Baby Shower Number Two

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.

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.