A Parade of Presents

Today I've been putting away the gifts I received on Saturday. Mama, Cara, and possibly MawMaw are spending Friday night with us so that they can attend the baby shower at church on Saturday. The nursery is also the guest room so I wanted to make it presentable for company. Before I put everything away, I took pictures of groups of gifts.

Raining Baby Gifts

Saturday morning I was given my first baby shower. It was held at Susie's house. There were 42 women and 17 children present. Thankfully, Susie has a big open house. It was great to see so many friends and family members. Chad's wife Amber catered the food. It tasted great and there was plenty of it. Mrs. Sybil made a car-shaped cake, chocolate on the inside. Amy made my corsage. It's baby socks twisted into flower shapes. They are so talented. They put together the really cute clear plastic wrapped gifts in the pictures including a diaper cake and a "bucket full of buds" (more baby clothes shaped into flowers). I got lots of clothes, blankets, and books. Amazingly we were able to fit everything into my car to haul it home, including the big car seat. We've unloaded it all and the baby's room is looking really FULL.

Jogging?

I don't plan to be jogging behind this stroller. However, I am excited about having a good stroller with bicycle tires for walking in our neighborhood. This is a gift from MawMaw and PawPaw. I put it together so that MawMaw could see what she bought me. She had Cara order it online and ship it directly to me.

Trial Run

Today I had a doctor's appointment. Mama, Aunt Connie, and Cara met me before my appointment because they wanted to make a "trial run." We went to the hospital, found visitor parking (Aunt Connie entered through the emergency parking exit and got in trouble with security), went into the hospital, and took the elevator to The Birthplace on the fourth floor. Now they know exactly where to go when the baby arrives. After "touring" the hospital, we browsed around Babies-R-Us, then had lunch. My doctor's appointment was at 2:30 p.m. They all waited with me in the waiting room, but only Mama came back and met my doctor. I had gained 1.8 pounds. Normally I'm not that specific about how much weight I've gained, but 1.8 is so close to 2 that it feels like cheating to say that I had only gained a pound. That is 16.8 total. My next visit is in two weeks.

For Cara

This picture is for Cara, who says I'm the most boring pregnant person ever. The most recent example of my "boringness" is that I've had this infant carseat since Saturday and had not taken it out of the box and looked at it. So it's now out of the box and I've thoroughly looked it over and read the manual. It's a gift from Aunt Connie and Cara. They had it shipped to the local Wal-Mart because the box is probably too large to fit in my car along with other gifts and luggage after my shower at home. I've already received several gifts that were shipped here -- a jogging stroller from MawMaw and PawPaw, monitors from Aunt Dean, and a soother from Dusti.

The Blues

This weekend John painted our guest bathroom. I started this project months ago by taking down the wallpaper, but had to leave it unfinished because I discovered I was pregnant. I had bought a new shower curtain and taped several shades of turquoise paint swatches to the wall. We've been looking at these paint swatches for months and agreed on "Halcyon." In the can it was a pale turquoise blue. As John applied it to the wall, we began to notice that it glowed like something from a much groovier decade. With the bathroom light on and the door open, there was actually a blue glow that emanated out of the bathroom into the hallway. However, we've either grown accustomed to it since Saturday or it dried a more peaceful shade. It doesn't seem as wild today.