Welcoming Roman Alfonso DiMarco

It all started Tuesday October 6th at 3am. Below I am logging the times of my contractions as I was waiting for the right time to go since I didn't want to go into the hospital and then get sent back home. We left for the hospital around 8:15am and was admitted shortly thereafter.


Below- I have just been admitted to the hospital and anxiously awaiting our new arrival.


At 3:28 pm Roman Alfonso arrived. He really shocked me and Matt. Matt thought for sure it would be a girl and I thought it would be a long lanky baby who didn't weigh over 7 lbs and here comes a large robust 8 lb 1oz baby boy with a head full of dark hair. I don't think we would have believed he was ours if we didn't actually see him delivered.

Shortly after delivery.
Roman was so bright eyed when he arrived and very alert and active which was really surprising.


They asked if I had an appetite....me? always!! Although now that Roman has arrived, finding time to eat a meal is a luxury.





Our first walk after delivery. It was a brisk fall day but it was nice to get out and get some fresh air. We are looking fwd to working our way up to jogging but for now a 2 mile walk was quite sufficient.

The Many Faces of Roman. He is always coming up with the most hilarious faces and trying to catch them on camera is a challenge. Here are a few! What a ham. These were all taken within a matter of 15 minutes- he just keeps us laughing.

Finished Nursery

Less than 3 weeks til my due date and we are getting things finalized. Below are pictures of the nursery pretty much completed.

Labor Day at Grandfather Mtn

Labor Day 2009 consisted of a trip to the mountains, a picnic, a hike and beautiful sights. Below are some pictures of our day trip.




Forgive the upside down picture- was taking this as I was walking across the bridge...the Mile High Swinging Bridge if you couldn't figure that out already. Below are pictures taken from the walk across the bridge which was unsteady at times. The view, though, was breathtaking.



Above- Maggie and Matt walking across the bridge that hung a mile above the ground. Maggie felt a little unsteady on her feet and no one could blame her but she did exceptionally well with all the people and bridge movements.


Some pictures taken at the top. I am 8 months pregnant in these photos for those who were wondering.




The pictures below are from the park where we stopped for a picnic. Maggie's favorite past time is playing frisbee so we couldn't leave home without that.


We had a really great and relaxing time at Grandfather Mountain and driving down the Blueridge Parkway. Only 4 weeks left til due date and will post pictures as soon as we can of our new arrival.

Boys and explosives!

The nursery in waiting.

Well as some of you know - we are expecting our first child. I am currently 26 weeks pregnant and realizing how fast things are going already. We are not finding out the sex of the baby so gender neutral is our theme :) I started painting the nursery and getting things slightly more organized and below are some pictures of the progress.






Here are my little helpers...Well, Maggie (the dog) is just plain bored out of her skull since she can't play while I am painting. And well, Abby (the cat) seems to compete for ladder time and enjoys playing with the plastic drop cloth.


Below are pictures of somewhat of the finished project. Still trying to decide final layout of the room but we have a little time for that.

Kitchen floor redo

Slowly but surely we are working on making some updates to the house. One of our quick and inexpensive fixes was a face lift to the kitchen floor from the cracked mud tinged off white linoleum that was previously laid (should we also note, it was laid on top of an even more hideous display of linoleum). This is before:




This is in the process of our project. Matt deserves all the credit for the hard work of ripping up 2 layers of linoleum and further more doing all the intricate cuts for the corners and for laying all new quarter round.


Maggie can't seem to keep her eyes open for any picture. She tried to be involved which only made mom and dad angry as she tracked sealant and putty all over the floor.
Below- are pictures of the nearly finished project. We have since finished the painting and edging and can move on to the next project.

It seemed a little later in the season than we expected to see snow- but for those of us from the midwest it was a welcomed surprise. It was our biggest snow this season with about 4-6 inches at our house- which for some of you is considered only a dusting. But for Charlotte, it came with power outages and days of school closings. Below are some pictures of our house and property in the snow.









We are now looking forward to spring and having some nice weather to enjoy camping, hiking and other outdoor activities.