Work Shower

We had our last baby shower for Caroline, if you are keeping count that's shower number 4! My wonderful coworkers threw me a lovely come and go shower at work. Unfortunately I was off my game and missed out on taking pictures until the very end but I did get this great picture with my good friend Rachel and her little girl Anna. Don't you just love Anna's hair? Anna was born just before Christmas and she's already handed down quite a few adorable outfits to Caroline!

Me, Rachel and Anna

At the party there were amazing cupcakes made by one of my coworkers and other tasty snacks. We got a lot of great practical gifts, including 3 baby bath tubs! By the end of all the showers we were left with 5 ways to bathe Caroline. Here are all of the bath tubs lined up on our dining table. We will be keeping the blooming bath and just one of the other plastic bath tubs!

5 ways to bathe Caroline and keep her squeaky clean!

Church Baby Shower

On May 5th the women of our church hosted a baby shower for Baby Caroline. The shower was held at the church building and they decorated with rubber ducks everywhere. We definitely feel loved by our UCC family! Here are some pictures from the afternoon, enjoy.

There were signs up telling everyone where to go

Here I am with all of my lovely hostesses! Jennifer, Christine, Kara, Lauren, Leslye, Celia, Carolyn, Tara, Rebecca, Ronica, and Melinda. I love these ladies!!

Melinda made me an awesome diaper cake with so many adorable toys and blankets and what not included. I love the ribbon that she used on the diaper cake.

Here are some of the beautiful gifts that we were given.

Here is another look at all of the gifts that we received.

Instead of having a cake or cupcakes the ladies put together an ice cream sundae bar. They know me too well! I loved all of the toppings, especially the homemade caramel and chocolate sauce!

There were tons of cookies and very tasty punch. I love the giant duck!

This is the Blooming Bath that my in-laws sent for Caroline. You put the flower in the sink to turn any sink into a comfy place to bathe baby!

We got our car seat! I am so thankful to my friends for getting me something so incredibly practical. We love our car seat and are planning to put it in the car this weekend before we leave for our last vacation before Caroline joins our family.

We are so thankful for all of the wonderful gifts, it has been such a blessing to not worry about buying things for our baby girl. I have actually only bought one outfit and her drawers are completely full of newborn, 0-3, and 3-6 month clothes. We have quite a bit of 6-9 month stuff as well!

Zeta Rho Baby Shower

I am so incredibly blessed by my amazing students! Wednesday night (May 1st) we had our usual weekly Zeta Rho club meeting. I was looking forward to the last club for our seniors and blessing them with food and encouragement as they go their separate ways. I found it a little odd that I got asked about 10 times if I was going to make it to the meeting, I assured them that I would be there to support the graduates. Little did I know that they had more planned!

My girls truly went above and beyond to bless me and baby Caroline. I am also so proud of them for holding back on their desire to go out and buy her frilly pink things and bows that are completely impractical and opting instead for a bath tub full of needed items! (I'm sure the other advisors played a big role in this). They had goodies and decorations and it was a wonderful way to end the year with them.

I can't wait for Caroline to get here and to see her showered with love by her big "sisters." I have no doubt that we will never lack for good babysitters and more importantly good, strong, female role models for our little duck!

31 1/2 weeks pregnant

Blessings

We are truly blessed! Just when I thought that SoCal may not be the place for us we found ourselves feeling so welcome and at peace with our decision to move here.

For the last six months I've been a little skeptical of our decision to leave the midwest and settle in a suburb of Los Angeles. I've felt like my wardrobe, hairstyle, physique, car, etc. just weren't up to par with everyone else around here. I felt like a fish out of water. As much as I was enjoying the sunshine, beach and being near my sister and nephews, I was also feeling out of place. When you don't have a lot of money it can be overwhelming to live down here. Particularly when you have a few pounds to lose and are living in a wardrobe that requires at least a 10 pound weight loss. It's just very different than my life in Indiana where shopping at Kmart and Walmart were normal and people complimented me everytime I got a haircut or bought a new top. In Indiana baby and bridal showers were full of crazy games, mini-sausages, cakes made lovingly by hand and a good time. Out here, baby showers (I haven't been to a wedding shower yet) are full of fancy platters, perfectly themed snacks, games that aren't really games at all and way too much money! It all came to a head as I was helping to plan a baby shower with friends and a debate broke out over the use of plastic cups! Seriously, aren't we in a recession? Does it really matter if the cups are plastic? It was too much, it made me want to cry because there is so much more to life than the type of cups used at a baby shower. In the end the shower will be beautiful and the family will feel loved and that's what matters most.

Then, just a few short days later we were invited to dinner by one of the elders of our new church. The dinner was lovely and the couple is so nice and sincere. Then, when we were all done, they pulled out an envelope containing a "love offering" and I have truly never felt so loved by a church. I finally felt like we were at home. It wasn't because of the money, it was because people had noticed our prayers and our needs. It was beautiful. The elders said that they wanted us to be able to stay in SoCal because we were an important part of the church family. Wow! That's powerful. Well, now we can stay in SoCal and we have another 5 months before it will be a huge burden if our house is not rented. Hopefully God will provide some renters before that 5 month deadline comes up but if not, He has provided.

God is showing us that He brought us here for a reason and that he will take care of us. What a powerful demonstration of His love.

Weekend Update

Hehe, I wish I were funny enough to warrant that title. Anyway, deserving or not, this is my weekend update.

• We are moving in 7 days!! My amazingly wonderful husband has packed pretty much everything and left me to sit back and rest (or, work on my dissertation, you know, whatever).
  
• Speaking of the dis. I finished chapter 4 on Saturday and now just need to finish up 2 and 3 and get them to JD for approval. Praying for approval.
  
• I was also able to get a haircut yesterday, it's so much better! Nice and short, I use less shampoo and it takes less then half the time to dry. My mom was awesome and sent me a gift card which paid for the lovely hair cut and a some new clothes.
• Today I led the opening prayer at church, went to Bible class and then taught Sunday school. A very busy morning!
• After church we had a baby shower planning meeting - a Tea Party theme for a baby girl! So cute. I'm making teacup and teapot shaped sugar cookies. I'm a little nervous about decorating but it will be fun anyway.
• Went to Golden Spoon for a yummy treat and then to the Commons for a free concert, it was a U2 cover band but they were pretty good, sadly, not the best acoustics.

Now, we are both sitting in bed on our laptops and I'm beginning to get a little drowsy. Tomorrow is my first 8 hour day at work so I'm anticipating exhaustion at the end of the day :)