brunch and a baby shower

Early October we made the drive to Virginia Beach for the last time before the baby gets here.  My Mom and some of her friends threw us a brunch baby shower while we were there! So much fun!

First off, the food we had was AMAZING.  They had a huge variety of drinks, breakfast dishes, fruit, and desserts.  Yum!! 

Love this chocolate/coffee punch.  Best stuff ever. 

Adorable pink cake balls! 

The dessert spread! Cake balls, cookies, and oreo truffles.  

The food table! Muffins and bagels from panera, and amazing breakfast casseroles.  Sausage, French toast, and a pineapple one! I want to make these all right now!

Of course someone got a picture of me digging in! ;)

Opening presents was so much fun- as usual!

Love this newborn size tutu! Can't wait for Emmie to wear it!

My Aunt, Angie- all the way from Arkansas sent the most adorable outfits!  The tights on the dress have pink shoes on them!

An adorable pink fuzzy coat! Love this!

My grandma got us LOTS and LOTS of diapers! What a huge blessing!

Love this dress from H&M! Can't wait to make a trip in there when we are home next! 

Auntie bibs

And my parents bought Emmie her crib!

My Mom bought Michael this bib- with threats of taking it back when he made fun of her ;)

And of course, some family pictures:

Me and my Mom :)

 Me, my Mom, and my Dad

Me and Michael with my parents

Michael's sister, Amber won every single game!

The baby bump at 35 weeks

Me and Michael

Lots of pictures- thanks to my Mom and Michael's sister Amber.  Such a fun shower- and we were so blessed with receiving our crib, pack n play, clothes, toys, diapers, all sorts of baby essentials!

showered {mike's family}

We {not-so}  recently drove home to Virginia Beach/Chesapeake area and Michael's family threw us a baby shower.  We have been so blessed, and I may be freaking out a bit on all the stuff that comes with a baby when we registered!

It was a couples shower, so Michael came along with me, and he got to see some of his good friends from the Virginia Beach area. 

 Opening presents was so fun! How can it not be when you are opening little minature outfits and adorable things for the baby!

Me and Michael at the shower! Love that he was there and a part of the fun!

 Cute shower favors made by his sister Amber. 

We had tons of yummy food and cupcakes. 

Amber and her sister got us a boppy and a fun cover! Something I've heard we will use a ton!

Mike's sister Amber made this for Emmie to match her room and hold her hair bows! Love it!

A few of us with the fun sign the girls made!

Me and Michael with my Mom

 

Me and Michael with his parents

Michael's brother, CJ and his girlfriend Taylor. Love them!

 

And Michael's sister- Amber! She put in a ton of work to make this shower a success- and we loved it so much!

 

let us feather you...

Almost every day I'm reminded of how blessed we are.  God has placed the most amazing friendships into our lives, and it's just amazing to see them love on us, and to know how loved Emerson already is! It's been a few  weeks, but some friends from college came into town, and we just had the best time with them here.

  One of the best parts of the weekend was the surprise shower they threw me.  I wasn't feeling great that morning, so we stayed home from church, and were just relaxing on the couch when I got this little note... 

SO much fun! I had my suspicions before Beth and Christen got into town, but the girls did an amazing job of throwing me off, talking about shower dates and plans for September and October, and making plans to hit up the pool the next day. They did a great job of hiding it- especially when I would show up at their house when they were making decorations! I love these girls- it was so great to spend some time with them, celebrating Emmie! I love seeing how loved she already is by so many people.

They did such a great job with the food and decorations.  The little decorations were so adorable- they made a pinwheel wall, a banner with Emerson's name on it, cute little paper bird cages, etc.  I loved it all!

photo by Jenn :) All the cutie details!

photo by Randa :) The pinwheels and all the gifts! So fun!

The Emerson banner the girls made!

The girls made me walk in and fake a surprise face...

You can't have a good party without good food.. and this party did not disappoint! Cucumber sandwiches, cake balls {chocolate...yumm!}, cupcakes, salads, fruit, Mexican dips... all of my favorite things!

The girls even made these adorable detail flags for each cupcake!  No matter what anyone says- the details are so important and really make something special.

Opening gifts was so much fun! It just makes me so excited for our little baby girl to be here, wearing these adorable little dresses and frills! I am so very excited for the frills!

 My friend Beth, who was in town from Texas, made these adorable letters spelling out Emerson.  She found the paint that matches the bedding and added those adorable dots!

Instead of a game, we made Emmie her first alphabet book, where everyone picked some letters and out of scrapbook paper, stickers, stencils, etc. created a page to go into a little book with all of the alphabet.  This was so much fun and I love that it was something we will be able to look back on and cherish.

The love I have for these girls.  I absolutely feel so incredibly blessed by everything they put together for me and Emerson.  I love how special the day was for us, and how much these girls love our little girl so much already.  

The whole gang.  Each one of these girls is so special to me and I cherish their friendship so much!

My college girls.  These girls were all in my dorm my freshman year at Liberty.   It's amazing how God placed us together during that time- we were all coming from different places emotionally, spiritually, everything, yet our lives just clicked.  So awesome how these things happen.  Since then some have moved away, moved back, gotten married, moved thousands of miles away, but somehow, we all still connect back together.  It's always great getting back with these girls- like nothing has changed! :)

Thank you dear friends for loving me and loving our baby girl.  Thank you for creating such a special day for us! It was so perfect and I cannot wait to use the sweet smelling baby lotions, and put on the bows and skirts, and read to her the cute books.  Thank you for everything. 

Christmas Blessings!

I know, we are a bit behind, but I thought I would share our wonderful Christmas we had with both of our families! We are very lucky to have parents who live so close to each other, and we are able to split holiday time up very equally!  We both had to work December 23rd, and planned on leaving as soon as we got off of work, which was 6pm.  My job let us go at 1pm instead (yay!) so I was able to get some Christmas shopping done that I had missed out on from snowstorm we had that weekend.  (It's Virginia, everything shuts down with snow on the ground!) I had the car all packed and we headed home as soon as Michael got done.  We got home around 10:00 and spent the night with the Eiban's.  The next morning, Christmas Eve, we got up super early to go to Williamsburg's Prime Outlets.  We spent all morning and afternoon getting our last minute Christmas presents.  I ended up wrapping all the presents up in the back of the car with a pair of medical sissors found in our car's first aid kit!


We got home and Christmas Eve began with the Eiban family.  Michael's brothers and sisters with their families came over for a delicious dinner and present opening.  Everyone got some awesome stuff, and we are so thankful for what we got!

A super comfortable mattress pad! Our mattress is pretty old, as it is a hand-me-down, like all of our furniture, so this was such a blessing to be able to sleep better! We both love it, maybe I should say all 4 of us love it becuase Latte' and Linus try to lay down on it any chance they get!

Michael loves this... His parents also got us a flat-screen tv.  I don't know all the technical stuff for it, but it helped our living room look so much less cluttered and open just by getting rid of the clunky tv!

After Michael's parents, we went to my parents house for our Christmas traditions.  We each get to open 1 present.  I always get a new set of pjamas and Justin usually opens up a movie or a game, because he's too excited for Christmas to sleep.  Here's me and Michael in our new pj's...  (don't mind my brother's head, he loves to ruin pictures!)

The next mornign we get up to see what Santa brought us.  Unfortunately, Santa brought all the guys these lovely things...

They wore those all day! So gross! Please ignore my no make-up, you have woken me up waaaay to early look here!

 

Santa was good to us, lot's of clothes and decoration stuff for the house! Our best presents from both sets of parents are...

Yes, we got a washer and a dryer! This may seem like a crazy present to some of you guys, but we have been living without a washer or a dryer for a year and a half! Yes, we have been doing laundry at our friends homes, and expensive laundry mats! We were so excited to get these babies, and we put them right to work!

I got Michael some clothes that he needed for work, and then some movies, and his favorite gift was the controller he needed for his X-box 360.  He's been playing his new games every chance he gets. 

Michael got me a new red coat, some clothes, and an AmazonKindle.  I am so in love with it! (And Michael too!)

We had a great Christmas, but it really did not last long enough! We hate that we never have time to catch up with all the people we want to see when we go home.  What did you guys get for Christmas? Anything better than our washer and dryer? Nope? Didn't think so!