Dear Daughters: June 2014

Monday, June 16, 2014

Something in the Water

If you took one step into our Sunday school class you might begin to get suspicious. The explanation all of us pregnant gals hear the most is "there must be something in the water." Either way, all of these beautiful pregnant ladies that I'm blessed to call my friends are making this baby baking business a lot more fun. The baby boom began right around the time Megan gave birth to Mr. Bodey. After he was born the wave of pregnancy announcements began. Since then we've been busy celebrating all of this wonderful news with showers galore. We kicked things off with a fun girl's trip to OKC in March to shower Sarah M. She and Clark had chosen not to find out the gender of their second child and we were all pretty amazed at how much self control that took to wait. ;) (they ended up having a second sweet baby girl). It had been awhile since most of us girls had seen her since they moved to Edmond so it was just a great day all around.....

We had a delicious (and I'm not using that word lightly here) lunch at Nickkellette's and scarfed down this amazing ribbon cake while Sarah opened her gifts....

We were so obsessed with the cake that afterwards we all went over to the bakery hoping that there would be cakes left to purchase for us to take home to enjoy. Sadly we left without our own cakes but we had a fabulous time and topped it off with some shopping at Hobby Lobby before we headed back to Woodward.

Next came a gorgeous shower in April to honor Miss Audrey Ann and her beautiful momma Sarah V. The decorations were super girly and pink and the food and cake were to die for! I'm sad to say that I didn't get any pictures from that day and I'm not sure why. Shame, shame. She opened outfit after outfit that we all oooed and awwed over. Audrey has since made her arrival and she's a beautiful addition to our class on Sunday mornings. ;)

My girls hosted an unforgettable shower for Bella and I in mid-April where we started the series of belly pictures that have become a must at each shower now.....

My prego in crime, Lindsay, was showered in April also! Her celebration was a TON of fun to plan and host alongside Lacy, Heather, Erika, Kourtnei and Katie....

And of course the prego pic...ironically Sarah was giving birth to Audrey the day of the shower so we were missing her. Also if you were wondering, yes, Jai is in fact pregnant....she is blessed with great genes and a very long torso! ;) I, on the other hand, continue to notice that my belly is always the largest in these pictures. Ha!

The theme for Lindsay's shower was "little man" with bow ties, ties and mustaches. I put my first bout of forced rest time to good use by cutting away and making the decorations.....

I assembled the high chair and gave fair warning that the safety of Tripp could be compromised by my lack of mechanical skills. It turned out sturdy enough I think....;)

The room we held the shower in at our church was PACKED with guests! It was safe to say that Lindsay and Andrew walked away that day with PLENTY of goodies and baby necessities from the room full of loving friends, family and students who helped shower her....

Last weekend we celebrated the upcoming arrival of Baby Barby at my house alongside an amazing group of nine other hostesses (three were gone for the actual shower day but helped with the planning). Caryl, Ingrid, Sheryl, Darla, Krista, Jennifer, Sarah, Lauren, Lindsay and I all joined forces to host Jai's baby shower.....

Here's that famous baby belly line-up with a brand new sweet little girl on the lead end. We can now add another baby to the pic this weekend at Heather's baby shower since Lindsay gave birth to Tripp last week.....

While we were in the process of planning this shower I earned a few raised eyebrows by volunteering to host it at my house being 37 weeks pregnant and all. Little did I know I'd be fresh off of another preterm labor episode. God has some amazing timing though because I woke up the Friday morning prior to the shower feeling the best I had in over two weeks. To prepare for Jai's big day I had used my second bout of forced rest and time off work to make the decorations. Jai and Ryan haven't decided on a name yet but she did have her nursery colors picked out which turned out beautiful once they all came together....

Sarah found these sweet little seeds to plant as a parting gift for Jai's guests....

Lindsay wowed us with another perfect diaper cake full of baby essentials....

Caryl headed up the food and made a DELICIOUS (seriously....DELICIOUS) array of treats...cucumber sandwiches, chicken salad sandwiches on croissants and this gorgeous fruit bowl...

Mmmm, fresh flowers were the perfect touch....

So we decided to add some to the cake after a small little mishap when we discovered the wrong name on the top of it. These fresh colorful babies worked out quite well....

Grandmother-to-be and auntie-to-be whipped up this creative and fun mobile decoration for above the food table. I was in love with the way these turned out....

Here are some of the smiles captured that day....

Jai and I have lots of jogging and walking time planned once we have these little girls. And as much as I'd love to raise our babies next door to eachother (she lives two houses down currently) I suppose I'll let her move into that pretty new house on the hill once her baby girl arrives. Sigh....

Hallie got in some precious big sis practice time after the shower was over while we were busy cleaning up. It doesn't look like it during this particular moment but she was able to calm Audrey down with some rocking of her carseat and a lil lullaby. I wanted to cry it was so sweet....

Last but certainly not least I must talk about a couple of life-long BFFs (both named Ashley) whom I had the blessing of sharing the gift of pregnancy with! Here's a treasured photo of Ashley and myself at my baby shower in Enid. I was so blessed to have her with me that afternoon and I'm thankful we were able to grab a belly shot of the two of us. She found out a couple of days after this picture was taken that she was having a BOY!

My Arkansas BFF found out that she was pregnant the same week I did. Originally we thought we were going to be due at the same time and shared the exciting news with eachother when we saw eachother back in October. It turned out she was due five weeks ahead of me and she has since given birth to her precious baby boy, Hampton. Sadly October was the last time I saw her and we don't have an "official" belly pic. BUT those babies were just beginning to bake so this picture does count....

Blessed doesn't begin to describe the joy and fulfillment that comes with sharing a pregnancy alongside those you love and cherish the most. With this most likely being my last pregnancy I can't think of a more perfect way to spend it than sharing notes with my best girlfriends, sympathizing right along with them and laughing (and of course the hormonal crying) all the way through. What a journey it's been!

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Run to Remember 2014

Hubby has given me yet another reason to be oozing with pride for him. His second half marathon is now in the books and he did fantastic! He trained in a variety of awful weather conditions and it paid off on race day. That weekend in April seems to be the perfect weekend for crazy weather to crop up and this year was no exception. Last year my car was wrecked by a big hail storm. This year he woke up to torrential rain, thunder and lightening. Well, in fact, we were up listening to it all night it seemed seeing as how we were on the top floor of the hotel in the southwest corner taking the brunt of the storm. Hal slept right on through it all though. Riley snuck out that morning and parked his truck down the road a ways where he hopped on a shuttle that took him to the race. Hallie and I woke up to the continued rain and watched the news to see when we needed to head downtown. She watched some cartoons in bed while I got ready....

The race ended up being delayed for two hours. Riley waited in the First United Methodist Church (our old church when we lived in the city) and started the race in some light rain. He kicked some booty and finished with a time of 1:54 right as Hallie and I strolled up to the finish line area.

We didn't get close enough to see him finish because of the crowd but I had been tracking him on my phone all morning. When he finished he didn't even look like he'd just ran for nearly two hours. Must be the Marine in him. ;)

I thought I'd be bummed that I wasn't able to run the half this year but it turned out that pushing a stroller around uphill was enough of a challenge being eight months pregnant so missing the act of running didn't even cross my mind. Ha! We walked around the bombing memorial to give his legs time to cool down.....

We celebrated with Riley's version of a post-race celebratory meal....a healthy sandwich at McAlister's....if I had only half of that man's discipline with food it would he wonderful. ;) I offered to drive home but he insisted. His legs were ready for some horizontal naptime up in bed so that's just what he did for the remainder of the afternoon. He claims that this is his last half and he's going to hang up his running shoes. Mind you this is the tenth time he's said those words. So I'm not putting much stock into it seeing as how obvious it is how much satisfaction he gets from running. I'm so proud of the kind of man he is! Here's to next year where we can both tear up the pavement together!

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Free Spirit Graduate

It still doesn't seem possible that she finished an entire year of school. I'm tellin ya, it WAS TOTALLY just yesterday that I was meticulously picking out her outfit and making her mickey mouse pancakes for her first day of school. Lots of happy and sad tears were shed the morning I dropped her off for her final day of Free Spirit. Mrs. Gari opened the door for Hallie and I thanked her for the amazing "ME" books that she had made for each student. Then the tears they started a'flowin'. Hal didn't seem to notice anything was special about that particular day. All she knew was that they were going to ride on the bus to the park to ride the train....and that's all that mattered. ;)

She was a good sport and posed for the unavoidable "last day of school" picture out on the porch....

She made the same goofy open-mouthed face that she had on the first day of school when I asked her to smile big....

Riding the choo choo train with good friend Madeline and her momma....

This was one of Hal's most talked about friends from this year....Miss Madeline....

All twenty-one little monkeys roamed the park wearing their orange monkey shirts. From the looks of it Hal had a fun morning....

Hal, Kadence and Sophia riding on the big bus....

Best friend Marleigh and Hal cooling off back at school....

Oh what a difference a year makes. My baby grew two inches and gained three pounds this school year....

Following rules, listening and helping are three of the things that stand out to me. Of course along with big improvements in her counting, colors, shapes and ABCs! Oh and we can't forget the painting and coloring ability....she's getting pretty good at staying in the lines (well, or more like by the lines). There was not a school day that passed that she wasn't excited to attend....I think it'd be safe to say that farm day and pajama day were her favorite days by far. Her favorite "job" at school was without a doubt being the line leader. She took the job seriously and it was usually the very first thing she told me at the end of the day. Ms Brandi, Ms Eason and Ms Gari went above and beyond to create a special experience for these kiddos and it was much appreciated. She met a lot of sweet little companions this year who were kind and giving. She even had one special friend who drew her pictures over the weekend and gave them to her on Mondays. Just precious! Those are the ones that have stayed on our fridge to this day because she's so proud to show them off. I've collected quite the pile of art work and school papers since last August and I've yet to part with any of it....and I probably never will.

Thanks for an amazing year Free Spirit teachers!