OUR FIRST BABY SHOWER!!!!

After our mostly uneventful black friday shopping, we headed up to the mountains. We normally alternate Thanksgivings with mine and Evan's family but this year we got to see everyone because they were throwing us our first baby shower! It was seriously awesome, they went ALL OUT! They made candies in the shape of bottles for the cupcakes, and not only made, but also PAINTED some candies in the shape of ABC blocks, teddy bears, cradles, giraffes, hippos etc. There was so much good food, the whole family is amazing!



Above is a picture of the table where Stephanie made a board with a timeline of mine and Evan's life pre-each other and when we met and after, with pictures. She did a really really good job! Then there was a jar of pink M&M's for everyone to guess how many was in there, and the person who was the closest won them. And there was a sheet for everyone to sign that would go into a photo frame afterwards, another adorable idea. I'm really bad at describing things, I'm noticing that as I'm reading this back, but you'll have to take my word on this ;)

Here is the cake, yes it is a dinosaur shaped cake and it was awesome! Evan had a dinosaur birthday cake when he was younger, and since everything was going to be all pink and girlie, I guess they thought throwing in some dinosaur shaped cakes, and chicken nuggets would help! The table was all brown/pink and cutsie, loved it :)

Here is the beginning of the presents, and the woman in charge of the organizing this fabulous baby shower, Stephanie! She is now telling Evan that although baby showers are typically for the women, Evan is here because it's his family and he will get the honor of opening the first present, but the only stipulation is that he has to wear everything he opens! Here is what he opened:

If you can't tell what this is, it is a monkey suit! It is perfect for a Halloween costume because it's 6-9 months, there's a whole for her head to go in and stirrups for her feet, and even a built-in tummy! It is so cute! Well he couldn't fit that on, but his next present was a black shirt saying "Real men change diapers" and he had to wear that the rest of the shower :)

I won't bore you with the hundreds of pictures of all of the presents we got, but here is something really cool that we weren't expecting. Stephanie got us a bookcase/dollhouse that is really really cute. It will work as a bookcase, and then when she gets older it can be a dollhouse for her. We really needed a bookcase but hadn't really picked anything out yet and this is just adorable. Evan put it together yesterday and it brightens her room and makes it look all girlie, I love it!

Our daughter is going to be one stylish chick, she got so many clothes just at the first shower, I was so amazed. Here is a preview of her closet with all of the clothes hung up and her furry friends above.

Thank you to Evan's family who spent hours preparing for the shower, and for everyone who came and brought us gifts. A special thanks to Stephanie who I know organized the whole thing and spent countless hours preparing down to the very smallest detail. We are so blessed to have so many people who love and support us! We love you all :) 4 comments

Posted by Evan and Jen at 9:02 PM

Where do I even begin?

I have a lot of stuff to update on, we've had quite a few busy weeks. I kept telling myself that I was going to post so I don't forget anything, and I kept forgetting. Now if I update on everything we did this would be incredibly long, so I'll try to spare you and give you the short version.

About a month ago my sister gave us a onesie that was sooo cute. I can't find a picture of it online and my camera batteries are dead so I can't take a picture of it, and I'm out of batteries, so I'm completely out of luck. It's a black onesie that says in pink letters "I can't wear pink everyday." It's adorable though, and Evan loves it :)

My co-worker Dawn gave us a sock monkey! We love sock monkeys, especially Evan, and we were going to do a monkey themed nursery if we were having a boy so we really like monkey! The one she got us is adorable! He has magnetic hands, feet, and hat :) How cute is JoJo? He even has a whole family, and Christmas ornaments and everything!



Thanksgiving was awesome, as usual. This was my family's year for Thanksgiving, we alternate between my mom's family, and Evan's mom's family because those are the only 2 that really "do Thanksgiving". This year was a little different though, my dad decided he wanted to go to his family's Thanksgiving in Reidsville so Evan and I rode with my parents for lunch on Thanksgiving day. I don't see my dad's family very much (none of us do, but he's trying to change that) so I didn't really know that many people but I got reacquainted and that was fun! Then we headed to my Grandmother's in Greensboro for Thanksgiving dinner. Every year the family keeps growing, we're practically running out of room to have everyone eat in the house, we have a big table in the formal dining room, a small table in the kitchen/dining room/living room, and a small table in the family room. We are outgrowing that house very quickly. All in all it was a fun day with lots of food and family, and I absolutely love my family.

Black Friday was almost uneventful for me, I'm usually a hardcore shopper with a timeline and a plan for every store I'm going to hit with the appropriate coupons etc. Last year I went out to Smithfield outlets at midnight to start the night off right ;) but this year, I'm pretty pregnant, and waking up at the crack of dawn just didn't appeal to me. Neither did standing in line or getting pushed around, so there was no plan of going out shopping...BUT of course I had to look at the sales papers, I mean who doesn't? I found a couple things I would love to check out but decided that I would just let myself wake up whenever and if the deals were still there when I went there, then great, and if not, no big deal. I wanted to check out bikes for Evan and my dad, a GPS for my father-in-law, and a Keurig for Evan. Evan didn't like the idea of me going by myself so about 8:00am we went to Wal-mart, CompUSA, and Kohl's, pretty much striking out everywhere. I did buy Evan his Christmas present at Kohl's, which he was unaware of until I walked out of the store with it in my hand as he was picking me up...I said "Merry Christmas, you won't let me go shopping by myself so you get no surprises ;) " He was excited either way, and so was I...I got this Keurig Elite for HALF PRICE! I was so excited and I've yet to see a better deal thus far! If anyone sees it for less, DON'T TELL ME :)


I really like this thing too, I don't drink coffee but they have teas and hot cocoa (which is my favorite!) and it's so quick...so I can just throw my thermos under there while packing my lunch in the morning and I have hot chocolate on the way to work!!! LOVE IT!

I don't guess that was much, but I skipped a lot 1) because I don't remember everything and 2)I don't want to bore you.

Coming up on the next post: OUR FIRST BABY SHOWER! (This one's going to be long and with many pictures, so beware) 1 comments

Posted by Evan and Jen at 6:56 PM

It's about time :)

Ok, so right now I'm very angry with this blog AND my computer. I just spent the past 2 hours writing a post, granted I was watching TV, eating dinner, doing laundry in-between but it was a fairly long post, and then I try to upload a picture and my computer freezes!!!! I get back on to my blog and it didn't save :( I have a blank post titled "It's about time", it was last autosaved at like 6:00pm. I'm watching this blog draft autosafe or whatever every time I stop typing now, so why didn't it save last time...ugh! This is why I don't enjoy blogging! This post is going to have to be shorter than the last one because it's already 9:00pm and tomorrow is Monday so it's going to be a crazy day, I need my rest people!

I can't believe it's already the middle of November, before we know it, Thanksgiving and Christmas will have come and gone and it will be 2010. Scary! I'm really excited about these upcoming weeks though, lots of exciting events. This week my work is having a Thanksgiving dinner of sorts. We're having a potluck and Evan's taking a half day off of work so he can come. I absolutely love the people I work with and can't wait for all the good food and a chance to hang out with everyone AND EVAN! Then this weekend is my dad's birthday, so lots of family time :) And then next week is a short week because it's THANKSGIVING! I love love LOVE Thanksgiving, good food, family, it can't get any better than that! We will start out with my dad's side of the family for lunch, then my Grandmother (mom's mom) for dinner. Then Black Friday shopping with my sister begins! Then Evan and I, and the dogs, are off to the mountains to spend the weekend with the Chaisson family. That Saturday will be our first baby shower, I'm so excited! It's going to be weird having a bunch of baby stuff in the house, and we'll hopefully be bringing back an Ashe County Christmas Tree, they're the best. I can't wait to decorate our house and Christmas tree...Christmas is so much fun!

Our house went on the market about 1.5 weeks ago, and was shown last Thursday, Friday and yesterday! 3 showings in 3 days, not too bad. That's a lot better than last time we tried to sell it, which makes me more hopeful. Even if nothing comes from these showings, at least we know the price isn't too high, and that people like what they see online enough to see the house in person. We haven't gotten any feedback on the showings yet, but hopefully we'll know any good/bad/or indifferent feedback early this week! We're definitely praying for the perfect person to see our house and buy it!

A few weeks back, my pregnant friend Lindsay was telling me about how sometimes when she's extremely tired she would just start crying for no reason, and although that was not happening to me then...this past week it began :( I bet I cried every single night last week, and I don't mean just cry, I mean BAWL! I'm not sure if it was just exhaustion, or hormones, or actually being overwhelmed, probably all of the above but it was rough. For the first time I actually felt like I was moody, and mean to my husband, which I can't stand! I have been overwhelmed the past few months (who wouldn't right?) but I have been trying to just let everything fall into place and work itself out because I know there's nothing that I can do about certain things. I think it just all caught up to me this past week, and I couldn't handle it. Aflac visited my work discussing short-term disability/accident ins./life ins. etc. and I'm in the midst of switching insurances to Evan's company policy, and trying to get different quotes and make decisions on life insurance. I usually can handle quite a bit on my plate, making important decisions, figuring out what's best for us, what we can afford, but it was just too much for me. I would just start crying during lunch at work, at home, by the end of the week I could tell when it was coming so I would go and take a shower so I could be alone and cry so I wouldn't freak Evan out. Poor guy!

Can I just brag on my husband for a minute? He is one amazing guy...if you've known him for any amount of time you will agree with me. It's so interesting to think back to 2001 when I met him, and how he and I have both changed, for the better, and what we are now. I knew when I met him he was special, and within weeks of knowing him (not even dating) I knew he was the man I was meant to be with, boy was I right! He is such an amazing man of God and I am so blessed to have him. He treats me so good, better by far than I deserve. He takes care of me like none other, and he did this before I was pregnant too! He is downstairs right now as we speak, making me a salad for lunch tomorrow and taking the dogs out for the night. I mean I do things around the house, don't get me wrong, but he helps out more than I can even ask for. He makes sure I have everything I need, always thinking about me even before himself. He is amazing, the best husband I could ask for, and I know he's going to be an amazing father. I can't wait to see him with our daughter, she's going to love her daddy so much :) I love my husband so much, sorry if that gagged anyone, but I just had to share!

Our daughter remains nameless, we haven't really worked on her name the past few weeks, we're kind of at a stand still. Yesterday Evan jokingly said why don't we just settle with Riley Austin and be done with it! That's just it, neither one of us want to settle on a name, we want it to be perfect and something we truly love, and that just hasn't happened with a name yet. But we're not coming up with fresh names, so anyone have any ideas on what we should do?

Like most of you know, there are 4 pregnant women at Hope Chapel and we're all really close. Well a few weeks ago we were all together under the same roof so we had to take a picture. All the other girls have made this same post (weeks ago) so I had to share the picture too. Now all my non-Raleigh friends will know about the girls I talk about :)



So, here we are, from the right: Lindsey Davis--expecting Samuel Grey (spelling?) on February 16th, Me--expecting our daughter on March 3rd, Lindsay Hege--expecting Lila Addison on March 7th, and Casey Martinez--expecting her daughter on March 30th.

I hope I got all of that right, aren't we cute? It's so nice having other women around the same age all going through this together. Lindsey Davis and I are even trying to share a nanny together. A woman who goes to our church is wanting to nanny up to 2 children and we're hoping everything works out to where it can be Sam and our daughter :) How fun would that be?

Alright, time for me to go to bed, this week is going to be a crazy week! 1 comments

Posted by Evan and Jen at 6:48 PM

22 Weeks!!!

Hello all...it's been a while, I know, and again I apologize. I'm sure there is a lot that has happened since I last posted, but nothing too huge that I felt I needed to blog about it. We did buy the stroller that I posted about last time, it's all put together and in her room, YAY! We have a good amount of stuff registered at Babies R Us and Target which seemed to take FOREVER, and I'm sure there are things missing, but I'm so tired of registering so I'll have to come back to that a little later. We also bought the crib mattress, Babies R Us came out with a 30% off coupon for 1 day only and it was on the brand of mattress that we had picked out so we got it for about $80 which is a good deal for those! Yay for having a couple things in her room now :)

I've been kind of out of it lately. Just tired, a little down, too. We have 4 months until our little girl arrives, and I really really want to be in Apex. It just seems like it's just gettting farther and farther away :( I want to be close to my parents, my sister, my church, etc. When our daughter gets here, I want her grandparents to be able to come over whenever they want. I want to be able to run to the store, leave 10 min. before church starts instead of 35min. I mean it's ridiculous the amount we drive to and from things. Almost everywhere we goes takes 30 min. or more to get to. We're going to take a leap of faith and put our house on the market, within the next week or 2 and I just ask that you all would pray for us. I pray that somewhere, God would send us a buyer and we would get a decent amount for the house (considering the crappy economy) and that we would find a house. That's a lot of prayers I know, but we're really praying for a miracle.

Our Hope Chapel playgroup is now complete! Casey and Joey found out today that they are, too, having a baby girl which makes it 3 girls and 1 boy! Lindsay & Brian are having a girl and they have picked a name out! And Lindsey & Todd are having a boy and they have chosen a name as well! It's so exciting!!! I can't wait to be able to call our little girl by her own name, but it looks like that may not be in the near future. We can't seem to decide on anything, well really we can't come up with too many names that we are in love with. Everyone says not to worry, it will come....but I want to name her now!!!

I'm growing a lot as of late. Everyone is commenting now on how pregnant I look. One of my coworkers said "Man you really blew up this past weekend didn't you?" Not in a bad way, but it did make me realize how much bigger I am now then I was just a few weeks ago. I don't mind being big, gaining weight, nothing like that but I definitely physically feel bigger. The way I walk, the way I sit down and get up, and especially when I get in and out of bed I can really tell how big my belly is. It's funny how I feel, it's unexplainable, but cool! I'll try to take some more pictures, but I honestly don't wear real clothes much and when I do, I don't do much so I don't have a reason to take pictures. I don't think anyone wants to see my "naked" belly pictures that I take every week but it's crazy to look at the difference between 5 weeks and last week at 21 weeks...crazy!!!! Oh, and she's moving like crazy. She's most active on my drive home from work and right before I eat. Yesterday I felt like I was going to fall off the couch she was moving so much, and I can usually see when she's moving just by looking at my stomach. And I can feel where she is sometimes, it's like my stomachs tense and hard and I can massage it and feel her move over to the other side...it's really kind of cool. My co-worker felt her this morning and was like oh yea, that's totally her head!

I think my first baby shower is going to happen at the end of next month up in Ashe with the Chaisson family. It's a little early but I don't plan on making any more trips to Ashe past Christmas they're going to have it before the holidays! I'm so excited, it's going to be crazy having a ton of actual baby stuff everywhere, I can't wait!!! Alright, I think I've filled most of the gaps. Hopefully I'll have something to blog about soon, take care :) 2 comments

Posted by Evan and Jen at 7:10 PM

Strollers

I need your opinions. Evan and I had picked out a stroller for a boy, but we are having a girl so we're trying to decide whether this particular stroller is too boyish---or if it will be ok. We really like everything about the stroller otherwise, so tell me...do you think it's ok for a girl, or is it too boyish?



Blue, tan and brown polka-dots are cute, but it's a lot of brown, that's the only thing that really bothers me. Honestly, there aren't too many neutral designs out there, and we definitely don't want something pink and girlish. We hope to be able to use the same stroller for our next child who could possibly be a boy...but we also don't want our girl to look silly in a too-boyish stroller. So serious opinions would be appreciated. It won't upset me, I just want to know what other people think. 4 comments

Posted by Evan and Jen at 7:45 PM

Crazy, busy weekend part 2

Ok, so Evan's parents and Stephanie (his sister) spent the night last Friday night. Saturday morning we slept in a little and had a nice bacon and eggs breakfast, YUM :) Donna had brought us some newborn diapers from Luvs that were on major clearance so that was exciting, we had baby diapers in the house!!! Then, Tammy, a woman from Evan's church back at home sent a book of soothing CD's for the baby. They're really nice and include Mozart, washer/dryer noises etc. really really neat! That was exciting because it's really the first baby stuff we had in the house. We decided to go shopping a little! We went to World Market, Kohl's, and Target. They bought us a couple gowns/body suits for the baby girl. They were cute, green with monkeys, giraffes etc. They also bought the cutest pair of brown shoes with pink polka dots, and boy am I a sucker for polka dots. Kohl's was selling some of the collection of "If you give a mouse a cookie, If you give a mouse a muffin" etc. for $5.00 and the proceeds went to help out children so we bought 2, and Steph bought the pig and the mouse that went with the books!! She's going to have so much fun playing with the stuffed animals while we read her these stories!!! Our little girl is going to be so sick of polka dots by the times she's 2, LOL! It was so much fun looking at girlie clothes, they have a lot of cute CUTE stuff :)

This is very random but we bought a dining room table about a month ago from World Market (our favorite store) because we've had a free table that some friends passed down, their dogs had chewed almost every leg off of every chair, and we thought it was about time we got us a nice one. Plus, they were having an awesome sale! I just thought I would post a picture of it:



I didn't feel like cleaning it off for a good picture, so here you see the diapers, stuffed animals, and the clothing we got. Plus, my new Target purse (love it) and Evan's PEZ dispensers (uh, the boy is 25 and having a child, really you still want to collect these?) But anyways, here's the table, love love love benches, so very happy we finally have a grown up table!

Sunday we went to church and me, Evan, my mom and my sister and Mackenzie met at Babies R Us to get the crib and dresser! Evan and I really need help on what to register for and had some questions about things like strollers, car seats, bottles, monitors etc. and she really really helped us. We've registered for a couple things already, but I think it's going to take us a while, it's so hard, so many tough decisions. So we got the furniture loaded up in the truck, took it home only to find out they gave us the right crib and wrong dresser. Boy was it an ordeal to call them and figure out what happened, and I was not very calm or happy because it's a good 45 min. drive home and my brother-in-law was so kindly letting us use his truck. Well they got it worked out and gave us 20% off of the dresser which was nice, but we had to drive all the way back over there (without Evan b/c he had huddles) and I got to watch as my mom and Amber tried to get this enormously heavy dresser out of the back of the truck and into our garage since there was no way they could get it upstairs. All that work, but we finally have the crib and the dresser, YAY! Here's the pic from BRU



Aren't they cute? They're really heavy duty and seem like they will last! The crib will convert to a toddler bed and eventually a full size bed as well :) Our friends Wes & Diana came over last night to help Evan get the dresser upstairs since the dresser came completely put together (which is nice for Evan not to have to do, but was extremely heavy). We are going to aim to put the crib together tonight after Evan mows the yard :)

I have another treat for you as well. I know some people read this from miles and miles away and do not get the pleasure of seeing my cute little pregnant belly, so I took some pictures. Nothing fancy, and I'm not photogenic but Evan took some pictures. I hope you're happy because normally after wearing scrubs all day I jump into some nice comfy pants and a tank top but I changed into normal clothes just for you guys ;)



I don't know why these pictures look so fuzzy to me, they don't look like that on the computer, but oh well...you get the picture, I have a belly!

We found out that one of our friends Lindsey (who's 2.5 weeks ahead of me) is having a boy, and our other friend Lindsay (who's like 4 days behind me) found out today and I will know tonight (super excited) and Casey (who's almost a month behind me) will find out soon enough! It's so much fun, I can't wait for all of us to have our babies and have play dates :) I'm off for now, have a great rest of the week! 1 comments

Posted by Evan and Jen at 5:53 PM

Crazy, busy weekend 1

Last Thursday, at 18 weeks 2 days, I felt the baby move! I was calling my parents for our nightly talk, and the baby kicked me. Immediately Evan put his hand on my belly and felt it too! A few minutes later it felt like the baby had the hiccups, it was so cool :)

Friday was the big day! IT'S A GIRL! We found out that everything is perfect, her weight/size is measuring great, heartbeat is great, they checked a ton of things like 10 fingers/toes, spine, skull etc. and the doctor says everything looks great!!!



There's a profile of our baby girl, and the crotch of our baby girl ;) I have a lot more pictures too, Evan posted them on facebook and I probably will too eventually, but right now I figure these 2 can satisfy you for a while!

Evan and I both just wanted a healthy baby, we really didn't prefer one or the other, but we had only been able to decide on a boys name, boys bedding/room theme/stroller etc. so I guess maybe for that reason we were almost expecting a boy. We are thrilled about a girl though, we have a lot of work ahead of us, especially with her name because we CANNOT find a name we really like, but we have time!

On the way home we went to hallmart and bought a balloon that read "It's a Girl" and they gave us a box so we could put the balloon in the box, and wrap it and that's how we planned to reveal it to our parents! Then we went home and met the carpet cleaners who cleaned practically the whole house. They were really good and quick and now I feel like our house is so much cleaner!

Dinner was great, we sat down and immediately had Mackenzie opening the box that would reveal what everyone had been waiting for all day...here's the short video




After dinner, we immediately headed over to Babies R Us to look at girlie stuff!!! My parents decided a couple months ago that they wanted to buy us a crib, but we hadn't been able to find one we liked in the color we wanted but it was our lucky night, we finally found one! And this one even had a matching dresser/changing table combo which we love :) My parents bought us both of these and they were a decent price too. They were both in stock but we didn't have a truck with us so we were going to come back on Sunday to pick them up. It was so exciting just to know that we finally found the furniture for our girlie :) Ok...that's all for tonight, will post more stuff tomorrow! 1 comments

Posted by Evan and Jen at 8:26 PM