Cooper's Baby Shower and Easter

It's been a really fun (and tiring) weekend! We started out on Friday night having my niece, Eva, spend the night. She is almost 3 years old and is such a little ham. I know everyone thinks their family is the best, but she really is so well behaved and a lot of fun to be around. We spent the evening playing games and wearing ourselves out. Eva invented the "flashlight" game with Uncle Bryan's LED headlamp. We spent about 30 or 40 minutes in complete darkness in the house so Eva could get full use out of the flashlights. :) I showed her how to put the flashlight up to her mouth and make her cheeks glow. I loved doing that as a kid. Bryan and I got a little practice reading stories for bedtime. It was really fun and funny. We tried out different methods: I read a page, you read a page, I read a word, you read a word, etc. The every other word method was least successful. Kinda hard to understand what was going on! :) We read Tikki Tikki Tembo and Guess How Much I Love You. Lots of fun.

I had Saturday off of work. Yay! I love having Saturdays off. It is such a treat. I only have two other Saturdays off before the baby arrives and I will be spending those at breastfeeding and child birthing classes. I can't believe it is getting so close. We are definitely starting to feel the crunch and have scheduled two work weekends for the upstairs remodel project. We really aren't that far away from finishing the bedroom but we have a good bit of work left on the closet and bath. I'm excited to see it finished. I hope we can do it before he gets here!

I took a two hour nap in the afternoon and then headed over to Heather's house to hang out with her and Joy while they were getting ready for my baby shower. The girls came up with a robot/futuristic theme and it was adorable. I now want to decorate his toddler room in robots! The shower was so fun. I was really looking forward to it and it was everything I had hoped and more. I couldn't help but think about all of the women that were there (and a few that weren't) and realizing how much Bryan and I are loved by them. A wedding or baby shower is a way that we express support in our culture. We are telling the person or couple, "we are here for you, we care about you, we are excited for you". And, of course, "here's a present for you!" But, seriously, I guess I am all emotional because I'm pregnant, but I love these women and I know that they love me. They love my unborn baby. They support us unconditionally. It's a wonderful feeling to know that we are loved by so many people.

Joy drove all the way from Virginia to come to the shower- thanks Joy! I love you. It was so nice to hang out and it always seems kinda like she never left Atlanta. I miss her tons. I also got quite a surprise when I walked into the condo and saw my friend from high school, Jeni. She lives in Louisiana and so I was really shocked to see her! The girls didn't tell me she was coming- I'm glad- it was fun to be surprised. We all spent the evening eating, talking and opening gifts. Jennifer made this amazing robot cake.
How cute is that? I got TONS of stuff for the little one. Jumperoo, stroller, bouncer, boppy, monitor, mobile, clothes, books, pacifiers, bottles, toys, play yard, gift cards, etc! Thanks everybody! We love our things and Daddy didn't even get upset at the sight of the nursery already filling up! He's not a fan of clutter and mess so this baby with all of its "things" is going to be an adjustment. :) So far, so good. We woke up Sunday and I showed him all of our new goodies. We couldn't resist testing out our fancy Sony monitor from Aunt Emily. It works great and we each took turns pretending to be the baby in the other room. Very funny. I also had to break out the mobile and stick it on the crib. Actually, I wasn't able to figure out how to attach it but Bryan came to the rescue and it looks so cute! Now all we need is a cute little baby to put in there. Thank you everyone for making my shower special! I'll post more pics of everyone as people send them to me. My camera didn't get used much that night! I was too busy talking!

We spent Easter Sunday at my Mom and Bill's in Fayetteville. It was a beautiful day and the kids were all running around like crazy- hopped up on chocolate bunnies and jellybeans. We had a fun egg hunt around the lake and ate ourselves silly on ham, mashed potatoes, macaroni, and various sweets. Yum!
Cooper got an Easter basket even though he is still in utero. You know his Granny couldn't leave him out!