and without a mother. They are too young to be officially adopted, but the shelter was looking for a foster home for them. They need lots of love and need to stay together until they are at least 8 weeks old. If they didn't find a foster home today or tomorrow, they were going to be sent up to some shelters up in Colorado. Well, we couldn't let that happen, and since no one else volunteered to take them in, tomorrow we will begin fostering 6 puppies! They are completely adorable and it will be hard to part with them at the end (although, if all pans out, we will be keeping one). Since I have the free time, it just made sense for us to do it. This will definitely be a big adventure for us, but we can't wait. Here is a picture of two of the puppies from the shelter's website. Hopefully tomorrow I will have some pictures of all of them together :) Anyone want a puppy?

More soccer and Furniture shopping

Soccer may become the theme of this fall. By the end of it, I should really know a lot more about the game!

On Sunday morning, We went and cheered on Ty as he played in his first game with a local soccer team. He played well, although he struggled a bit with the lack of air. Rio Rancho sits at 5,290 ft. MUCH different from Florida. I enjoyed watching and taking pictures. By the end of our time here, I should be a lot better with my camera. There is just so much going on to take pictures of! And having the blog is good incentive as well :) Here are some of my favorite pictures of Ty's game:

Feeling the pain now...

The rest of the weekend (Saturday and Sunday afternoons) was spent furniture shopping. We managed to visit most of the furniture stores in the greater Albuquerque area. We had fun though and found some good stuff. Should you need anyone to refurnish your house, we are now experts :) Here's a picture of Ty with his favorite bedroom set...

Soccer games and Balloons!!

Friday night I finally made it out to watch the Coach Hessers coach a Rio Rancho High School JV game. It was a really nice complex located on the reservation right down the road. The boys won 7-0 against their new rivals, Cleveland HS (a new school that took its students from Rio Rancho). It was fun to watch them play, and we stayed and watched the Varsity boys also dominate their game. The only thing that would have made the night better was if it was slightly warmer- it was soooo cold! :) Going to have to adjust to this desert weather quickly!

The coaches:












The complex with the mountain as a backdrop:


Saturday morning was the start of the 2009 Albuquerque Balloon Festival. The Festival will last until next weekend and the number of hot air balloons that turned out is amazing. Apparently there actually less than normal due to the economy but it's still awesome. There are often one or two hot air balloons in the sky when you wake up in the morning around here, and now I understand why the locals don't get excited- its nothing like during the Balloon Festival.
We woke up early and watched them take off. They have to take off in rows so it takes awhile for all of them to get up in the air. The wind wasn't perfect and they weren't able to stay up very long in the air before they had to descend back down, but luckily for us due to the wind shift, many of them were landing in the neighborhood around us. Each balloon has its own chase car and they drive around, following the balloon, and quickly packing them up once they land. We had a lot of fun "chasing" the chase cars. Apparently some ballooners will even ask for help from nearby spectators. We weren't able to get close enough for that but the week is still young :) Ty got a bit addicted to chasing the balloons, if he decides he doesn't want to do Coastal Engineering, he could always be a professional balloon chaser... Here are some of our favorite pictures from this morning:


Dutch walked with us around the block while we watched the initial ascent of the balloons.

All the balloons in the air! So pretty and colorful!

Starting to land in the neighborhood! There are two on the ground to the right. Ty and his mom are on the left of the picture. And you can see the chase cars going too!

Up close and personal. Landing right by us :)