The pride and joy of our life

Born on July 29, 2010, Dietrich Ray Hofer came into the world 6 and a half weeks early! He spent 13 days in the NICU and was able to come home healthy as can be. I have posted here some of the pics I took at home after about a week being home. We are so loving life and are blessed to have such a healthy and happy baby boy!

Many more pics are posted on FB.

Some recent u/s pics of the baby

28 Weeks, 4 days:

29 weeks 4 days:

Dustin took time yesterday to scan them in at a high resolution. I'm going to send them to snapfish and have them printed on photo paper so they last longer and can be placed in the scrap baby book!

We still can't tell whose nose he has, but the forehead and eyes look like Dustin so far. The mouth open can be either of us with how much we like to talk haha.

If this blog is emailed to you, you can go to the blog's website, click the pic and make it bigger and print them out if you wish!

New Family Toy :)

Dustin was given the opportunity to buy an M4. Dad helped Dustin get it oiled, fired, and ready to go. Here are some pics of the fun.










Also, there was a release of quail near Mom and Dad's house. Here are Mom and Dad's new pets... the like to eat bird seed.

Updates of end of May early June

We have been busy lately. May 14th was our 5 year wedding anniversary. We realized that we've been together happily for 8 years and cannot believe it's been that long. With that said, it'd been 8 years and I've never gone to the Dayton Hamfest with Dustin. I documented with pictures as to why I don't belong at such "fests."

You see that antenna on his helmet?! Wow!

Mary Kay and Rachael put on a very nice baby shower at work for me on May 20th. I got a lot of very nice things that are definitely going to be put to good use. I'm very excited to see the little man in order to use these things!


I told Dustin I wanted to raise our flowerbeds and update them because they have been settling for too long and there isn't much separation in the grass and the pavers. Here's the almost finished product. The Rose of Sharon has always been there, but we just outlined it and raised it a bit. The only thing I want to add are some annuals.
Here is the second to last day of school, June 2nd. These are my 7th graders I had for a 100 minute block periods 1 & 2. They are a very loyal group, and very well trained by me. I teased them and told them I don't like 7th graders (which is true), but they ended up to be pretty good kids.


Here is my 8th grade 100 minute block periods 3 & 4. This group challenged me the most because it was an ENL inclusion group, but also most of the Hispanic students are in either Sur 13 or Latin Kings. These students definitely are a tight group and very protective of me.
This was my 6th and 7th period block of 8th graders. I loved this group so very much. They were great kids and always knew how to make me smile and make class fun. They were very mature and loved to discuss major topics. I will miss this group big time! A great way to end the day, that's for sure!
June 2nd was the 8th grade celebration night. This is a night dedicated to 8th graders' achievement and a farewell to them. Here is a group of my boys that I adore.

I must have done something right, I had students come back to visit me that night. This was my first real class I let go to the high school. Very sad and they'll always have a place in my heart.


The last day of school I allowed students to take pics, but it ended up that they wanted individual pics with me. Here is Nikko, a fine young gentleman that started a rumor about me. Warren Central was playing football at the Lucas Oil Stadium. Dustin and I had a bottle of water walking around and he said it looked like we were sipping on some 40s. SO my nickname from this class was D-40. Cracks me up, but they said it only respectfully! This is also the student that stalked me and kept asking me if I was pregnant. Knew my bathroom routine, doctor's appointments, watched my stomach expand.... Gotta love middle school boys haha.
Students leaving!

The best sight on a daily basis, but even moreso on the last day of school: knowing I sent these students away with the best I could offer them since July.
And the teachers breathe a sigh of relief and ready to celebrate surviving another year!

Baby Boy Hofer Waves

So I totally forgot to post this video, but here is the precious boy waving at the world! Ok I know he's not really waving, rather practicing movements, but I like to think he's saying, "Hi world! I'll be here soon!"

Baby Boy Hofer!

It's a boy :) Dustin likes this pic! It shows my manly man :)

Baby's face on right.

Baby's heart beat.

Video of baby moving

House renovation pics

As we have been coming to reality that we are to become parents, we are totally renovating the house. We spent the second week of my intercession cleaning my office/den out and organizing the storage room at the side of the house. The third week of my vacation through now we've been working on the living room and hallways. We ripped up the carpet, the padding, and pulled up all the padding staples. We then sealed the floor (the white color on the subflooring). It was A LOT of work and a ton of strain on Dustin since he had to do all the lifting himself. Bless his heart he took it on like it was the only job of his life. So here are some shots before and after. We don't have the furniture yet, but hopefully it'll be here within the next few weeks and I can post that as well.










Tonight since we still can't get too far into the kitchen to cook, we went out to Applebee's in Greenwood. It was supposed to be a purposeful trip to find some kind of audio/visual cabinet for our stereo/dvd player etc. Well, wouldn't you know it Best Buy didn't carry one that was a stand alone. Everything they carried was for those tvs that you set on top of. So we decided to go to Value City to see what they had--SAME THING! So no cabinet for us tonight. Maybe we'll get something this weekend after checking out Fry's.