Two Showers and a Baby - Part #2

So, baby shower number two!  What a successful, and delightful celebration of Baby Foster!  I have to tell you, my family really knows how to put together a shin dig.  First of all, everyone can cook which is why even my pre-maternity waistline was less than svelt.  Second of all, everyone is so supportive and really knows how to band together.  And third, we were dealt a healthy dose of the "good taste" gene as seen by all of the beautiful details of our grey and yellow, book themed shower.  Sommer planned the whole deal, including the very adorable and thorough theme.  She had help from all around to accomplish her vision.  To all of my sisters, aunts, cousins, my grandmothers and my mom who hosted this party, we say THANKS A MILLION!

[We were showered once again with beautiful gifts for Baby Girl.  Oh dear.  So spoiled already.]

[All the guests created a handmade alphabet book for the kid - complete with pictures drawn on the spot!]

[We received a beautiful baby guest book with well-wishes and congrats - great idea!]

[Sommer's pretty milk glass made an appearance again as the vases for these paper flowers made out of grey, yellow, or text-filled paper.  The girls apparently all got together to make these decorations together and now they happily reside in Baby's room.]

[Mark and Eunice made us a diaper cake!  And gave us an Ugly Doll book.  I adore Ugly Dolls and am glad my kid has one of her own.  Not pictured here is the another diaper cake given to us by Matt's cousin Ashley and Aunt Debbie.]

[A book that is a cake!  If you ask me, that is the perfect collision of world's right there.]

[Mom made her now famous "shower" cookies.  And I think this was her best batch yet.]

[Book garland!]

[Another pretty poster from Claire]

[Food, food and more delicious nursery rhyme themed food!]

And because the people are the most important, here is a smattering of the people of the this fabulous baby party.  I should say all pictures came from my mom's camera since we were too busy to even bust our out for a second.  I think the camera credits should go to....well....whoever picked up her camera at the time :-) 

Mother's Day Surprise

On this almost-my-first-mother's-day, I was not expecting big plans.  Matt and I did have a brunch date on the books, but that's not different from most other weekends at home.  Other than that, I just wanted to keep trucking along with our never-ending baby To Do List, maybe take a nap and possibly grade a few papers. From the start, our day did not go like this.  

Originally, we planned to go to brunch earlier than normal - around 8:30-9:00am.  Well, I didn't really roll out of bed until around 8:00 as we were up late last night and Matt was still snoozing close to 9:00 so we were off our schedule. No biggie to me since we didn't have solid scheduled plans for the rest of the day, anyway.  

But then brunch was crowded and Matt got a little stressed about it.   Our normal places - Cafe Berlin and Bleu - were crazy packed with lines and people waiting outside the doors.  So we drove around and eventually decided to grab something quick since I needed to eat and try for more of a lunchtime brunch.  Bummer.  I was trying not to be upset about this, but I was pretty bummed.

So we went to JoAnn's for some fabric.  Not a normal cheer-me-up strategy, but it was on the To Do List and checking anything off that list definitely cheers me up these days.  We're doing what I hope will be a cool photo project with the kid when she arrives so there will be more details on this fabric we purchased later.

And on home for the Cardinals game, a nap and more To Do's....or so I thought.  We had been home for maybe a half hour.  I was about to fall asleep, leaning on Matt when he disturbed my comfy position to use the bathroom.  While he was gone, the doorbell rang and when I went to look and see who was there I saw no one.  Thinking it was just a boy scout flyer or something that would be attached to my door, I almost didn't open it to check.  Thank goodness I did because I found Mom, Dad, Claire and Olivia all huddled in the corner waiting to surprise me with a "Happy Mother's Day!"  I had no idea!  Matt had been in on it the whole time, and had gotten up to use the bathroom so he could force me to be the one to open the front door.  Smart thinking, Foster.  

Anyway, we had a great day and I was so happy to see everyone!  We did some hanging around the house, ate some Flat Branch for lunch, played at Flat Branch park (including a romp in the fountains for Olivia) and indulged in some Sparky's ice cream for dessert.   Perfect! 

Thanks for the visit, family!  And Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  

37 Weeks - Blueberry Belly

I wore a dark bluish purple shirt to school today.  One of my very sweet students asked me if he could call me "Blueberry."  If I didn't like him, I may have been annoyed, however, he's right.  I am r-o-u-n-d.  My dad has actually been calling me Violet as a reference to the girl who blows up like a blueberry in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory for weeks.

At last week's 36 week appointment, Baby was measuring at an average size again - Wahoo!  She was back down to the 45 percentile so we either had a discrepancy between ultrasound techs or a serious growth spurt in the middle there.  Either way, I like the sound of 45 percentile much better than upwards of 80th which is what we were expecting to hear.  

Other than that, we're looking good and on track. We'll head back to see the doctor again in two days for another check-up.  She thinks I might go a wee bit earlier than expected.  She said she "loves patients who work on their feet..."  We shall see.  We shall see.  

Room Makeover Phase Four - Baby Bookshelves and Picture Frames

Ya know how some things get worse before they get better?  Well the baby room certainly did.  We were showered by wonderful friends and family (Baby Shower #2 Post coming soon!) and then we had to organize it all....which actually proved to be a bit overwhelming :-)   I spent quite a bit of time sorting clothing and other goodies by size, age appropriateness, category, etc.  And it looked like chaos for a whole day before it looked better.  

While I tackled some of this craziness, Matt was hard at work putting up the shelves we were given by the best brother-in-law I have :-)  We originally planned to just buy some white ledge shelving to put our books on.  He did one better and MADE them himself!  And we love, love, love them. 

[Like I've said before, we aren't great at this sort of thing...but we eventually figured it out with the use of a drill, a level and a very newly purchased stud-finder.]

[Matt was absolutely thrilled that I was documenting the whole affair...]

[Time for books.  Lots of books!]

Since we were on a roll, we decided to go ahead and tackle the frame wall as soon as we finished the bookshelves.

[We started with this blank wall, some spray-painted $2.00 frames and some free art prints, photos, postcards, etc. ]

[I did a search for "free printables" online to find things like this "Life is a Beautiful Ride" print.]

[The elephant, which is my favorite, is actually a print of some artwork from a Hickman student.  The staff loved it as much as I did, so we made it the cover of this year's magazine.]

And one final touch above the closet doors - the gift Matt gave to me on our first Valentine's Day together.  What better place than the kid's room, right?

And voila! Almost done.  Just a few more finishing touches to go before it's ready!