Week 36

Forget the April showers, we're getting all ours in March. We have the real kind coming down pretty hard outside right now--hoping it takes care of the residual snow we've got. Makes me feel like napping!

As for the even BETTER kind of shower, my friend-since-forever Tiffany threw me a lovely baby shower with lots of family and friends (so many we almost ran out of space!). The shower was "back home" in Ogdensburg and it was great to catch up with all the ladies. A bunch of guys came along to and hung out at my brother's bar across the street until we went to join them after the shower. The shower itself was supposed to be at Shaunie B's but he sort of double-booked us. Who knew the Burg was so popular?

Here's a picture of me and my beautiful Gramma! I must be telling a story? As you can tell from the open door, the weather was beautiful!

Tina, Mindy, Tiffy, Beth, Lisa, Heidi and me. I also got to meet Tina's ADORABLE new little one, Aiden (see previous post of her baby shower a few weeks ago).

In the above pic, you can see our friend Trish and her cutie girls in the foreground (Trish is so sweet that she not only got us a TON of great baby stuff but dropped off a beautiful handmade blanket a few days later!). In the background in my niece Jenna, my hubby, and Tiffany.

What was Shawn doing crashing? Well, since she's been my best friend forever, Tiff is aware of my complete disdain for all things related to games. She kept it simple for the shower with bingo and the always-popular game where you guess the girth of the prego. Shawn made a cameo appearance at the shower in order to try his hand at guessing how big around I was--and might I add, his guess was WAY too big. The winner was my also-expecting cousin Leah--I think she got to cheat a little by measuring herself :) I had to include this photo because this is what our living room looked like after I got down showing all our fun new stuff to Shawn. It was like Babys R Us exploded in our house! We've since gotten everything organized, washed, and put away. Peanut's closet looks so cute and organized. We are so lucky to be so loved (and SPOILED!) by so many people!~ Thanks everyone!

More Showers?!

At school I'm the advisor for the 8th grade Drama Troupe. Ten of these lovely young people threw me a SURPRISE shower this week. They conned me into getting out of my classroom (and I was seriously gone for maybe 5 minutes) and when I came back there were balloons, streamers, presents, tons of food, a cake, the works! So sweet of them. Here are a few pics from all their hard work...

They went all out and got amazing gifts...outfits, pacifiers, blankets, gear...all KINDS of good stuff. Such nice kids! And yes, that's taco dip in the background--yum!

Here are two of the girls "acting" out Ms. Howe's belly in the beginning and now with balloons. Goof-balls!

My third shower was also at the school, thrown by the "Golden Girls" of the 8th grade teaching team. Again, great food, great people, and great gifts--a pack-and-play, photo album, and a beautiful afghan. Wow.

Week 35

So here's a picture of the belly from this morning...getting bigger everywhere and a couple of ladies at school mentioned that I looked like I've "dropped" recently. I chose black-and-white for this week because this nasty cold I've caught has left me even redder-and-blotchier than usual.

March Madness

This was the view on our way to work this morning--disgusting amounts of snow! Not enough to cancel school, of course, but we could almost see the grass in our backyard yesterday and now this again--blech! At least with day-light savings, Shawn was able to see later to shovel last night :). Also, as of last week, my students have started to freak out a little bit at the prospect of me going into labor during school. One student insisted that she write the following instructive message on the board and leave it there "Just In Case..." Thank goodness Mr. Howe just teaches at the high school so they can call his room extention...they were worried he wouldn't answer so they also have the high school office extension...and they wanted his cell too, but I decided these would probably be fine :) My homeroom is already calling dibs on who gets to make the call. In other news: I'm very excited that my college roomie Lisa is coming to visit this weekend. She's staying for the shower and there's been talk of pedicures (she's also expecting). It's also Girls State Basketball so Shawn gets a couple days off and will be headed to Madison to watch the games/hang out with the coaching guys. The nursery is officially complete (THANKS BUG!!) so we'll get some more pics of it and the belly on here later this week. I'm trying to be better about posting more frequently!

Nursery News

Things are moving along so-far, so-good. We've signed up for baby class, the shower's around the corner, and the nursery is finally, finally taking shape. Basketball has wrapped up for another season so Shawn has a little more time on his hands and I'm counting the days (5!) until the end of the after-school program. Dad dropped off the crib earlier this week (we're borrowing Addy's because she loves her big-girl bed) so here's a little nursery sneak-peak.

The little room at the top of the stairs is perfect nursery size and apparently the former house owners thought so too...this is what the room looked like right before we moved in:

Then, since we didn't have another use for it, it became the second of our two spare bedrooms...although honestly, I think Jami was the only one to ever actually sleep in it.

And here's how it looks now...Almost Peanut-Ready... ...not finished, but getting there. We'll keep you posted on the finished product and how these last six weeks or so of pregnancy are going.