Baby Shower! Picture intensive!

It's official.  I'm having a baby.  On Sunday, we had my baby shower.  My friend Lindsey hosted the shower at my home.  It was perfect...despite the outside heat!

We started a little bit late because we couldn't resist chatting and watching the US women's soccer team pull out a fabulous win against Brazil in the FIFA world cup.   Then, we jumped right in to the food....since the shower started at 2pm, we had lots of finger foods...fruit, veggies, crackers, jalapeno artichoke dip, cheese cubes and, of course, chips and guacamole.

After our tasty snack, I took people upstairs to see the mostly completed nursery...it looks fabulous, if I do say so myself.  Then we started on the games.  The first game involved a brief trip outside.

The idea was...that we had to guess how much water (in ounces) a newborn diaper could hold without leaking!   The winner - 1/3 of a cup!

We escaped the heat and went back inside for the next game...one that tested our memories.

Who could remember the most of the 28 baby items on this tray after 2 minutes to look at it.   The winner remembered all but two items!

The next game was pretty fun too - old wive's tales.  We had a list of 13 old wive's tales that would tell you what gender the baby was.  We had to guess which way each one determined.  The winner correctly guessed 11!

After that - we measured how fat I was.  Hehehe.   Well - everyone tried to guess how big around my baby belly was - cutting out their guesses from a roll of tape.  

The winner - actually guessed my baby belly size EXACTLY!  After the fun of learning how fat I really was (Jennifer let me keep the winning tape length as a momento.  I'll be able to really appreciate my baby fat weight loss later!  Hehehe)...I started opening up all the amazing gifts my friends had brought.

The funniest part - was that Cassie stayed laying at my feet the entire time - no matter how many times I dropped wrapping paper or presents on her.  She was enjoying her nap!  (She'd thought all the women were there to play with her - of course).  I cannot believe how talented and crafty my friends are!

The party favors and game prizes table.  The boys actually arranged the favors to spell bug before they left the house!

I remember when I first got pregnant and a friend first mentioned the idea of a baby shower to me.  I told her that I didn't have enough friends to have a baby shower and that too many of my family lived across the country.  It was truly humbling to realize how wrong I was.  Even though everyone I wanted to be there couldn't make it - either because of distance or timing - I have been not so subtly reminded that I have amazing friends.  My mom and mother in law also flew in from miles away to celebrate with me.  I cannot begin to describe how special I felt having everyone there.  

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the Mommy Advice cards everyone filled out during the shower.  The prevalent message seemed to be to "enjoy every moment."  I cannot wait to take that advice to heart!   My family and I also rather enjoyed the "don't hold the baby over your head with your mouth open" advice.  HA!

My husband told me after the shower that my Lucky 13 running group actually secretly contacted him to try and find out what kind of jogging stroller I wanted.  Unfortunately, as he admitted, he wasn't much help.   It'll be so much fun to use the gift card they settled for to get a jogging stroller and rejoin them on the running trails!  My mom couldn't believe that our group has known each other for as short of a time as we have.  She was jealous because her own running group was nothing like that.   It really drove home how lucky I've been!

Ok.  So this post was long and full of pictures.  Thank you for making it to the end!  Thank you to all my wonderful friends for sharing my excitement about Bug!  Thank you so much for providing so many special memories for me.