Baby shower

Jen and Eric (with help from Lara and Margaret) threw us a wonderful baby shower this weekend! It was a fun time and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. I especially enjoyed myself, after spending so much time sitting on the couch trying to convince the baby to stay put for a few more weeks. It was so nice to be surrounded by good friends and enjoy their company!

The decorations were so fun and the food was amazing, including Lara's delicious cupcakes. She also made a giant lemon cupcake, which I was eyeing all night long even though I'm not allowed to eat sweets. Jen did save me a nice big slice of it (plus some of the yummy chocolate regular-sized cupcakes), which I immediately put in the freezer so that I can enjoy them after the baby is born. (All right, I admit that I did sneak a couple bites of the lemon cupcake during the evening...)

Margaret clearly has a lot more patience than I do, as she went through all of the online photo albums I have and picked out pictures of Chris and me to make these great little photo note cards. Guests were encouraged to write messages and advice for us on the note cards, and we really enjoyed reading them when we got home. Those will definitely be saved in my "baby box" (which is currently a Victoria's Secret box from my bridal shower...I think I'm going to have to upgrade soon).

As guests arrived, Jen met them at the door, gave them a necklace to wear and explained the game we were playing: the Baby game. The only rule was that you couldn't say the word "baby". If you said it, the first person to call you out on it got your necklace (plus any others you'd collected). The person with the most necklaces at the end of the night won a prize. After a lot of back and forth, the ultimate winner was Aran (although Ben and Carrie were definitely contenders). Once Aran won a huge cluster of necklaces from Carrie, he immediately hid in a corner and refused to talk until the game was over. Good strategy.

There was also a baby pool, where guests could sign up for different spots predicting when the baby will be born. Since we're already having so much "activity" on that front, the delivery dates didn't even extend to my actual due date! People are now encouraging me to hold out until a particular date so that they can win the pool. Sorry guys, I don't think I have much say over it.

My mom sent Jen my Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls from my childhood, and Jen set them up to watch over the gift table. It was such a nice surprise for me to see them there! I couldn't believe it at first, and immediately flipped up Ann's dress to see if she had the red heart with "I love you" written on it. That was all the proof I needed that those were, indeed, my dolls.

We received so many amazing gifts from friends and family! It's fun to see all of these tiny clothes and toys. And apparently, the baby will be a sports fan. When not dressed like a Bronco, the baby can choose between the USC Trojans, Bayern Munchen Fussball, Kansas Jayhawks, or MIT Engineers (OK, that last one doesn't necessarily scream "sports fan").

We were so overwhelmed with everyone's generosity. Wow.

OK, I've gone on long enough about the shower. I just had such a good time, I want to keep writing about every little thing. But I won't -- I know that's similar to forcing you to sit through every one of the 1600+ pictures I took on our honeymoon. I'll just wrap it up by saying that it was a really, really nice party and we are so appreciative of Jen, Eric, Lara and Margaret for working so hard on it, and of our friends and family for sharing such a happy time with us. Thank you!