Monday, March 28, 2011

Baby Showers

Well if I was waiting for life to slow down, it sure hasn't. I guess that's not going to happen anytime soon either. This blog is coming a few weeks late. My two showers were actually at the first and second weekends of March, and here we are at the end of the month. Oh well, at least I'm blogging now, right?

Our first shower was thrown for us by our good friend, Beka. We knew we wanted to have a shower that would not be formal, and would be a chance for Jacob and me to hang out with our friends. The shower turned out to be so much fun! Beka had the cutest decorations! She hung baby clothes throughout the room, and then had my favorite candy - M&M's in pink and brown - strewn all over the room in decorative containers. It turned out really cute. The guys pretty much just hung out all night, which is what we knew would happen. For the girls, Beka bought bibs for us to decorate. It was such a fun thing to do at a shower, and I was very appreciative to not have people measure my belly or have me sniff a "dirty" diaper to guess what candy is in it, haha.

**There is more of the blog after the first round of pictures - Warning: There are a lot of pictures...

 

The invitation to our co-ed shower





Jimpaw hanging out





Me with my homemade bib



I love this picture of Jacob with the baby shoes :)


My formal baby shower was given by my Mother-in-Law, Teresa, my Sister-in-Law, rachel, and my best friend, Alex. It was the traditional shower where all family members and family friends were invited. It was so beautiful! The theme was sugar and spice so the food set up had a candy bar (sugar) and a salsa bar (spice). It was super cute! Rachel's friend, Autumn, made cake balls for the party and they were the best cake balls I have ever eaten! Autumn is a fantastic baker - I wish I was talented, haha. It was really nice being able to hang out with all of Jacob's family that I don't get to see as often, and with my family, too :)

For the "game" part of the shower, it was decided we would skip over doing traditional games and instead everyone would decorate a scrapbook page for Ellie's first year. The scrapbook pages turned out sooo cute! And the best part was that everyone signed their page so I will always know who decorated each page.

Baby Ellie was really spoiled between my two showers. My MIL alone had 19 gift bags for me to open at the shower, haha. We were blessed to have all of the major items purchased for us, so now it's just little stuff like baby shampoo and lotion to buy when the first bottles start running out. If you came to one of my showers, thank you so much!! It was wonderful being able to spend time with you :)


The invitation to my "formal" shower













There are 4 babies due on Jacob's side of the family ranging in due date from April to Sept - Clearly I am due first ;)

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

1st Baby Shower

Well there has been a lot going on since my last blog! I'll start with the title of this blog. Our "friend" baby shower was on Saturday. My friend, Beka, was kind enough to put this together for us, and it was an absolute blast!! It was more along the lines of a gathering of friends hanging out than an actual shower, but who really cares? The main reason we wanted to have this "shower" was so Jacob could have a good time at an actual baby oriented event :)

We decided it would be best to have the shower at our house, even though that's pretty unconventional, because we are the most centrally located. Beka lives in Greenville, and we didn't want to ask anyone else to "host" the event. Since it was going to be here, I felt the need to try and get my nursery put together. It's by no means even close to being done, but you can see below in the pictures that I at least have my furniture put together. We still have so much to get for the room, but obviously I want to wait until my showers are over to go buy anything. Our baby bedding, and accessories are being made by a family friend, and it's not ready yet so I have that coming, as well. But at least you can get an idea of what it will look like soon enough - I'll be posting more pictures as we get more done!

Now onto the pregnancy side of the blog ;) I can definitely tell I've entered my third trimester. I am getting soooo tired at just the slightest excursions! At school, I can really feel the difference - this is probably because I teach on the third floor. Those stairs are killing me!! I have also started to notice that I'm having some Braxton Hicks contractions, but so far they haven't been painful, so that's a plus (I'm sure the pain is coming). The baby is very active, and I I love feeling her move all around. She has stopped kicking as much, and now it just feels like she is stretching. She will push against the uterine wall and then push her way down the side, just like she is stretching with a yawn. She does this pretty much all day long :)

Finally, Jacob and I have been attending our childbirth preparation classes, and I am learning soo much. It's amazing all the things a woman's body does to prepare for childbirth. I am planning to go completely natural during delivery. I had originally planned to do this because I knew it was better for the baby, and I just wanted to prove to myself I was capable of doing that - I mean it is what my body was designed to do. However, after going to these classes, I am even more determined to go through with a natural birth. At our class this week, we found out that epidurals are actually capable of preventing the infant from latching on during breastfeeding the first day, and can cause difficulty with breastfeeding during the first few weeks because of that. Also, any medication you take while in labor - epidurals included - can stay in a baby's system as long as 6 weeks! Now I'm not saying I won't crumble under the pain of contractions and demand an epidural (especially if I end up with a ridiculously difficult labor) but I really feel like I am prepared to go through my labor and delivery naturally. Wish me luck!!

Below are pictures of the nursery :)





Are these shoes not precious??


The girls decorated baby bibs for Ellie. They all turned out soo cute!!