Baby Showers!

Baby Burks is blessed to have so many wonderful people in her life and she isn't even here yet! I hope she knows how lucky she is! She had two more baby showers this past week! On Wednesday, May 12th Kat that I work with at the quilt shop organized a baby shower there for co-workers and on Saturday, May 15th we had a co-ed shower at Avanti's hosted by Brittany and my mom. Both were a great time! It is hard to get pictures when the shower is for you, but here are a few decent ones that I managed to get. Brittany took the ones at the shower at the quilt shop!

Some of the fabulous ladies I work with and the table decor!

Some more of my awesome co-workers!

The grandma's to be enjoying the party! Brittany was also there but was behind the camera. Sneaky!

The yummy ice cream cake that Peggy M. brought to the shower. I was even able to eat a piece and it tasted amazing! Can't wait to be able to eat sweets again!

The cool "diaper cake" that Pam made for the baby! Instead of diapers she used hooded towels, receiving blankets, washcloths, and a swaddle me. It is still somewhat put together on the baby's dresser because I think it is too cool to take apart!

Okay now onto the couples shower....Devin was a little unsure about having a couples shower, but he enjoyed it! The reason behind it is that we are good friends with both men and women and we didn't think it was fair to exclude the single men. I think most the men were a little scared to go, but we promised no lame games and fed them pizza and beer so they were pretty happy!

The cake table. Our friend Shawnae made the awesome cake and used the book "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" as her inspiration.

Close up of the cake. The front said Baby Burks and the back said ABC 123. The top layer was fun fetti cake and the bottom was chocolate! Thanks again Shawnae! You rock!

So we may have lied to the guys, there was only one game and it involved beer so we figured they wouldn't object and they didn't! Devin was able to get six of our friends to participate. They had to chug 6oz of beer using a baby bottle! Of course they couldn't take the lids off, they had to suck it through the nipple. It took quite a while. The participants from left to right are: Mark, Cory, Maurice, Karneboge, DeJaynes, and Patrick.

Go boys go!

Annnnnnnnnnnd the old man of the group Cory is out. He couldn't handle the pressure. Mark also gave up after a bit, when he realized everyone was beating him.

Mark applauding the three winners, Maurice, Patrick and DeJaynes as they choose their prize: a six pack of beer!

When the shower was over Mike and Stacy were nice enough to load their car with the gifts and bring them over to our house.

This is what her room looked like after they unloaded. Everything in the corner was already there from the other showers, but the rest was all new gifts.

This is what her closet looks like before unloading the stuff from the couples shower...I think shes already pretty spoiled!

Also after the shower my mom helped my grandma bring over the cradle. This cradle has been in my family since my brother was born in 1983. My grandparents had it made by a family friend. The babies that have been in this cradle include my brother, me, my cousin Greg, and my second cousins, Chloe, Kelsie, and Carleigh which makes Baby Burks will be the seventh baby to use the cradle! I went with my grandparents and my mom to pick out the cradle bedding on Friday, it is a really pretty white bedding set. My grandma got us some receiving blankets, sheets, and two outfits to match.

The plaque on the cradle that tells who it is from.

There are plaques for each baby that uses the cradle. These are the ones for my brother and I.

I can't wait to move the cradle into our room! I just need to clean our room and do a little rearranging so it can fit. It is so neat to have a family tradition like this! I hope that the cradle is usable when I have grandkids! It is in great shape so it should be!

That is all I have for today. I meant for this post to be shorter, but at least it has alot of pictures. I will try to update again sometime this week. I have my sono tomorrow and the chair for the baby's room gets delivered on Wednesday! If you didn't check out my post below from yesterday, you may want to it updates everyone on what is going on medically with me.

Thanks for checking in!

Catching up...

It has been a long time since I have updated, so I'm going to make this a boring post about what is medically going on and then tomorrow I will try to do a fun post with shower pictures and details! I've had two showers this week, one at work and a co-ed one with our friends!

We went to the specialist on May 5th and we found out that I have "low" fluids which isn't good. That doctor just told me to rest alot, but kinda freaked us out. At the time of the sono our little girl weighed 4lbs 4oz, which is right on target! As of now, she isn't too big for her age so that is good with the gestational diabetes. It means the diet plan is working. Devin knew that I wanted to hear that I was doing a good job so he made sure to ask, and they said I was doing great with the diet and that all my numbers were good. They showed us how she is already practicing how to breathe which they said was awesome for her age. It was cool to see. Here are some sono pics from that appointment.

This picture confirms that we are having a girl! I'm not sure why she had to wait this long to show us, but at least we are sure now!

This is a profile shot of her face. Shes already really low and head down so her forehead is at the bottom, then nose, and chin at the top. They actually had to lay me down so far that my feet were higher than my head to get shots of her face! It was very uncomfortable!

I go back to the specialist on May 27th for another sono. We started to realize how serious the low fluids are when they said they wouldn't schedule me for a Friday because my doctors office is closed then so if they needed to get ahold of them if there was a problem they wouldn't be able too! Eeeek! The specialist agreed with the twice weekly non-stress tests and wanted sonos done every 10 days to check fluid levels, size, and lung development.

The day after my appointment at the specialist the nurse from my doctors office called to tell me that the specialist had called them and wanted the sono to be scheduled. So, we scheduled that for Monday the 17th and she went on to tell me to rest. She made it sound like the baby was going to come early too, which did nothing to calm be down! In fact I was so worried the next day I went out and got the carseat so if she did come early we could at least get her home! I felt better knowing that we had it!

On the 10th I had my first non-stress test and since it was Devin's birthday he took the day off and was able to go with me! I was happy because we had alot of questions regarding the low fluids. The stress test was boring as expected. They just hooked me up to two different monitors, one to monitor contractions and one for the baby's heartbeat. I also got a little buzzer thing to push anytime I felt her move! She was kind of uncooperative and kept moving. We had to get the nurse because she kept moving away from the heartbeat monitor. The nurse ended up coming in and holding the monitor on me. Dr. Reinerston told us that from the NST that our little girl looks very healthy and strong for her age which was a relief to hear! As a result of the low fluids he asked me where I worked and I tried to play it cool by saying I worked part-time as an office assistant. Then he asked if I couldn't work if I'd lose my job and I kinda chuckled and explained that I worked for my mom, so he said no more work and to be a couch potato.

I know that he wouldn't be able to answer our questions about if she will be arriving before July 2nd, but I was so worried that she would be arriving alot sooner I had to ask! His response was that we will take it appointment by appointment and that on that day I wasn't going to the hospital to deliver but later that week at my next appointment I could be. He said that they would try to get me to 37 weeks as that is considered a fairly safe time, but would prefer 38 weeks because it is safer. Also, said that I wouldn't go to 39 weeks, so she will be here at least one week early and hopefully not too much earlier than that! My brother and sister-in-law will be up here between 37 and 38 weeks and I would LOVE it if they could meet her then!

I had my second NST on Thursday the 13th and passed that one with flying colors too! He was a little concerned because I had lost close to a pound since Monday, but when he felt my belly he said he felt fluid so we would just see what the sono says on Monday the 17th. I am hoping that my resting (yes, I know I haven't been the best at it, especially the past two days) and drinking fluids will help bring my levels back up to normal. I'm praying that after Monday that I will not be on strict bedrest. I can barely handle couch potato status!

I think that should bring everyone up to date on what is medically going on with me! If anyone has any good books to recommend I would appreciate it! Reading makes it easier to stay on the couch! I will try to post pictures and details from the two most recent showers tomorrow!

Thanks for checking in! Time to go be a couch potato! :)

'Family' Baby Shower

I'm going to attempt to keep this post short and picture filled but we shall see!

This past Saturday Brittany hosted a family baby shower for me and her niece to be! She did a great job with all the planning, organizing and decorating! I truly appreciate all of her hard work! She is a great sister-in-law to have! Thank you to everyone who attended! It was great seeing everyone again and we appreciate all the nice gifts!

I loved all the bright colors at the shower. Devin and I had originally decided to go with a Dr. Seuss theme in the baby's room since we couldn't find out what we were having, and Britt decided it'd make a great shower theme and she was right!

Since I don't like being the center of attention, Brittany was nice enough to let me get through the shower without having to be the focus of any games! The only "game" that we did was to have all of the guests guess the date, time of birth, length and weight of the baby. The prize is a Bath & Body Works basket. She set up this table for peoples guesses with the one fish, two fish theme, colored goldfish for snacks, and a fishbowl to people to put their guesses in.

The tables were very colorful! Britt decorated with some Dr. Seuss books and some little squishy balls and little boa things that the kids had a blast playing with. The boxes contained cupcakes that Britt and Stacy made. Each box had a Dr. Seuss quote on it. The thought behind the cupcakes was that since it was a brunch cake didn't necessarily go with it, so we chose to do cupcakes in take out boxes and if people wanted to they could eat it there or they could take it home!

The banks crazy colored chairs matched the bright decorations!

This is one of the cupcakes. There were also some with pink, purple, and green icing. As a sidenote, since I had extremely low blood sugar I got to eat half of this one with my afternoon snack! It was soooooooo yummy! Thanks to Stacy and Britt (and Mike at the end) for decorating them and to Stacy for baking them.

Food table! Thank you to everyone who brought food! I wish I would have been able to eat more. It all smelled and looked so good!

And what would a Dr. Seuss themed brunch be without green eggs and ham? I heard that Ella loved these green eggs and I know Britt was happy to send some home with her!

I'm terrible at remembering to take pictures, we had already put away quite a few gifts when I remembered I didn't have a picture of them! This is what the room looked like after we put some away. I know Devin doesn't look very enthused, but I know that he was. He came to the tail end of the shower and videotaped it and helped put everything away! He's too good to me and I know hes gunna make a great daddy!

I didn't want Mocha to feel left out so we got her a new bone that she got to enjoy while we put stuff away!

Swarley didn't get any new toys so he entertained himself by climbing all over the gifts. It was hillarous to watch!

After we put most of everything away. The desk chair is in there so we could see how much room we had to spare for a chair and because it is nice to have somewhere to sit! The green basket that the Rankin girls gave us packed full of goodies, matches the room perfectly!

The wall with the dresser on it! I should have taken a picture of the stuff in the dresser because there is quite a bit!

The "angled wall" with stuff we have to build/find somewhere for. I am hoping to find some type of bookshelf or toy box to fit here. It looks pretty small in this picture, but there is a decent amount of room there.

The changing table after I organized it! Ignore the target bag, it is just garbage and I didn't think about removing it from the picture. Each basket holds different things for the time being from diaper bag stuff to medical stuff, to future eating stuff, and I don't remember the fourth one! I need to get some baskets to match the room, but am having a hard time finding what I want! I know I will find it if I hold out long enough!

Our little girl's closet! Thank you Toni for all the hangers, they are going to be a lifesaver and a money-saver for sure! She has more clothes in our computer room closet that I still need to move over. When we got them we didn't have this closet organizer up, so I stored them in the computer room. Our little girl isn't even here and already has things in two closests, what is she going to overtake as a teenager?

I told myself that I wasn't going to be one of the pregnant ladies that is always taking pictures of herself, but I know that I have friends and family that are out of state that want to see me pregnant and can't so I decided to give them a profile shot. This was taken at 31 weeks and 1 day, the day of the shower.

Okay, so much for keeping the post short, but I hope you enjoyed it! I hope to update again on either Thursday or Friday with the results of my doctors appointment on Wednesday.

Thanks for checking in and thank you again to everyone who attended the shower. We are truly blessed to have such caring, thoughtful, and generous friends and family members!