Baby shower, AKA an excuse to gather together to ooh over cute baby stuff.

Baby showers, yay! Coed baby showers where I don't have the be the sole subject of attention, double yay! Coed baby showers at our house where we can show off the nursery, triple yay! Coed baby showers at our house where a ton of our friends and family gather together to celebrate their love for us and our unborn Butternut, quadruple yay!

So yes, I must say I enjoyed our baby shower this past weekend. My advice to mamas-to-be regarding having the shower at your house - only do this if you want to guarantee being exhausted. Our super awesome hostess came in from out of town and whipped most of it into shape with the help of family and friends that came over beforehand, but there were still issues that cropped up and things that only I could clean up. So. Bear that in mind. And maybe eat something sugary to help you cope. That's what I did.









"Gooooooood diaper cake." *pat pat pat*





Good times, people. I had never been to a coed baby shower before, but I knew I wanted one because I couldn't imagine celebrating the impending addition to our family without having the guys in our lives there as well as the ladies. It made the event feel a little more casual, but I absolutely adored that about the day. The event reminded me a bit of our wedding - all these people coming together to celebrate and share their love with us. But I got to wear more comfortable clothes. WOOHOO!

Now Butternut just needs to make his actual appearance. Maybe by then I will have written the thank you cards.

Bam!

I haven't posted any bump photos here yet, so here you go. And here's a conversation I had with my doctor yesterday at my 31 week checkup while he was watching the baby do his full-belly earthquake dance:

OB: "Wow...those are some REALLY big movements."
Me: "Yup. I know. Believe me, I know."
OB: "That looks uncomfortable. How do you sleep?"
Me: "I don't."
OB: "I'm not surprised."

VALIDATION. Thanks, doc.

Greeting the new year with pictures of the old.

One of the ways I like to greet the new year is by creating an album of the past year. I bought several albums in the same style a few years ago, and I've been painstakingly adding and captioning 240 for every year since 2006. I love the finished result, but I love the process even more. It's a great way to look over the past year, both the good and the bad, as I don't shy away from including visits of the sad moments.



The cover is the most difficult part. Going from 240 favorites to just five or six is the challenge. Once I've narrowed it down to that select few, I use Picasa's collage feature to pull it all together. Then I send off 241 photos to be printed, and spend a few hours sorting them and writing the little notes that expand on the thousand words each picture already says for itself. I just sent off the 2010 photos, and I can't wait to get to the next part.



So, hello 2011. I can't wait to see what your collage looks like this time next year.