Shower pictures & fun tidbits *UPDATED

A couple of pictures from my first shower:

Playing the guess the baby food game:




On Friday Matt's office hosted a shower for us! It was really casual, a lunch potluck. I loved getting to celebrate a shower with Matt. It was fun being there and talking with his co-workers and the best part...Matt got to open the gifts!! lol I just sat in the background and "ooohed" and "ahhed" and said thank you. But Matt led the way.




We received so many nice gifts! A Bumbo seat, changing pad (we already received a used one from a friend so we will exchange it), a changing pad cover, the crib mattress cover, a bottle drying rack, a bunch of toys, and all sorts of other little things. The basket in the picture below was handmade by one of the ladies in the office, it's beautiful!


My dad works in the same office as Matt and just happened to be in on Friday (he's usually out of town during the week, this was only the 3rd day he's been in the office since the beginning of June!). My mom came too and it was also great to spend the time with my family. :-)


We received some fun and unique things, but my favorite was a diaper burrito. Matt has a friendly "war" going on with one of his co-workers, K. Matt's favorite burrito place is HERE and K's is HERE. K's wife is scheduled to be induced on September 13 (her EDD is in late Sept). Matt and him have a bet on whose baby will come first. The loser has to buy the winner and himself burritos from the winner's favorite place (and has to eat them!). They are always joking back and forth and playing jokes on each other centered around this war. So K wrapped diapers up in the foil they use at his burrito place, put it in a take out bag from there with napkins and included a bib that says, "When I have teeth, take me to Chipotle." lol So here is Matt unwrapping the diaper burrito:





Yesterday Matt and I went on a date night. It has been MONTHS since we did that. We've been spending all our money on baby things and home/yard work. Our date nights consist of going to the Costco food court and then getting a movie from Red Box. And I love that! But yesterday we went to the big outlet mall and saw THIS movie in the theatre (I haven't been to the movie theatre since my birthday in November!). We did some shopping (bought a Halloween outfit for Evan and I bought myself 2 nursing sports bras that I can wear during the day and at night). We quickly ran into BRU since they closed in 10 minutes, but we were able to find the diaper bag we really wanted and Matt bought a sling. I'm glad we found the diaper bag because they don't have it at the BRU down here and they only sell it online at Target. Then we went and ate at one of our favorite restaurants, it's Japanese and just down the road from the university we went to. We drove through campus and remembered the good ole days. Then came on home and went on a walk and then relaxed and watched TV.

Anyway, I had a great time and tonight we're planning on going to the BRU down here and the Target to buy the last of the necessary baby items. We've packed our hospital bag and almost finished the nursery. Today I had more bloody show...not sure if that really means anything, but I guess it does mean that progress is being made down there. No other early labor signs except occasional cramping and pressure from Evan being so low. Okay, I'm ending this! it's 11:30 in the morning and I'm still in my PJs and I have to go to the grocery store before Matt gets home from work for his lunch break!!

**UPDATE**
Matt is sick. :-( Please pray that he gets better soon! I'm nervous that this is happening so close to Evan's due date. I still have 3 weeks left, but what if he comes early!? And please pray that I don't pick up whatever it is that he has!

Evan's first shower!

It was great!! I had a lot of fun and at the end of the night only had 2 regrets, that I didn't have enough time to talk to everyone as much as I would have liked, and that I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked. I can live with those though! 15 people came, more than I was expecting! They were all so generous and Evan ended up with so much stuff. He's so blessed!

My mom took even more pictures, but I'm too impatient to wait to receive hers, so I'm going to go ahead and post mine now. I will probably put hers up later.


The diaper cake:



Cake, cookies, and punch!! I splurged and had some. :-)



The centerpieces and favors:



Presents:



My beautiful (and weird...and tan) sister and I:

Each guest made a scrapbook page for Evan:



Opening gifts, and yes I was up on the stage!! It was really awkward at first, but after we got some of the gifts circulating around, people stopped paying as much attention to me. Plus, my SIL came up there to help me out which made me feel much better.


My mom made Evan an AMAZING quilt!!! I was so completely surprised, I had no clue she was making him one!


Yep, it's dinosaurs! It's folded in half here and you can you can see the underside where I folded it down to the left:


The opened gifts at home in his nursery (you can see that the closet doors are different colors, we're working on that!):


Matt holding one of the gifts his mom gave us. It's an old music box/coin bank that plays The Teddy Bear Picnic song. It belonged to Matt when he was little. It has his name on a brass plate and MIL had a new plate made with Evan's name to put on it too. I just about cried when I opened it! Matt had no clue that his mom had kept it all these years. :-)

We received a car seat base, a pack n play, and the crib mattress! Sometime this week we're going to order the car seat so that we'll have plenty of time to install it before Evan gets here! After that we really don't have many large items to buy. I'll be able to finish decorating the nursery since we'll have the mattress and then I'll post pictures of that! :-)

33w4d baby bump

We've been really bad about taking my weekly pictures lately. So I didn't get one for 32 weeks and didn't get one at exactly 33 weeks, so this is as close as it gets. The only reason we remembered to take one today is because Matt was talking to a friend's mom on the phone and she wanted him to email her a picture of me and the bump. Otherwise who knows when we'd get around to taking one!

Tomorrow is my baby shower, I'm excited and nervous! My bridal shower was....awkward. And that's the only shower experience I've ever had. There were a few people there I didn't like (looking back, I should not have invited my mom's and MIL's "friends" to my wedding or the shower, no matter how uncomfortable it would have made them!). Of course one of those ladies had to be super rude to my maid of honor and best friend at the time, so that was no fun to witness. Then someone just showed up who wasn't invited to the shower....or the wedding. Another girl was there who I didn't like (I only invited her because I was inviting her mom and sisters since they were going to help out with the wedding) and she was rude to me (it's MY shower, come on!!) and my mom in front of me. Then just the overall fact that the whole day was about me and I was the center of attention made me uncomfortable. Opening gifts in front of everyone... The shower was at my old church and I had to sit on the stage to open the gifts while everyone sat below and watched. lol That part is kind of funny to look back on actually.

My baby shower is being hosted by the same (wonderful) lady and will be at my old church as well. However, it's going to be much smaller and more intimate. I like everyone who was invited! lol Plus, it's different receiving gifts for Evan instead of myself. I'm also hoping that I won't have to sit on the stage to open the gifts, I'm going to request that we sit in a circle or something so that everyone can see, but I don't have to be up higher.

SO! Hopefully it will go much better than my bridal shower, but I still can't shake off the nervousness. I know I'm complaining about my bridal shower and shouldn't be... It was great other than what I mentioned and even though I felt really awkward about those situations, I'm so thankful that I had a shower at all because it really helped Matt and me out and it was fun to see my good friends who attended.

Whew, help me feel better and tell me about some awkward shower/party experiences you've had!

I'll get back to you on Tuesday to let you know how the shower went and hopefully share some pictures! It's tomorrow evening at 7:00, so I know that by the time I come home I'll be too tired to get on the computer. :-)

Shower

First of all I want to say CONGRATS to Crysbena!!!! She received a BFP a few days ago! Go to her blog to congratulate her and "oohh" and "aaah" over her strong HPT lines! I'm so happy for her for many reasons, one of which is because she's been trying for so long and has had a difficult road. It's one more friend I can cross off my "BFP Prayer List." I'll still pray for her, but just for a healthy and safe pregnancy. Also, she got married the same day Matt and I did and had a miscarriage the same week we did. Very weird coincidence that we found each other after that. Another friend I met on The Nest is the same way, married 10/7/06 and miscarried the last week of May. She got pregnant 4 months before I did, and now here's Crysbena pregnant about 5 months after me.

I also found out the date of my baby shower! It's July 28 at 7:00. I'm so excited!! I made up the guest list, which was harder than I thought it would be. The lady who is hosting it originally mentioned that it would be a small shower, around 15 people, mainly ladies from the church I used to go to. Which was fine! Now she's saying that I can invite whoever and however many people I want, but I think she's just saying that because she now knows I'm not having another shower for my other friends. I really appreciate her doing this for me and I don't want her to have to go out of her way any more than she already is. She's really good friends with my mom and my mom keeps saying I should invite more people, but I think my current guest list is fine. It will keep me from feeling guilty and I'll be all around comfortable. I have 18 people on there, 2 from out of state who most likely won't come. The hostess mentioned that she wanted to invite the ladies from her small group (that my mom is in too) and I said that is more than fine. As long as she doesn't mind the extra people! So I'm not sure how large the actual guest list is because I can't remember how many ladies are in that small group. And if any of you are going to be in the Charlotte area that day, you are invited too. :-)

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to it and I'm actually glad that it's small. I think that some of the guys Matt works with are going to throw us a shower at the office, but it's supposed to be a surprise for me. lol Matt just couldn't help himself and told me the other night. He said he hasn't heard much about it because originally it was going to be a surprise for him too, but his co-worker needed to make sure he'd be in town, so he asked him about having it sometime in late July. So they may not even be planning it at this point or maybe they are keeping it on the down low because they still want the actual date to be a surprise from Matt as well. Either way is fine, I am just amazed that they even considered throwing us one! I'm so grateful for the people we have in our lives.

One of Matt's co-workers just gave us a gift the other day from him and his wife. They just had their first baby a couple of months ago so they gave us all the things they found to be the most useful. A very neat portable changing pad (it has mesh pockets and a plastic pocket for wet items), some sleepers, onesies, pants, and diapers (all newborn sizes!). SO nice of them. :-) I'm glad that July is going to be such a busy month for me so that the time will fly by because I'm starting to get excited about the shower and then meeting Evan! I just need to fill up my August calandar...