First girl date

I decided to try and start a tradition with Vivi. Now that she has a new sibling that takes a lot of time from mommy and I wanted to have a special time that was just for Vivi and I- our girl date! I decided we would try to once a week or maybe every other week have a breakfast out just the two of us. This past weekend I took her to Chickfila to get the tradition going. Vivi and I enjoyed our chicken biscuits and some time in the indoor playground.

Going Green

The Dons are going green! Not exactly...as you'll see we all wore green one day to prove it's not a total lie. We did come up with one really cool "green" idea though. Actually, our Nana came up with it and helped in the creation. We decided to take boxes from our pantry- think crackers, biscuits, etc. and paint them and create different cars from the "Cars" movie. This is Vivi's favorite movie and we thought it would be a fun project to keep her busy during these first few weeks with Isaac. I think Nana and I ended up getting into it more than Vivi but she LOVED doing the painting. Here is a shot of our green family and more of Vivi creating cars with Nana and the finished project.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving family and friends! We hope you and your families had as lovely of a time as we did. We kept it close to home with a newborn which worked out beautifully. Our family was so gracious to ask we only bring ourselves and some rolls. They cooked a wonderful spread and I enjoyed many plates of yummy sweet and carb food! Right before Thanks, Vivi had a special concert at her school and made a cute turkey picture Nana hung at our house. Enjoy a small slideshow of turkey time. Don't you love the hats? Vivi and I made them Thanks morning while we watched the Macy's day parade. Also you'll see some shots of us with horses. My dad has always had a love of horses and has a friend he goes and rides with. His friend allowed us to come out and see the horses and take the girls for a short ride. What a treat!

Bath time

One of the "first" adventures we've now lived through was Isaac's first bathtime. Fortunately, it went much smoother than Vivi's first bathtime which was a HUGE disaster! This time, I had helping hands of all kinds. You'll see Vivi bathing Baby Koko which was a gift from her baby brother to help with her bathtime which are often still disasterous. There are too many pictures to only post a couple so I had to make a slideshow of baby bathtime. Here is mommy's first run at it and daddy's too. Isn't he so sweet?

Special Big Sister Moments

As mentioned below, a lot has been happening around our house since we got home and I feel like I have a camera permanently attached to me trying to capture each special moment. Some of the most precious moments have been seeing how Big Sister Vivi interacts with her new baby sibling (as she called Isaac when inside mommy's belly). Here are a few shots of Vivi holding Isaac, taking pictures of him, and wearing her new favorite t-shirt that claims her as a "Big Sister".

Homecoming

As of tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, we'll have been home for one week. A lot has been going on with our little Turkey Baby Isaac since we've arrived home, but I wanted to make sure and post some pictures of our release day and the special surprise we had waiting at home. Thank you to Nana and Papa for making our homecoming so special!

Visitors

We wanted to do a special post and say thank you to all of our friends and family for their lovely support. We have felt very loved and Baby Isaac is covered in blessing. We had many friends call and come visit us in the hospital, at home, and even bring mommy and the family special yummy treats! We have all thoroughly enjoyed that! It has been fun showing off Isaac and I've really appreciated food since my diet restrictions are gone! Praise God! Here are a couple of shots of friends with Isaac and some fun mommy time. I'm sorry to all that I didn't get pictures of with Isaac as we've had others stop in on us. Please don't hesitate to come and visit- we love it! Just call ahead.

Welcome Baby Isaac

Our newest addition has just arrived on God's perfect timing.
Tuesday, November 18th at 5:05 p.m. arrived our
Baby Boy- Isaac Van Dons.
He weighed in at 7 lbs and 10 oz
close to 20 inches long.
He has beautiful dark hair and olive dark eyes.
Everything really went smoothly and we are really enjoying our newest treasure.
See the below slide show for hospital pictures. We'll post some home shots soon. We are at home now and doing well. Isaac has already proven to be a laid-back guy and Vivi is adjusting beautifully to being a big sister. Thank you for all your prayers friends.

Shower from two Friends

A few weekends back, a couple of my good girlfriends, fellow Ags, brought a shower to me. I asked if we could just have a good lunch and conversation instead of the "traditional event". They were so sweet driving in from as far as Mckinney to spoil me. It was a pleasant afternoon with beautiful flowers and a lunch that sent my blood sugar off the charts, but well worth it! Here are a couple of quick shots of the me with Amber's baby son- Andrew, Jaime, Amber, Andrew & I, and the gorgeous flowers. Thanks friends for making me feel special and the bumpo! I'll use it!

Home days

Over the last few days, mommy hasn't felt the best but I've had some troopers around to help me out. Down to a limited diet, I still need my "sweet fix" so Vivi helped me make some sugar-free jello. She was so sweet wanting to stir and be involved. The next day we spent at home washing and preparing for little Baby 2, and a surprise visitor showed up- Princess Vivian. She just discovered some long-lost jewelry and her tutu and wore it ALL day long! It was so sweet! It's hard to feel bad when you have such a guest around your house.

The Alamo

We really wanted to squeeze in one last trip to see Nick's folks before I popped and so headed down to San Antonio on Halloween night. It was a quick trip in a cramped car but I'm so glad we went. We decided to do something different and spent one morning at the Alamo. It was such a pleasant day and had fun learning more about our history.

Halloween Party

This year Halloween looked a little different for us as we were in the car to San Antonio. We celebrated early but the morning of Halloween I wanted to do something special for Vivi. I was not alone. A few of the ladies from our Sunday school class planned a sweet party with sweets and games for the kiddos. Vivi wasn't as excited about her costume again but I thought we'd capture one more fun time in her Halloween outfit. I love some of these shots of the sweet twins-Jack and Jonah in their superhero costumes. All the kids looked so cute and really had a nice time. Thanks for planning this Holly and Natalie!