A Baby Shower for Brooke

Last weekend S and I had plans to go to Fort Worth - as far as I could travel - to spend a couple of days at a swanky hotel to celebrate our 11th anniversary and just get away one last time before baby arrived. But, as you know, the blood pressure went all haywire and we had to cancel that trip.

One thing I was going to miss by being in sunny Fort Worth (where the hotel had an indoor pool...ahhh) was attending my sister-in-law Brooke's baby shower. We had scheduled the time away before I knew it conflicted with this event. But, since we canceled the "out of town travel" my mother-in-law picked me up and took me to Brooke's shower. When I arrived at the shower, should my doctor be reading this blog, I sat down and lounged for the whole party. I promise I stayed down on a couch even for the shower!

Anyway, it was a lovely affair, full of babies and pregnant women. Boy oh boy, there is something in the water wherever Brooke's friends gather! Funny thing was, of all the babies in the room, newly born or gestating, my baby was the ONLY boy. Girls abounded! (Brooke's son Andrew was with his dad over at my in-laws, so even he wasn't there to raise the boy quotient!)

My friend Deborah was in attendance - you remember she helped host a shower for me back in May and gave birth to her own little girl on June 1 - because she and Brooke attend the same church and are in the same Mommy and Me group. Strange confluence of known circles there, but it was great to see her too, and her little one!

Here are some photos of the action for you of the event. All photos were a little dark...I am going to blame it on the camera. I have a new camera coming this week (with video on it!) in anticipation of our baby's big arrival - of course, if the photos are crappy after we get the new camera, what will be my excuse! Anyhoo, here they are:

That's Brooke on the left, welcoming her guests.



Sister-in-law Kim made this diaper cake for Brooke.


Miss Sophia was there and was all smiles!


More little girls played in the toy room.






See, there I am, on the couch!
Mother-in-law and mother are behind the couch.


Girly things!


We totally oohed and aahed over this homemade gift.


Gratuitous shot of Sophia.


A family heirloom handed down to the next generation.


Baby girls love these soft babies.

So there you go! You can see once again a lovely baby shower was had by all in attendance, even if the photos are a bit dark. We talked about getting another photo of the three sisters-in-law since I'll be "on the other side" by the next time we're all together, but we forgot. Imagine - three pregnant/new mom women forgetting something! Go figure! We'll get to meet this little one in mid-September. Babies everywhere!

See you soon.

The Final Week

So, a lot has happened since the birthday post. Namely, my blood pressure has gotten more squirrely than before. So, I spent some time being monitored for blood pressure last week, and they decided it was time to move the birth date up a week. They have determined the baby is ready to come on out if he needs to. They estimate he'll be 7 and a half pounds. And, we'll have him on July 23rd instead of July 30th to alleviate any more strain on this old pregnant body. I will have made it to 38 weeks, which is considered full term.

That means suddenly we are in the final week! So, my parents and S's parents had to rearrange all of their plans to make the 23rd work. I feel a little guilty about that, but babies seem to have their own timetables, even when we're scheduling them! I am starting to get the picture that my scheduling days are over...

And I still have so much to tell you! Since all I am supposed to be doing these days is lying around, I hope to get it all said. Here comes a flurry of blog posts to you. Today's post - a recap of my final baby shower, comprised of people I work with or used to work with, given by my good friends Errika and Amanda.

That is Amanda passing out photos to color.


And there's Errika, thinking about what colors to choose.

These ladies really put on a "themed" event. The theme was photography - my photography hobby. They went onto my Flickr page and downloaded photos for several reasons. First, they chose some of their favorites to turn into photo magnets, and those were the "prizes" given out to the game winners. Also, one of the games was to "color" some of my photos they had printed off to look like coloring book pages. I chose the winner.

Misty and Rondi checking out each others coloring skills.
Rondi, the costume designer, won.


The food table.


The petit fours.
I know, not photo themed, but OH SO CUTE!

Then, the food table, full of some of my favorite foods, also had photo frames on it. And they had collected several photo frames to give to the guests as favors to the shower.

For example, I didn't get this photo.
It was adorable though!


That photo there was of my mother-in-law.
Even that one stumped me for a second.

Lastly, they had each shower attendee include a photo frame as part of their present, and put a photo of themselves as a baby in it. Then, I had to guess who the gift was from from their photo. I was really, really bad at that part. Really, I missed several of them horribly. But, it was fun to see the baby pictures and try to guess!

I received several wonderful and generous gifts for baby S, of course.

And it was a fun time to visit with my work colleagues new and old. It was a sweet and thoughtfully planned event and I am once again grateful for the enormous amount of energy put into it by wonderful friends. Thanks ladies, it was fabulous!

I will be back with more posts on house progress, baby progress, baby showers of various sorts, and whatever else I feel I must get in before the end of the week. See you soon!

Birthday Update

My birthday passed by last weekend, right on the day I turned 35 weeks pregnant on this crazy baby journey. It was a fabulous day. S brought me breakfast in bed. Yes, that's right. You read that correctly. I got BREAKFAST IN BED on my birthday. And, said breakfast was this delicious granola berry crisp that my friend Karen had given me. It was fabulous.

Then, we moved slowly all morning, reading the New York Times from cover to cover and taking it easy. Once we got ready to go we ran a couple of errands and then went to my in-laws for an early dinner. It was delicious - brisket, cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole, fruit, and of course...birthday cake! As you can see, the birthday was ostensibly all about the food. Ahem.

I received lots of wonderful birthday greetings from family and friends and some nice gifts, and we capped the evening off by watching the nearby fireworks from our front yard. It was a good day.

On that day, I asked my mother-in-law to take a couple of photos of S and me together. It dawned on me I was pretty sure we didn't have any photos of the two of us together while I've been pregnant. Or at least not recently! So, in this post are some of those photos. Also in the post are photos taken by S of me, on my birthday, 35 weeks pregnant.

A signature S photo.

Let me also tell you what's going on with my 35-almost-36 week pregnant body. Apparently, I have pregnancy induced high blood pressure. It spikes high every once in a while, but I have none of the other signs of hypertension or preclampsia. Which is good. But, my doctor has asked me to basically rest in bed except for going to work. So I am trying hard to do that, and doing a pretty good job of it. S has really been taking good care of me so I can do this. I guess if I start having other signs, I will have to do other things, but for now the blood pressure has stayed in check. I am hoping this stays the case as I really don't want to go on full time bed rest or anything else. I mean, really people, I have three weeks to go. 21 days. Surely we can all get along between now and then! I'm taking one day at a time.

Last weekend S and his dad finished painting the baby's room. So, all we have left to do in there is hang the art and some shelves and it will be officially complete. I did go online the other day to order our bedding using gift cards we have received and was dismayed to learn the bedding is back ordered. They are to email me when it is back in stock. It is available on other sites online, so hopefully this will be soon.

We have been enjoying the Wii we received from Kay at the last baby shower. And, an added bonus we recently learned about - we can stream Netflix instant movies to our television via the Wii! How cool is that? Hours and hours of entertainment.

This weekend we are taking a baby care/baby CPR class where I can stay seated with my feet up so no worries there. And, Sunday I will have my final shower filled with people from my work. I am sure they will let me lounge there too, so I will honor my resting commitment, even though it is a lot of activity. After that, I have really nothing that has to be done so I can lay around and rest. I'll rest up now since I'll be sleep deprived for weeks later!

I think that's about it for now. Just a little update for you - won't you be glad when this baby is here so you can stop looking at photos of me!

See you soon.

Baby Things

Self-portrait in the baby's room.
Nice, huh? It's the hormones, I promise.

My mom and Unk and Bevi drove down to the shower last weekend to bring us a cradle, a high chair, all the gifts from the Indiana shower, and the two bags of hand-me-downs from my niece Amber. And, of course, so mom could attend the baby shower I talked about in my last post.

Oh, speaking of the shower - my mom didn't take an embroidery class. I got that wrong. She took a quilting class. She already knew how to embroider. Whichever, it's a darn cute baby quilt.

The cradle.

The cradle - this cradle was made by mom's dad - my PawPaw - before I was born. I slept in this very cradle! It needed to be reupholstered, having originally been upholstered by my Nana. So, my mom reupholstered the inside and made the cradle a new mattress. It is very, very nice, and I can't wait for my baby to sleep in it. My mom recently sent me some photos of her remaking the inside of the crib - I will post those for you soon too. You can also see in this photo we are collecting what I understand is like two days worth of diapers and wipes. Hee hee.

The high chair.

The high chair. It was a gift to my mom's parents by HER grandfather. It was my mom's high chair and now it will be for my baby! I love the vintage look and the solidness of this high chair. You can't buy such quality these days!

The crib.

And, while we are on baby things, here are some photos of other items in the baby's room. We are borrowing a beautiful crib from my friend and work colleague Margaret. We picked it up last weekend and S put it together in the room on Saturday. So, we're all set for sleeping for a while!

The rocker/recliner.

We purchased a rocker/recliner for the room, which arrived finally last week. We have both "christened" the chair by taking some very nice naps in it. It's very comfortable. The lumbar pillow matches the bedding we registered for, but haven't gotten the rest of it yet...it will eventually look great in the room I think. I like that it is not "babyish" but very little boy modern.

We have put my toy chest in baby's room. I'd love to find a way to take my name off and add his, but even if we can't do that, we will probably use it for his toys. My Paw Paw also made that for me. He was very handy, no? Nestled on top of the toy chest on the left is a collection of items from my nursery, a baby scale that was my mothers, some stuff that was S's, some new stuff, etc - all of it to go on some shelves on a wall once we get that far.

The baby already has almost a full basket of books!

We re-purposed our desk into a changing table and it looks like it's going to work out.


Also a treasure trove of toys up there for the time being.
My goodness.


Here is a look at that nice new baby car seat!
Now, to figure out how to install the darn thing...

And, we purchased and installed a closet system in the half of the closet we're using for the baby to make it more useful. The other side is still general house storage, but this side is now more manageable.

So, there is a look at all of our collected baby things...old and new. I love how it's all coming together! And, I really appreciate the three musketeers driving all the stuff down for me! See you soon.

One Fabulous Weekend

Last weekend (as in not the last two days, but LAST weekend - I know, I am behind...) my friends Kellie, Cathy and Tricia hosted a baby shower for some friends and family here in Dallas. It was an amazing event. We also had the opportunity to visit with Kellie and Cathy from out of town and their respective families. We don't get to visit enough, so that was also very nice. AND...and, and...my mom and Uncle and Bevi came to town with baby cradle and highchair in tow, as well as all the gifts from the Indiana shower and the hand-me-downs from my niece. It was a great weekend. And I'll attempt to tell you all about it here.

The hostesses - Cathy, Kellie and Tricia

First, the baby shower. It was amazing. It was held at a local Italian restaurant in a private room.The hostesses - I think you have met them all before - Cathy was my college roommate for three years and the matron of honor at our wedding (matron instead of maid by only three weeks!). She and her family live in Arkansas now and we don't see enough of each other, but when we do it's as if time stood still and we can just talk like we visited yesterday. It's so great to have friends like that, no? Kellie and I were in band and work study together and she was in S's class at school. You saw HER baby shower held just last year for baby Sam here on the blog, as well as the triathlon relay that she and I and one more brave lady did together last May. Tricia was my pot luck freshman roommate at SMU and lives in the Dallas area these days so we get to do many things together. You met her husband Wayne here on the blog and read all about their wedding only two short years ago. It is so nice to have such wonderful friends as these girls!

The girls went all out to decorate the room - the table decorations, menus and favors were totally cute.

Menu (which mimicked the invite) and a favor.


Table decorations.


Another table decoration!


More table decor.


So cute!


And, the masterpiece - the cake!

And the cake - it was like the cutest thing ever. And it tasted good too! Kellie's husband Kevin's cousin is the manager at Cakes Amore in Plano. The design sort of mimics the bedding we chose for the baby's room. No matter the inspiration, it was oh so cute, no?

Me and Marcia


Me and my Mama!


The three Wag sisters-in law - one baby down, two to go!


Me with S's cousin Carrie Jo.
So nice to see her at the shower!


Cheryl's cousins Kay and Kay.
Yes, that's right. The Kays!


One table of lovely guests - Carrie Jo, Sharon, Ginny, Star and Martha


Cathy, the Kays, Linda, Laura, Kellie and Tricia


Holly, Kim, Cheryl, Cindi and Brooke


S's very tanned cousin Lynn (just back from Greece) and Me.

We had a wonderful collection of guests as well who were oh so generous in their gifting for baby S. I mean, really, really generous. We received some amazing gifts! And it was certainly nice to see everyone and get to visit for a bit. Many other good friends and family who span the miles and years were in attendance. It was humbling to see they made the trip to attend! Oh - and you can see my 33 week belly up there too. 33 weeks and counting!

My mom made a few items...this bib...can you read it?

It says, "50% Hoosier, 50% Texan, 100% Loved". Awww! Then, I found out my mother took a hand embroidery class so she could make me this:

An adorable baby quilt!
The dog house says, "Wags" and the wagon says "2010"

Please forgive the origami I seem to be doing with my own arm. Ahem. It is beautiful and I love it and Baby S will too. I should say she also plans to embroider the baby's name on the quilt, but since we aren't sharing that yet, it's not yet embroidered on there.

That wasn't the only handmade gift!

The afghan above was made by Mrs. Dempsey, the mother of another college friend, and was accompanied by some other lovely gifts. She had us all over to her house so many times in college (and since) that I couldn't even count them. It was so sweet to have this special gift from her as well, and to see her at the shower!

Blocks!


A car seat!

This gift was from Cheryl's good friends Linda and Ron. I said, "Now we can bring him home from the hospital!" when I opened it. Linda wrote me a sweet note in her card telling me that when S was born he was very special to them and they enjoyed being around him when he was a baby so much so that when her own son was born years later she waited to name him but knew she must or she would end up calling him S! Very sweet, and a very generous gift we very much appreciate.

There were many, many more fabulous gifts!

Like butt paste (lots of it!), clothes, bibs, receiving blankets, socks, booties, onesies, burp clothes, books, bottles, bottle brushes, gift cards (even one to Home Depot!) and all things babies need. I even received a breast pump from my mother and we received a Wii from one of the Kays! The lady at the store suggested we register for it so I can use it to get in shape at home after the baby is born, but of course we will enjoy it between now and then as well. And, my hostesses not only threw this amazing shower but gave me amazing gifts too.

It was a lovely, lovely event and I am so thankful for the time, effort and resources that went into it from everyone. It is truly humbling to attend these showers as the honored guest and see and hear all the wonderful things people are saying and giving to you. We are so blessed.

Since this has already gone a bit, I'll come back another day to show you what my mom and Unk and Bevi brought us from Indy and more. See you soon!