My very good friends, Jen Andelin and Cassie Player threw
me a baby shower for our ward. It was awesome! I could tell they really put a
lot of love and effort into it. It made me feel so special. I love Jen and
Cassie; they are so much fun to be around. My absolute favorite thing about
them is their ability to just be themselves and allow you to do the same. They love
me for my loud, crazy, put my foot-in-my mouth self. I love how honest with
their feelings they are and that I can be too. They are two unique people who I
will miss dearly when we move. That is the one bad thing about making such
close friends out here; chances are we will never live near each other again.
But, I am grateful, as my friend Aleesha Burke pointed out, technology has made
it possible for us to stay in as close of contact as we want. I think it would be
hard to live in the days where long distance contact was limited or
non-existent.
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| My two fabulous hosts, Jen and Cassie! |
Anyway… the baby shower… was great.
We had yummy breakfast food; much of it was breads and
muffins, so of course I was going to
love it. I know many other people brought food to the shower and I am grateful
to them as well. The shower was very relaxing. We ate, hung out, opened
presents, and hung out some more. When we opened presents everyone gave baby
advice. Some advice was funny and some was serious. I have them written down and hopefully one day
I will go back and add them to this post. But, my favorite came from Roz
Holland. Someone said to sleep when the baby is sleeping and Roz followed that
up with, “And don’t sleep when the baby isn’t sleeping!” She is so funny. I
loved working with her in YW. Jen told me to make time for Jeff. She said often
fathers get pushed aside when the baby comes and it is important to remember them. This wasn’t at the shower, but my good friend
Eva St. Clair told me not to let people demand more out of me than I can
handle, which is good advice because I already
tend to spread myself too thin. Her example was with your baby’s schedule.
She said not to move your baby’s schedule around for others if it is going to cause you or your baby
problems. All three sound like good advice to me. A little girl I nanny for
named Julia also gave me baby advice. She is 6. I can’t remember the advice but
it was funny to hear baby advice coming from a 6 year old. Overall, the shower
was wonderful. I have so many great pictures because Cassie was a super
photographer! Many of the pictures include Julia because she sat right next to
me as I opened gifts and wanted to be a part of it all. So cute.
Thanks to all who came and helped make me feel so loved.
Decorations
Yummy Food
Activity: Decorating bibs, onesies, and burp cloths
Opening Presents
Friends
Ps. Random funny story about Jen. So, I always tell Jeff,
“I am JUST like ____” and name one of my friends. Finally one day he said, “You
know, you say that about almost everyone, and all of your friends are very
different. How is it possible for you to be just like __ AND __ when they are
so different?” He had a good point. Well, Jen, I will say, and I ARE
similar because we say what we are thinking, even if it means accidently saying
something we shouldn’t, or making things awkward. I always tend to try to
justify or over explain things to people, 90% of the time, making the whole
situation worse. Well, at the shower, Jen reminded me of myself. Sadly, her
house flooded last winter so she has been in a rental house for a few months.
She was able to get a good deal on a beautiful rental house. It is just
gorgeous.
Jen was worried
people would see her living in such a nice house and think they had more money
than they did or that they were trying to put on airs. In truth, Jen is one of
the most humble people I have ever met and anyone that knows her would say the
same thing. Her husband is in an oral
surgery residency at Penn and they really try to live within their means. So,
because she didn’t want people to think poorly of her, anytime someone
commented on how nice the house was she would quickly say, “Thanks! It’s not
ours! It’s a rental! Our house flooded so we are just renting this for a bit.
It’s not ours.” I know people never thought twice about them living in a nice
house and so they were taken aback to be quickly and frantically told it was
just a rental. I don’t know, I guess you had to be there, or tend to worriedly
spill out too much information like Jen or I to appreciate the story. But, when
I told Jeff this story, he did finally say that I was just like Jen and would
have done the same thing. Finally.
