Shower Time

I had the best shower on Saturday!
Lots of amazing people showed up and we had tons of fun.  My SIL who hosted the shower put tons of work into making it the best shower ever.  Several people commented about the fact that the shower was very impressive, well planned, and well though out.  They were impressed with how SIL had thought of everything! 

So a huge thank you to my SIL!  (I didn't just put that on there 'cause she reads this though:-)

My mom, brother's girlfriend, and myself all headed to my SIL's house about 30 minutes before the guests were supposed to show up.  SIL thought it would be a good idea for me to be there and greet everyone as they came in.  For showers, I would usually be the last to arrive which is what happened for my wedding shower, but I much preferred doing it this way.  At my wedding shower, I felt like the center of attention and like I didn't have time to talk to everyone for a few minutes.  Since I saw everyone come in, I had the time to take a few minutes with everyone and chat which was really nice. 

I mean I like attention, but I don't necessarily like being the center of attention for a group of 30 women.  That part can be a little daunting.

Anyways...when we arrived I spotted the awesome diaper cake that SIL made for me. 

Diaper Cake

Isn't it gorgeous?  She has lots of talent people!  The best thing is that when SIL asked me what color I wanted for the shower I told her blue and green.  I didn't specify any shades of blue and green or anything.  She found the exact blue and green that I LOVE and even got ribbon with polka dots on them.  AWESOME!  I really wish I could have found crib bedding with these 2 colors for our baby boy, but whenever these 2 colors are combined they tend to be for girls.  Apparently boys only like pastel blue, brown, and red because those are the predominant colors in boy bedding sets...oh and navy blue.  Blech!  I love bright colors!

SIL had several games setup on the main floor of her house as well as a table full of appetizers to tide guest over.  She had diapers full of melted chocolate which were revolting looking.  She had baby food jars without the labels so we could guess what kind of baby food it was.  Then, she had a baby BINGO where you guessed what I would receive as a gift and as I opened them they crossed them out until they had a BINGO.  The games list went on and on, but they were all fun and not the kind of games that are all like.  LOOK AT ME!  WE'RE PLAYING A GAME!  There were plenty of games. but they were unobstrusive.

Games and my presents (pack and play) from SIL and MIL!

After that we got herded downstairs and I got to open presents!  Yay!  Presents for the baby!  There were so many presents...it was overwhelming.   Halfway through opening the presents I was done.  If someone had told me a few months ago that I would get tired sitting in a lazy boy and opening presents I would have laughed at them.  I love presents so I love opening them = not a chore.  Apparently when you're pregnant and in your 3rd trimester, ripping prettty, sparkling paper out of gift bags and off of boxes is really hard work.  Who would have guessed?

This picture doesn't do justice to how pretty everything was downstairs!

Dre and I got tons of stuff for the baby and tons of gift cards for Baby R Us so we can go get the stuff we're missing.  We were truly blessed by our friends and families!

Presents!

After presents, SIL rolled out the food.  There was soooooo much food and it was soooo good!  She even made the shower cake from scratch and decorated it herself.  Isn't it cute?  Yah, cutting into a cake that looks like a baby is a little creepy at first, but it was so good that we got over that one rather quickly.

Baby Cake.  It was so yummy!

This was the most creative fruit salad I've ever seen.

Overall, I think that everyone had an amazing time.  I had a great time even though I was exhausted by the end.  When we got home, I just sat surrounded by all the gifts and organized everything from the couch. 

It was the perfect shower!  I couldn't have asked for more.

Today...

I had an awesome shower today!

Now I'm totally exhausted. It's surprising that the only thing I did today was eat and open presents and it totally drained me.

So I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Goodnight!

Week 23

Week 23 snuck up on me.  Dre had to remind me that my week had changed on Saturday.  This used to be what I looked forward to every single week, but now I find that I’m focusing less on the week and more on what I still need to do before baby arrives.

This past weekend Dre and I visited a lot of baby stores to finalize our registries, order some things, and look at crib bedding. 

Since my shower invites are going out this week, I had to get my list to my SIL last Friday.  I could not believe that I had 42 names between me and my mom’s invites (one big shower instead of multiple smaller ones)!   My SIL told me that she added 15 names on her side of the family so that brings the number of invited guests to 61!  SIL and I are hoping that they don’t all decide to come; otherwise, her house is going to be packed.  I’m getting really excited for my shower now that I’ve finished the guest list and done my registries!

I hauled Dre to a cloth diaper store yesterday and made a registry there.  I put everything on that registry that I would need since I definitely want to try different kinds of diapers out before committing to 2-3 kinds that I’ll use.  So I registered for 4 of my top picks and asked for 1-2 diapers of each.  I’m hoping that if people really want to help with the CD that they buy me Gift Certificates to this store since those would be so helpful once I’ve decided what kind of diapers I want to use! 

We also went to Babies R Us and looked at some video monitors that were on sale.  We decided to just hold off on this one and see if we think we need it after the baby gets here.  We looked at some crib bedding there and Dre fell in love with monkey themed crib bedding.  So we’re looking at bedding sets that have monkeys on them now.  I told Dre that since I’m indulging his monkey obsession I get to pick the bedding when we have a girl.  He agreed!  Yeah!  We asked the BRU staff about the fact that we’ve heard about gift bags that they give to people who open a registry full of coupons and such and they actually told us they ran out of them.  Hello?  Maybe that’s something you should have mentioned when we were in the store instead of hoping we’d just go on our oblivious way.  I hate BRU.  They have crappy services, you can never find the price of things (Dre had to go scan 4 things yesterday to figure out pricing), and their staff know NOTHING about their products. I’m going to send them an email this week expressing my displeasure with the service we’ve received in our store. 

Finally, we went to another store and ordered the Chicco Keyfit in Fuego (red) for the baby!  It should be in this week which is exciting.  We also took the time to pick up the spare parts we needed for my Medela Pump in Style that I found on Kijiji.  So for under $200, I’m all ready to use my pump and I won’t feel too bad if it turns out that breastfeeding or pumping is not for me.  Those things usually go for over $400 over here!  The staff at this store are so helpful and knowledgeable about their products which is a refreshing change. 

Week 22

Week 23
Dre had orders to make sure I didn't look like a
pasty, pregnant whale this time...he did a good job:-)

My average weight this week is 165.2 lbs which is a 1 lb gain this week.  I was pretty happy about that until I stepped on the scale yesterday and this morning.  Apparently my body and the baby are making up for the weight I didn’t put on last week!  So, overall this is a 12.2 lb gain so far this pregnancy.  I’m still working on doing more exercise.

Heartburn shows up periodically.  I’ve had indigestion today and yesterday.  I’m still feeling pretty good overall.

Baby is rolling around, kicking, and punching in there.  He’s quite the active little fellow.  Dre is obsessed with feeling the baby move around and stalks after me around the house trying to see if the baby is moving.  It’s cute most of the timeJ

No BH contractions this past week which is nice.  No stretch marks, but I have to put lotion on 3 times a day now or I get pretty itchy.

I’m looking forward to having my lunch buddy back at work.  She went for surgery on her arm and has been out for the past 2 weeks which makes for really long lunches.

Baby is the size of a papaya AGAIN this week.  I guess they stop growing as much now since the fruit stays the same for a few weeks.

Showers are harder than they seem

It's a good thing I'm not planning my own shower because I would probably have a breakdown.  Just coming up with the guest list is a harrowing experience.

For the last few days, I've been trying to gather the email addresses of everyone on my list.  This seems like a pretty easy task since I know all of these people.  Right?  Wrong!  The problem is that I communicate with most of these people on Facebook and so I don't keep very good contact information for most of them because I know that if I need to talk to them I can always FB message them.  Thankfully, 98% of them listed an email address on their FB profile which saved me from having to send a mass FB message asking for everyone's address. 

Now, the problem I'm having is finding the email addresses of my relatives (who are not on FB for the most part).  The problem with having huge extended families like mine is that when you invite one aunt you kind of feel like you should invite them all.   Sometimes, that feels like I'm just asking for a gift though since I know they won't come. 

Also, my mom has several of her friends that she wants to add to the list which is completely fine if they know me, but some of these people I have barely talked to since I was a child.  Awkward!  My SIL informs me that I'm not supposed to know everyone at my shower and that people just randomly bring strangers along that you don't know usually.  I never knew that...it's news to me!

So that's what I've been up to for the last few days.  I'm really looking forward to my shower.  It's on Nov. 19th which is in a little more than a month.  Then on the Nov. 22nd, I'm starting the next series of baby courses.  This one should be much more interesting since they're going to go through the labour process, your options, breastfeeding, and all that stuff.  We're also going to get to tour our hospital to see where everything is located.   So I'm really looking forward to November!