North Carolina Baby Shower

This past weekend, June 18th, we had our local baby shower with our friends and my immediate family. Our friends Mark and Kayla generously offered to open their home to us and host and they did an amazing job! Kayla seriously put together a baby shower our of Pinterest with the help of her mom and my mom and I was blown away. Sadly we had a few last minute cancellations and a lot of my family couldn't travel down because of it being Father's Day weekend, but the crowd we had was wonderful and I am so thankful to all those who were able to be there and celebrate with us.

Bean's nursery is safari themed because of my love of giraffes and that was the theme of our shower! Welcome to the Jungle greeted us when we came in, plus tons of food (twigs, cheetah tails, elephant snacks, zebra cakes...), a blue candy bar for making your own goody bag (with my mom's famous Chocolate Covered Oreos) and a cargo table for presents!

The "watering hole" had jungle juice (not the same kind I had in college I promise), desserts were zebra cakes and tiger tails, plus Ka the sandwich snake! How cool right?!?

Sorry for my shaky editing, but now we are revealing our Bean's chosen name, James William, aka Will. Men in my husband's family go by their middle names, him included, so baby Will is going to follow that tradition. James is after Ryan's grandfather (who went by his middle name Doug and told him, "Son, never name a kid Doug.") who passed away in the first year we were married and was like a father to him. William is after my dad (who is really my stepdad) since I always regretted not having him legally adopt me and this is my small tribute to him.

So baby Will it is! With a small cameo by Jeffrey the Giraffe on the bottom left there.

Ryan and I were once again blown away by everyone's generosity! Our cargo table was definitely full!

Our party guests... at the top is our best friend Donna, in the middle are my coworkers Jennie, her husband Kevin, and Lauren, and on the bottom is my husband's former Master Sergeant and his wife.

The top picture here are our hosts, Mark and Kayla, and my brother Stefan, and of course the bottom is my brother and my mom. Looking at these photos I can see how huge I have gotten as I am nearing the end of my pregnancy and we still have at least 7 weeks to go before full term! Yikes!

Between both our showers we know this baby is so incredibly loved and we are one blessed family. Thank you to everyone who came to either of our showers, sent a gift, or sent us love from afar! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

South Carolina Baby Shower

Last weekend, the 11th, Ryan and I made our way to South Carolina as his family were throwing our Bean a baby shower. We left Friday afternoon and made our way south, arriving in time for a lovely BBQ dinner with his mom, sister, and grandmother. Saturday afternoon was our shower and man did our little guy get spoiled! His mom's neighbor Christi hosted the shower for us and the guests included lots of family and friends from the neighborhood.

As you can see there were lots of tiny outfits gifted that I could not contain my excitement about. So. Tiny.

It seemed like everyone had a great time and we really enjoyed getting to see family and friends that we don't get to visit with as often as we like!

Plus they made me a fun hat with all the ribbons! Bean got first wear in the belly though.

The rest of Saturday we lazed around, eating leftovers and just spending time together. I get tired pretty easily these days so lying on the couch and going to bed early is fine in my book!

Sunday we took some pictures together before packing up the jeep on the hottest day of the year thus far, easily over 100 degrees and horribly humid. I did not envy my husband wrangling the crib into the car and was not disappointed when he turned down my offer to help!

We channeled our inner Zoolander a bit too.

Our Bean is definitely one lucky baby and he isn't even here yet! So much love. The next time we see our South Carolina family will probably be when the baby is born, so only a few more weeks!

Unfortunately we did encounter some car trouble on the way home. We were driving in the middle of nowhere South Carolina when suddenly our Jeep turned off while we were going 55 on the highway! Luckily we were able to stop ok, but remember me mentioning it was the hottest day of the year thus far? 100 degrees plus, middle of nowhere, fields, closed store, closed church, and a random hospital unit that I had to walk to at least once to use the bathroom. I was afraid to drink too much as it was a hike and we were waiting on the tow truck. After nearly two hours we somehow got the Jeep started again and just went on our way, calling AAA to cancel the tow (another ordeal in itself!). Our 4.5 hour drive ended up taking nearly 7 hours and man was I glad to get home. I was a sweaty, uncomfortable mess for sure! The joys of pregnancy!