Baby Shower for Our Baby Girl!!

I have the most amazing best friend! Living so close and being able to raise our babies together has been such a blessing!

My Mom and best friend, Jura, threw me a beautiful baby shower! It was complete with amazing food, adorable decorations, and wonderful friends and family who came to share in the excitement of our baby girl! As always, there were a few minor glitches (like two of my Aunts who were supposed to help out ended up not even coming), but we all pitched in and it turned out just fine :). Austin did great and had a fun time with the other little kids who tagged along with their Mommas. Later that night while we were getting him ready for bed he kept saying, "party, fun!" His vocabulary just keeps growing and he is constantly surprising us with new words and phrases! 

My Mom did a great job organizing all the food!

Grandma Weigel made her famous chicken salad puffs! I must have eaten a dozen of them.....

cupcakes with little babies on them!

Jura did a fantastic job planning the games and decorations!

Casey's (Jura's sister) daughter, Bronwyn, came along to help watch the little ones while we were busy with preparations. It's crazy that I used to babysit her and now she is babysitting my kid!

 

Opening gifts!

I felt like I had died and gone to heaven when I saw all the adorable dresses!

My Grandma Weigel gave me a beautiful quilt!

Grandma Porter crocheted this beautiful afghan!

Oh the little swimsuits.... I am dying to take her swimming!!

It's a tutu swimsuit! I'm so in love!!!

Heidi and Jessica hanging out.

Bronwyn and Austin taking selfies :).

Chatting with my wonderful friends from church.

Catching up with Grandma Porter and Aunt April

Little Juliette did such a great job helping her Mommy with the games!

Austin never strays far from Grandma. This shower had her pretty stressed out but it couldn't have turned out any better :).

I am so grateful to be the mother of this busy boy and his already beloved unborn sister!

Josh and Jura's husband, Adrien, decided to take advantage of us not needing them around and went out for a "guys day." They played racquetball, went to the Henderson St. Patrick's Day parade, and went go-carting! They came back to us tired, sweaty, and starving! We had plenty of food left over from the shower so they were in luck ;). 

Daddy at the races!

All geared up and ready to go!

After all our guests went home, Jura and Adrien stayed to help clean up and then we enjoyed the rest of the night eating, relaxing, and laughing at our kids playing together :). Austin is fascinated with babies and loves helping take care of them! It makes me very happy to see this in him because we are going to need all the help we can get once baby girl arrives! I just hope he doesn't get jealous and suddenly find her not so interesting.....

Feeding the baby a bottle :).

Austin thought Juliette REALLY needed her bottle and she thought it was hilarious! She was all smiles  and giggles!

Turning 27!

Even though I had to work on my Birthday, I had a great day! It started the night before when Josh came home with roses, a box of Cadbury Eggs, and a Starbucks gift card (all my favorites!). Then, I was showered with love from friends and family all throughout the day via sweet texts and voice-mails. My manager even made the day special with a yummy cake and announcing my Birthday in our morning meeting. I prayed that everything would go smoothly at work that day so I could make it home on time to spend quality time with my family and even that wish came true!

My piece of amazing cake at work!

I was so tired when I got home, but my energy level instantly perked up when I saw all the flowers, balloons, gifts/treats left from neighborhood friends, and three happy faces excited to see me!! Austin ran into my arms and gave me a big Birthday hug and spent the rest of the night running around with all my balloons yelling, "birfday!" We ate Cafe Rio for dinner (Yayy for not having to cook!) and had mint chocolate chip ice cream for my Birthday dessert (my favorite)! It was the perfect meal! Thank you Josh, Mom, and Austin for making my day so special!

I had already received my birthday gift from Josh the week before when Art was here to babysit. I had the whole day to myself and spent it relaxing at Starbucks, shopping for a dress that actually fits me at this point in the pregnancy for Josh's work dinner, getting a facial and manicure, and I even snuck in a quick trip to the car wash to get my whole car interior detailed! I know that sounds weird but I get so tired of seeing Austin's mess in the back seat and yet I don't have the energy or ability to bend over and deep clean everything.

It was amazing to have so much freedom!!

Once the weekend rolled around, the party continued in Logandale with my family!

Off to Grandma's house! Austin was so excited!! He loves my parent's dogs and couldn't stop saying "Buddy, Buddy!"

We had a great time eating the yummy chicken fettuccine alfredo my Mom had made and sang Happy Birthday with strawberry shortcake! Austin helped me blow out the candles :).

The pretty table :).

Blowing out the candles!

The gang... Briana was taking the picture and Sadie came the next day after work.

My favorite part of spending the weekend in the country is letting Austin run around wild! He is totally in his element barefoot and digging in the dirt. He and Buddy were out there for hours digging side by side..... it was the cutest thing ever! Then Austin discovered he could throw the dirt in the air and Buddy would attempt to jump in the air and catch it! That little game went on for a good long time. They were out there together all day long and only came inside for food and water and then it was off to play again!

Grandpa even helped dig for a while :).

And then Austin discovered the wheelbarrow.....

We played Yahtzee later that night and had a great time! Austin loved sitting on Grandma's lap and rolling the dice for her :).

Suckers and game faces....

Can you guess who won? Grandma claims it's because she rubbed Austin's belly each time for good luck ;).

The next morning Sadie showed up! We all went out to breakfast at Sugar's and amazingly Austin did pretty good! The last time we attempted to go out to eat for breakfast was a miserable enough experience to make us swear off eating out completely. So this was a pleasant surprise.

Riding in the back seat with Auntie Sadie is always a good time :).

Eating lemons..... We did anything we could to keep him entertained!

We were quite entertained ourselves.... gotta love that face!

Next we came home and took advantage of the beautiful day by having a water balloon war! It was so much fun! Austin was just as fascinated with the process of filling up the balloons as he was throwing them and jumping on them to make them pop!

Aunt Sadie showing Austin how to pop the balloon in your hands. That was a big hit!

There are certain moments in life that I wish could be bottled up and kept forever. This was definitely one of them!

filling up the balloons with Momma.

Making Grandma our next target.....

The bigger I get with this baby, the less I want to be in photos.... but this was such a happy moment and I want to remember it!

We drove home later that day all worn out from playing so hard and in the best of moods from all that sunshine and fresh country air! I needed that weekend and realized it is something we need to do more often before it gets too dang hot to go outside! Thank you everyone for the fantastic birthday! 27 is already looking pretty awesome!

The Weekly Ten

Over the past week:

1) Austin has had high fevers since last Friday and has been so miserable so even though he just went to the doctor for his well baby check, we took him in again and it turns out he has a double ear infection :(. So we have been pretty dang miserable around here. To top off the runny nose which caused the ear infections, sore throat, and cough, he also developed a whole mouth full of cankers! What's next?!! So this poor kid has been super sick and in a lot of pain. None of us have slept much. All of our days have been spent with a whiny, clingy, crying kid who has been very inconsolable :(. Its been a rough week.

2) Josh's Dad came for the weekend which was nice because it gave us the babysitting we needed for Josh's company dinner at Texas de Brazil! It was so fun to go out on a date and eat a fancy meal with Josh's coworkers. I rarely get an excuse to dress up (besides church) and it feels like we rarely get to hang out with other adults without kids around.

3) I finally finished the invitations for my baby shower and got them sent out this weekend! I'm so excited to see what my Mom and best friend have planned for me and baby girl and I can't wait to see who shows up!

4) Sadie graduated from the Las Vegas Fire Academy on Thursday!! I had to work that day so my Mom took Austin to the graduation (sick and all) and I met up with the whole family at Viva Zapata's Mexican Cantina later that night to celebrate over dinner. Austin was totally over it by that time though so I ended up having to take my food home to eat hours later so I could get the grumpy kid bathed and put to bed. But I got to spend some time talking and laughing while we waited for the food to come so I guess it wasn't a total bust. Meanwhile, Josh and his Dad were having a good ol' time eating dinner at the Fiesta Buffet and enjoying the screaming child free life for a while. Yes, I was very jealous.


5) We've had a rainy weekend and have loved it since we can't go outside and play anyway. It has been really hard on Austin to not go outside but he starts coughing horribly every time he does and can't stop until he almost throws up so we have just had to suffer through all of his temper tantrums and boredom from being couped up. Josh has started getting a head cold on top of all our problems with Austin so I am praying that I can at least stay healthy through all of this to take care of everyone else!

Looking out the window, wishing he could go outside and play. Doesn't he look pathetic?

6) I got asked out on a date by a coworker which I found extremely funny because I am 8 months pregnant and I don't wear makeup or do my hair or even wear my eye contacts on the days I work so I have no idea what he sees in me haha. I figure there's no point in looking hot when I'm married, pregnant, and I'm just there to do my job and collect a pay check. Anyways, it got super awkward after I laughed incredulously at him so I jokingly told him, "Honey, you can't afford me." and explained to him that my own husband finds me high maintenance so I am actually doing him a favor. I was trying to lighten the situation and I think it worked because after explaining to him why I don't wear my wedding ring to work (as if having a giant pregnant belly wasn't enough) we went on with the rest of our day without that awkwardness I was dreading.

7) Austin woke up this morning much earlier than normal so we put him in bed with us and hoped he would go back to sleep. That was totally wishful thinking and he finally gave up on trying to wake us up and walked himself downstairs and played quietly with his toys by himself until we went down to check on him! I was so scared to go down there and see what he was up to and what kind of disaster the house had gone through but to our shock and happy surprise, he had been a good boy! That's the first time he has ever done anything like that..... it's more proof that our baby is growing up.

8) We were so excited that Austin was having such a good morning because it feels like forever since he hasn't been miserable so we tried going out to breakfast as a family at Denny's. Well, apparently we jumped the gun because he was beyond terrible the whole 20 minutes we were there. We hurriedly shoveled what we could eat into our mouths and rushed out the door figuring we should leave before they kicked us out, me soaking wet from Austin dumping a whole glass of ice water on me.....

9) Then Josh went and got his hair cut and I went home to put Austin to bed for a much needed nap. He never takes morning naps anymore but this was the kind of day when we were dying to make an exception. I had a really hard time getting out of my stressed out funk the rest of the day and after crying to Josh about how I don't know if I can handle another kid on top of the handful we already have in Austin, I took myself to the nail salon and got a pedicure. I'm not going to lie, it worked! I got my moment alone to relax and calm down and went back home a much happier Momma :).

10) Baby girl has been kicking away and is getting bigger by the day! I don't fit into my garments anymore but have been trying to squeeze into them anyway because I refuse to buy bigger ones for 8 more weeks and then not wear them again. Austin has started rubbing my belly and hugging it. He must watch my family do that to me because I know there is no way he can comprehend that there is a baby inside there, even though we have tried explaining it to him.