35 weeks & Baby Shower

Well I am officially 35 weeks pregnant and couple of days....not many more to go! This past weekend we took our last trip prior to the baby's arrival. Friday we left and headed to Mechanicsville to spend the evening with my mom. Saturday we traveled to Emporia where Alex and Angela (Gabe's middle brother and wife) hosted a terrific baby shower for us. The majority of our family in the area was able to attend as well as some friends we hadn't seen in a while. Angela and Alex did a great job of organizing several games for us to play including...

Baby Gift Bingo - guests listed the gifts that anticipated we would receive on a bingo card and as we opened the gifts kept track. First one to get 5 in a row wins...my mom won a round as well as my step-mom Linda.

Guess the Ingredients in the Baby Food - there were 5 containers of baby food and guests had to guess the ingredient(s) in them. Gabe and I gave a good try on it but the whole chicken and applesauce combo messed us up. My sister Linda, won having 6 ingredients correct overall.

Finally we played who can diaper and dress the baby the fastest. We had a men's heat and a ladies' heat.

Gabe, my dad - Doug, Elliott (Gabe's youngest brother) and Lowell (Gabe's dad) participated in the men's heat. The winners of each heat would then face off.



Gabe won the heat - I have to give my Dad props for finishing the race though :)

In the ladies' heat my sister Linda, my mom - Peggy, Laura and I competed and while I am sure my sister could have easily smoked me in this I ended up "winning."



That brought us to the Mom-to-Be vs. Dad-to-Be face off; it was pretty close....


Practically a photo finish!


If Gabe wants to have the win and be declared the "best diaperer" - I'm completely okay with that :)

The shower was a great time to catch up with our family and friends and Angela and Alex went all out for us.

We've stayed busy the last couple of weeks and we've got some busy weeks ahead of us obviously. The last weekend in April, I had a girls' weekend with Brooke, Gina, Holly and Jaime. It was great for all of us to catch up and spend time relaxing and talking as opposed to running from one place to another as we tend to do when we are together on football weekends. The ladies treated me to a pedicure (we all got one) and generously stocked up Baby Petry with all sorts of Johnson and Johnson goodies (lotion, powder, etc). The best part of the weekend though was just getting to hang out, relax and catch up with one another....I still can't believe we didn't take a single picture (we've really slacked off on that!)

The weekend after next my mom will be coming to visit and HOPEFULLY we will be finalizing things in the nursery - we're still waiting for the furniture to arrive. We were told 6-8 weeks when Dad and Linda ordered it for us....and we're approaching 8 weeks now, so hopefully any day now we'll get a call that they are ready to deliver it. (Odd ....that could be anyone of our family members in a few weeks saying that about me and Gabe).

Overall I am feeling pretty good - a bit more tired, a bit more sore and fighting some allergies right now but pretty good overall. We had a doctor's appointment last week and the baby is doing great - heart rate was in the 140s and the belly measurement was right on track for where I am in the pregnancy. I go back to the doctor next week and then start going to appointments every week after that.

I'm a bit behind on my belly expansion update photos but the shower pictures I posted might give you a good idea of where we are right now. I'll get one up there soon though.