Baby Shower #2

The women in my family lack the ability to throw a simple party. We always go over the top and the baby shower my sister threw me last weekend was no exception.

Me and my sister, Rachel

First, there were the handmade invitations:

Then, the surprise of having my two best friends from California come up for the weekend. I had NO idea, which is pretty impressive since even my husband knew and he can't keep a secret to save his life. Prior to the shower, I was suppose to meet my mom for a pedicure. Instead, LeAnn and Shelley were waiting for me at the nail salon.

I love this picture. At this point, I had no idea they were sitting there and LeAnn's face cracks me up.

LeAnn, me, and Shelley

Next, the monkeys! A note: if you tell people the "theme" of your nursery you will receive ever possible gift that follows that theme. Our nursery is going to be monkeys. Our son now owns every outfit known to man with a monkey on it. He has also started a large collection of stuffed monkeys. And of course, the shower was monkey themed.

Lastly, the presents. Holy heck, there were a lot of presents. My friends and family were incredible generous and we received many, many great items.

But my favorite gift was this toybox that my sister made. I told you, the women in my family have a tendency to be over the top.

Baby Names

So...naming a baby is hard work. A name can say everything about a person and will be with them for the rest of their life. There are so many things to consider when trying to find the perfect name for your baby.

When my parents were deciding what to name me, my mom wanted Erin and my dad wanted Colleen. My mom insisted you couldn't name a baby Colleen, because it was too grown-up. Apparently, she thought I was going to be a baby forever! They compromised. I'm Erin Colleen.

Sean's parents picked a middle name that his dad decided he hated so much, they went to the courthouse when he was a couple weeks old to have it officially changed.

I have always loved old fashioned names. I always tell people if I ever have twin girls, I will name them Millicent (Millie) and Matilda (Tillie). I'm mostly joking, but I do love both of those names. Sean has even agreed on those names if we have twin girls (he is clearly betting we don't!).

Sean and I tried to talk about baby names before we found out we were having a boy, but we lacked focus. We decided to give up until we knew it was a boy. Some people like to wait to see what the baby "looks" like, but we knew we wanted to have a name picked out in advance. I really wanted a name that had a good nickname. Sean wanted something that sounded sensitive and intelligent.

We did finally find a name we both agreed on, but it wasn't easy. Every name I suggested (Griffin, Seth), Sean would veto and visa versa (Lincoln, Malcolm). One day I brought home 2 copies of the top 500 boys names. We each went through and highligted names we liked and then compared lists. We had NO (ZERO) matches. I suggested the name we finally agreed on and Sean suggested the middle name. Sean wasn't completely sold at first, but about a week later he said "Maybe that isn't such a bad idea after all".

So in approximately 6 weeks we will be welcoming.....

Finnegan Orion (nickname: Finn)

Baby Shower #1

My awesome co-workers threw me and another co-worker a baby shower this past week. It was scheduled to occur before our due dates, but her little one decided to show up about 4 weeks early. Luckily, they were both feeling well enough to come to the shower for a bit. I have to admit, I appreciated the attention being diverted from me to the teeny, tiny baby.

My cubicle-mates (Irina, Lindsey, and Kelly)

I got lots of goodies from my registry, several cute monkey outfits (I really, really like monkeys), and a gift card to Babies R Us that will definitely come in handy. I am really lucky to work with such a great group of people.

Things I Miss

Forget caffeine, lunch meat, tuna, and soft cheeses (or other things I haven't completely given up since getting pregnant).....the one thing I miss is beer. I love beer. A nice cold beer on a summer day is just about heaven. 9 months without beer is a small price to pay for getting a kid out of the deal, but I sure will be happy to enjoy a frosty, cold one again soon!

What Happens When Fat Gets Pregnant

A brief pictorial of my pregnancy. I haven't taken a ton of pictures (bad mommy), but here's what I have so far.

5 weeks pregnant....just to establish I wasn't small to begin with.

20 weeks pregnant....no pictures between 5 weeks and 20 weeks because they all would have involved me with my head in the toilet.

21 weeks pregnant...at the big reveal party with all the grandparents. I made cupcakes and frosted half pink and half blue. The blue ones had a little prize inside. All the grandparents had the right idea, except my mom.

26 weeks pregnant...self portrait struggles.

31 weeks pregnant....with Sean on Alki Beach.

Blogging-Take Two

So clearly, I suck at blogging. But I'm going to give it another try.

Two days prior to my last post (in November....I told you, I suck!), I found out I was knocked up. Woot! Sean and I are beyond excited to welcome our little one into the world sometime around July 24th.

The beginning of my pregnancy was THE SUCK! I had horrible morning (all day) sickness and was puking all the time. I started taking meds for the nausea at 8 weeks. These helped with the puking, but didn't do much for the nausea. I spent the next 20ish weeks with varying degrees of nausea. I am still on meds at 32 weeks, but am finally enjoying pregnancy a bit more (just in time for the neverending heartburn, swollen feet, and inability to bend over part of my pregnancy!).

At 20 weeks, we had our big ultrasound and found out we are having a BOY! If I had a scanner, I'd scan the picture to prove it to you, but I'll save my son years of therapy by not posting his penis on the Internet. To be honest, I wanted a girl and it took me about 30 seconds to process when the tech said it was a boy. Amazing how quickly you get used to the idea. I am so excited to have a little boy in the family. I have lots and lots of girl cousins, but boys are a rare breed in my family.

So that's where I've been for the past 6 months. I have a feeling this blog is going to take a decidedly baby turn, but I'll try to keep it entertaining.