Hostess gifts...

I dont know if I mentioned this before, but for the hostesses of both showers, I gave candles and little magnets I made. For everyone that came to the showers, I made a magnet. And for those with kids, I brought animal shaped magnets that they could take home to them. Kind of a gift from our baby to them for 'showering the baby with good wishes'-- which is what was on the little cards I printed out. I had a few little cards left over, so those went into the thank you envelopes of those people who sent gifts but couldn't be there. Here's what most of them looked like. I ended up with a few leftover at the end, without realizing it. Just a note--if you do magnets with paint on them, don't allow them to stick together magnet to paint. The paint WILL scrape off and/or the magnet will rub off on the fronts, and in your hormone induced state, you might actually get upset and cry over it. Another side note, eraser takes away the magnet scrapes, but if the paint is gone, it's too bad. Bonus points to my husband for only slightly raising his voice at me for crying and then hugging me--and figuring out within about 2 minutes that trying to 'solve' it wasn't going to work. The waterworks were there for a few minutes. Then reality kicked in and I dried up. Poor little ol' me. But they turned out okay. They're handpainted so you have to expect a little roughness to them, right? Right?

Baby Shower #2

I don't have any pictures from this shower, no idea why, but I didn't pack my camera and I guess no one else thought to either. This one was at my home church. Just in the last year they have started throwing baby showers. The church folk were VERY generous. Besides all the goodies, we should be able to buy a high chair, playpen, and nursing pillow, as well as have some left over for clothes or what have you in the next couple of months. Very generous. Oh and there were like 20 people there, which just flabbergasted me. And lots of people who couldn't come (or didn't want to), sent cards or left presents. Woohoo!

One thing they must all like is hooded towels. At last count I had something like 9, and my mom kind of indicated in a round about way that I had at least one more waiting for me at home this week, someone had dropped the gift off at her work. Some other things we had duplicates of, and just put the credit back on gift cards, so we'll be able to get some more clothes or whatever with that as well. I do have pictures of everything, though, which I will probably put out on the google picture site. Once my hubs tells me how to do it.

One awesome thing was our second car seat (that goes from 20 lbs to booster seat, so you never need a new one) from my aunts and cousins, 5 total of which came (out of 8) the 1.5 hours to have lunch with the family and then to the shower. I thought it was really nice of my mom to provide lunch for them since otherwise they'd have to eat super early or on the road. We have been to dozens of events like that where they all live for years and no one ever provided lunch for us. Guess that just shows how considerate she is. They all appreciated it. I know I did. It was nice to be with the ladies of the family, at least some of them, anyway, without the guys butting in.

This shower was again a bit awkward, because they didnt play games at all, I just had to sit and open gifts while everyone else kind of chatted a bit and otherwise watched me. I wish they'd had their food to eat while I opened, especially toward the end it was just cards with either money or a gift card in them, so it was like 15 cards in a row. I just announced the names, not the amounts in case anyone was wondering, I have a bit more tact than that. And I made sure that I sought out the eyes of everyone who brought a gift that was there when I said thank you.

We had brownies and watermelon. Yummy. Needless to say, I felt (and I'm sure the baby will once it's old enough to know) very loved. A lot of the people there had known me since I was 3 years old.

Baby Shower #1

I must admit, this shower went a lot better than I thought it would. I wasn't nervous at all. The only problem really was that I got hot and nauseated and had to take a quick water break. There were 4 games. The ever-present 'don't say baby' game where you stick clothespins on people and then if someone says baby, you take their clothespin and whoever has the most at the end of the party gets a prize. I don't really like that one, because then no one feels like they can talk about the baby, which is kind of the whole point. Then a walk-around with a basket full of goodies and you try and remember what's all in there, and a word scramble, and then this one, where people tried to guess how big around I was. My mom kind of doubled what she thought I was I guess. She took a whole boatload of yarn. I thought that was hilarious. Matthew's Aunt Mary was the closest. Matthew's 2 sisters are the center of the photo here distributing yarn. They're 2 years older and 13 years younger, respectively.

I had 3 friends (Katie, Stacy, Michelle) come, along with Matthew's family and my mom. (Erin also sent a present, yeah!) Here's Stacy (l) and Michelle (r). The one of Katie was too blurry to post. I wish Stacy would blog because I know she's got a lot of fodder for it.

And then there was cake. One that my sister in law made (ducky layer with whipped cream frosting, which was excellent), and another Matthew's aunt brought from the bakery. There was plenty for everyone.

And I guess I ought to post a picture of me, too. Here I am with the lil' sis in law, she's 15, and she was the one that made the cake. Yes, she's about 4 inches taller than me now. We were neck and neck until about Easter and then she just shot past me. We're both barefoot here.

All in all, it was a good time, the nerves settled down right away, I got lots of great presents and got to see some of my dearest friends, which was a great help to my state of mind and made me feel like myself again.

Funny...

Matthew sneezed last night and it scared the baby. All the sudden the baby started wiggling and flailing. I patted my belly and told the baby it was alright it was just a sneeze and it calmed down. Matthew felt bad. Which made me giggle. Like the baby's not going to get startled a million times in its lifetime. But still. Isn't that a sweet thing for a daddy to feel bad for startling his little one?

Hoarding my baby...

I'm not sure I want to share my baby. Period. With anyone. Not even my husband. I'm having too good of a time bonding with the baby that's warm and safe and cared for, as long as I take care of myself. We read and eat and sleep and talk over all the wiggles we're accomplishing in the womb. If the baby is born, I have to share. And do a lot of extra work, don't you know?

So am I lazy, or is it a good sign that I want to have the baby all to my lonesome?

Doctor's visit

Went to the doctor this morning. Had gained 7 lbs. Not a surprise. Saw a completely different doctor again today, but will see him again next time-Oct 1st, and should be my last here.
Baby's HR was 151, my bp was 122/something and my measurement was 31 to 32 and I'm at 31 1/2 weeks so right on target. When I got on the scale to be weighed, though, my belly hit the front of the scale. I couldn't quit laughing for a while. It's probably just my height that made it an issue, but still, pretty funny. The nurse asked me if we were going by the third or the fifteeth and I said, the fifteenth, why does it say the third, and I guess that's what the ultrasound said, but she said because they did the ultrasound a little later then it was off, sure had me going for a minute. She seemed to think I'd be ready for the baby to be out by the third, and i'm thinking, heck, no, we'll only have gotten moved for 2 weeks at that point! Did find out though that it won't be an issue getting our pre-paid delivery charges from the doctor back. So that's good.

umm, OW!

Baby just did a full on whack in all 4 directions, utilizing every limb to stretch or just thump me, I don't know, but it really did hurt quite a bit, and of course I hollered, because what else do you do when you feel like your stomach is going to pop in all 4 directions, and all of the sudden the baby got really quiet, and I felt bad, and said, oh everything is okay, you're fine and it went back to wiggling.

Round ligament pain...

Ouch. Yup, it's just after 3 in the morning and I can't sleep because I can't lay on either side without causing myself intense amounts of pain and laying on my back is bad for the baby. I tried to just ignore it, but there's no ignoring pain like that. So I got up and took some tylenol. Now I'm hoping the pain will dull so I can at least get back to sleep.

Our baby needs a passport...

There's a chance that the baby will have lived in 2 states pre-natal and be born in a third. Good Lord, have mercy.

beep...

My house just threw up 2 baby showers. Please excuse me while I try and clean up.
Oh and by the way, this is a VERY loved baby. Very.

My new sweet baby - Shoemaker!

What do you think about my little new baby Shoemaker?
MakeMeBabies.com - What will your baby look like?

It's my party...

This weekend we're heading home early Saturday morning, for a baby shower thrown by my husband's sisters on Saturday afternoon. We'll stay with my folks for church, then have lunch and clown around a little bit, and have a baby shower thrown by the church. Then stay overnight and get Matthew's orthodontic stuff checked on and head back home.

I'm not sure I'm really prepared for all the attention to be lavished on me this weekend. Matthew gives me enough to feel like yes, I'm still pregnant and he is just in love with this baby, so I feel like I have enough. My mother and his contact me often enough...and really, what is there to say otherwise? I'm still pregnant, the baby is doing it's little gymnastics, we still don't know if it's a boy or a girl and we're not blabbing on the names. Once people find that out, they kind of lose interest. For whatever reason, those seem to be the two most important things to people. I guess because it gives them a jumping off point for something to say next.

I did, however, talk to my friend Stacy on the phone last night for almost 4 hours. We had plenty to say to each other. And I asked her questions, which she answered honestly and didn't give me an attitude, like, what is WRONG with you, even though some of my questions were probably odd. I feel reassured that I'm doing normally as possible (for me) emotionally and physically with the pregnancy. Which is nice.

I'm sure I've mentioned I haven't had a whole lot of 'crazy' feelings, in fact I'm so calm most of the time that I hardly recognize the 'girl' I used to be. Which is fine. I don't really feel like a 'girl' anymore. Hard to feel 'childish' when you have a child growing inside you. Also most of the time I feel like having any wild emotions or fits would be, I don't know, inappropriate? What do I have to have a fit about? I'm relatively healthy, I have food, shelter, a loving husband who still would like to be my husband on any and all terms every single day, and lets me know, and who looks forward to parenting this child, not just on being 'a dad'-I'm not neglected, made fun of, abused or otherwise mistreated. I'm living the high life, being taken care of and attended to by a creature who looks, smells, and kisses like my husband, but with an extra 'oomph'-- and I like it! It really is my party, no reason to cry, even if I want to!

A kick in the ear...

While feeling out the baby's 'pokes' yesterday, hubby swore he could hear a heartbeat. So I encouraged him to 'listen' to the baby's heartbeat by putting his head down on my belly (he he). Next thing you know he's saying owww and rubbing his ear--he got kicked in the ear! Ha!

We're getting into a rhythm with what we do now every day, I read a story after lunch and talk to the baby every time it moves around and seems to be awake, do kick counts and giggle at the odd movements. And hubby gives the belly a kiss and says I love you before he heads out the door in the morning and before we go to bed at night, with lots of talking 'at' the belly after work in between.

I swear as soon as he came in the door the other night the baby woke up and started dancing. The saga begins. Daddy means playtime. Sigh. Oh well. At least it should give me a little rest when he gets home from work. After all, he's the one that got kicked in the rear...I mean ear.