it's a ........murphy!

Sorry to leave you hanging back there in September...life has been busy (good busy)...mommyhood is incredible...even better than I every could have dreamed! 

Exactly one week overdue, September 13, 2011 @ 6 o'clock PM on. the. dot. Taylor & I 

fell in love 

with:

Murphy Woods deRoo

8 lbs.  2 oz.  21 inches long

and completely perfect.

cloud 9.

it's a boy!  hi murph!  xoxo

pink and wrinkly and all mine.

those blue eyes get me every time.

murphy woods deRoo.  i.  love.  you.

i can't think of anything i would rather be than murphy's mama.
i am completely smitten.  

a look inside motherhood. not mine. sarah's.

a lot of my friends have babies by now...and i think they are all pretty incredible.  the moms, that is.  well, the babies are pretty great too.  but this little lady, sarah clark, is exceptionally wonderful.  she makes motherhood look so easy.  i know that it isn't and she would never claim it is either, but i love watching her in action.  i really admire her ability to multi-task.  she is a career woman and an A+ mom and wife.  

i don't know how she does it but i am hoping she can give me some lessons pretty soon because baby deRoo will be here any day now.

and this is her baby boy, jansen.  or baby j, as we like to call him.  and did i mention he is a little prince?  

he has the best temperament ever. love that kid!  

jansen is almost 14 months so sarah has a year under her belt by now.  

sounds like a good time to start mentoring a new mom like me!

italia: the experience.

here are some pictures from my amazing italian vacation with my amazing family-in-law.  (pictures are going on a year old by now..hard to believe...but they are still amazing.)  and no...this is not where baby deRoo was created, though that's none of your business anyway.  but since we get asked that a lot i thought i would go ahead and clear the air.  

italy was perfect.  i highly recommend it.  go there!

the past nine months.

ok, so no, i did not get stranded in italy as my abandoned blog may lead you to think.  i did, however, get quite distracted when i got home (some may call it lazy) and neglected this little blog of mine for quite some time...nine months , plus,  to be more exact.  what's my excuse?  well....

how's this for an excuse?

 you guessed it.  we've got a bun in the oven.  and not just a little bun anymore...it's basically a full loaf by now.  yesterday was officially my due date.  although, i don't give a lot of credit to the actual "due date."  this baby will come when it's good and ready to come.  this picture was taken at 39 weeks.  i'm feeling great, not uncomfortable or overly anxious.  taylor and i don't mind if this baby takes it's time.  we figure it can have as many extra days as it needs to get cute and strong and smart!

so enough about me....here is what we know about baby deRoo:  NOTHING.  that's right, we don't know if this precious little babe will be a girl or a boy.  most people are guessing girl...but i think guessing takes all the fun out of it so i am just patiently waiting to find out who this baby is when it's born.  it will be the sweetest surprise ever!

and here is the fun part...the nursery.  sorry for the dark pictures..they're from my camera phone.  (again, i blame laziness for not getting my real camera out to document anything these days..)  i do promise to take better pictures once the baby actually arrives.  i just can't promise that they will make it on my blog before the baby's first birthday!  obviously my credibility for timely posts has gone out the window. 

                              

short and sweet.  that's all i can give you right now.  i am still hoping to get a few italy pictures posted before my water breaks.  :)

italy bound.

did i mention that i am going to italy?  like, today. 

i know, i know, i should have told you sooner. 

it will just be a quick tour de italia for the deRoo clan.  (mark, rox, ingrid, hillary, taylor & this lucky girl.) 

and i can hardly wait. 

although i will miss my mom's holiday feast, this year i am thankful to be spending thanksgiving in italy. 

not eating turkey! 

and i am thankful in advance to the italians for their generosity as they allow me to eat their pasta, drink their wine and savor their ohsofine gelato! 

i hope they know what they are getting themselves into when i step off that plane!

so for the next 6 days i will be here.  here.  here.  here.  

and here:

and eating this:

rome, florance and venice, here i come. 

architecture. history. art. fashion. romance. culture.

did i mention fashion? 

oh yeah, this is going to be fun.

don't miss me too much. 

because i probably won't be missing you. 

no offense. 

it's italy!

on getting noticed.

it feels nice to get noticed, wouldn't you agree?  my little downtown farmhouse got noticed this week!  my dining room table & burlap table runners were featured on the House of Hepworths blog! 

little old me and my little old blog with my 35 little followers got featured on House of Hepworths with almost 1000 followers!  i feel like a celebrity.  well, ok, not really.  but i am thankful for the shout out!

the places we've lived.

in four short years taylor and i have lived in 3 different homes.  yes, three.  geesh.  it has been exhausting.  we are glad to be settled into our little downtown farmhouse and living happily ever after.

here's a little peak at where we came from.

our first house in Godwin Avenue in Grand Rapids.

i, personally thought she was a cute little house on a cute little street.  taylor never liked her...and, well, after we moved away someone was murdered across the street.  which isn't very cute.  but, for a first house i think she was tops.

so, you might notice that my color palette in our first house was a tweensy weensy bit brighter than it is now.  i call it my box of crayons house.  we can just say that i learned a lot the first time around.  it was like my practice house, i guess. 

and apparently york thought it was his practice house too...since he basically chewed through all of our furniture in that house.  coffee tables, couches, table legs, you name it, york chewed through it.  (i think the only reason finn didn't go through the furniture-chewing-phase was because he was too distracted by the chewing-on-my-big-brother-phase to even notice our furniture.)

we lived in our grand rapids house for just under a year and a half when we picked up and moved to a land far far away (25 minutes) to zeeland.  awe, cute little zeeland.  a much better fit for a girl like me.  so anyway, we couldn't find a zeeland home right away so we shacked up in a condo (in the middle of a retirement community, mind  you) for what was supposed to be less than 6 months.  but the hunt for a house on central avenue took a bit longer and we ended up vegging out in the condo for a year and a half. 

i only have a couple pictures of our condo life because we didn't do any decorating since we didn't expect to be there for very long.  i must say, it was a great place to spend our transition time.  clean. spacious.  i can't believe i am going to admit this because i do very much love my downtown farmhouse...but once in a blue moon i miss the condo.  i do.  mostly i miss the carpet.  ohmygosh..did i just say that?  it's true.  so cozy and convenient and boy did it hide the endless piles of dog hair that roll around our wood floors these days like tumble winds in the dessert. the condo was a very relaxing place to spend those 1.5 years. 

thank you, summergrove.  you treated us well.

but here's our real sweetheart.  three. one. two. oh how i love you.  xoxo

considering where she started..this old girl has really been good to us.

i still shudder when i look at those pictures!

home to stay.  {exhale.}