So I had planned to do a separate post after each one of our baby showers..but now they have all come and gone and I had yet to finish the post on our first one. Guess what that means? You get one GIANT post on all of them!
We have been so blessed to have so many wonderful family and friends who wanted to celebrate Baby Blakeley with us. We had a total of four showers, however one of them was an impromptu shower given by my work at our seminar and I don't have any pictures from it (sad!). I will also admit that I did a horrible job at documenting these showers - I seem to have steadily gotten worse about taking pictures over the last couple years. Before we begin, let me just give one HUGE thank you to everyone involved in these showers. We are so overwhelmed and touched by all the time, work, effort and money you all put into helping us celebrate our sweet girl and helping us prepare for parenthood! We love you all!
BaBy-Q
We had our first baby shower on August 24, which was our largest shower and included our family on both sides and some of our closest friends. For our "main" shower, Scott and I both wanted it to be coed and pig-pickin' style. My sister-in-law, Amanda, told me early on that she wanted to throw us a shower and was sweet enough to take our wants/desires into consideration (i.e. the pig-pickin' idea). After much conversation, we realized the guest list would be quite long and I certainly didn't want her to take on planning/preparing such a big event by herself. Fortunately, we had several friends who had already mentioned helping with a shower, so they all jumped in to help her with this one. Together they made our dream baby shower become a reality! Check out the SUPER cute invitation!
My brother cooked a delicious pig and all the ladies divided up the sides/drinks to bring. All of the decor was in purples and greens (again - right on target with the nursery decor) and it was absolutely perfect. As mentioned previously, we didn't do the best job with taking pictures - mainly because it seemed that the evening FLEW by, but I was able to get a picture with all of the fabulous ladies that hosted the shower (minus Traci, who unfortunately got called into work that evening)!
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| Nicole, Ashton, Me, Ashley, Amanda, and Aunt Flo! |
Back to the food - of course, Amanda made the fabulous cake and it was delicious as always!
We were and still are overwhelmed by all the amazing gifts we received. This little girl is already loved (and spoiled!) so much. We cannot thank our family and friends enough who came out to help celebrate with us and brought all of our amazing gifts. Here's a snapshot of the gift table at some point in the evening...
To sum it up - it was the perfect way to celebrate our baby girl. We couldn't have imagined a more enjoyable and fun evening with all of our family and closest friends. We can't thank our wonderful hostesses enough for all the time, work, and money they put into this shower. We love each and everyone of you very much and we can't wait for our baby girl to meet all of you!
To wrap up the BaBy-Q, here are a few more pictures from the evening...
"LCSO Shower"
Our second shower was on September 7 and was hosted by our wonderful friends Jennifer Babb, Jessica Himsel, and Kassia Stubbs. The majority of the guest list consisted of Scott's former coworkers at the Lee County Sheriff's Office and a few other close friends. Again, we wanted the shower to be coed and a relaxing evening with friends. Jennifer and her husband, Clint, were kind enough to open their home to everyone for the shower. Jessica and her husband, Ben, drove in from Charlotte that afternoon to help get everything setup and Kassia and her husband, Bryan, came up from Pinehurst. These ladies put together a DELICIOUS meal for everyone consisting of lasagna, salads, and bread and two delicious desserts: cupcakes and some of Jennifer's mom's heavenly oreo/whip cream dessert thing that I don't know the name of..but it is GOOD. We won't mention how many cupcakes or oreo dessert servings I had.
Once again, we were blessed with absolutely perfect weather that evening. The guys spent the majority of the evening outside playing cornhole, while the women did what we do best - munched on desserts and ran our mouths, of course! It was so nice to catch up with our friends and have a low-key evening to celebrate this baby girl. I must also mention that this shower was the day after my fall seminar concluded - so these ladies knew my energy level had taken a beating that week, and this was exactly what we needed!
Baby B was spoiled even MORE at this shower with tons of super cute gifts! We got several gift bags full of items that were favorites of our friends when their children were babies. I absolutely love gifts like this - so thoughtful and SO helpful! We can't wait to start using these items when she makes her appearance!
We cannot thank Jennifer, Jessica, and Kassia enough for the wonderful shower that evening! Baby Blakeley (and us, of course) is so blessed to have these wonderful women in her life. I'll conclude this with a few pictures from the evening..
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| The lovely hostesses! LtR: Kassia, Jessica, and Jennifer |
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| 35 weeks and 2 days! |
As many of you know, Scott has another "family" that we refer to as the "Chapel Hill Crew." I refer to them as family because this group of friends have consistently been there for each other for over 15 years now. I think it's safe to say they know each other better than anyone else and I have never seen a group of friends of this size with a bond as strong as they have had for this long. Although they are scattered all across the state (with a few in other states, too), are all very successful people, and all have children of their own..they never let life get in the way of maintaining this relationship they have formed over the years. I have been fortunate enough to join this "family" and they have accepted me with open arms. With that said, I'm sure you can imagine how overjoyed I was when Courtney, Jennifer, and Lorraine told me they wanted to throw me a shower. Since our other two had been coed, we decided to make this one just the girls. It was a perfect afternoon spent with some amazing women. Even better - my mom, mother-in-law, and aunts on Scott's side all joined us too!
For our BaBy-Q, the invitation asked that everyone bring a children's book instead of a card for Baby Blakeley. We have always loved this idea when done at other showers, and we really wanted Baby B to have a good collection of books for us to read to her for years to come. I never shared this information with Court, Jen, or Lo, but they surprised me and asked everyone at this shower to do the same! Needless to say, I was so excited to show up and see that Baby B's library had been expanded even more! The children's books ended up being the "theme" of the shower. All the food was labeled with library cards and stickers of the different books we got at the shower, and they made these super cute bookmarks as party favors:
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Another surprise that I didn't really notice until the next morning when putting up the books - they made these stickers for everyone to put in their books. It had a space to write who it was from and what they wish for Baby B (yes, I realize her name is on them, but I will refer to her as 'Baby B' until I do the post about her name). I have to admit, I got a little emotional Sunday morning while reading all of these sweet notes and "wishes" for our baby girl. It continues to overwhelm me how much she is already loved not only by us, but all of our family and friends. Sidenote: the first piece of wall decor we purchased for the nursery is a wooden sign that says "I love you to the moon and back."
As with everything these ladies do - there was a ton of delicious food and drinks, and everything was so perfectly decorated. This was also the only shower where all the guests knew Baby B's name, so we got a few monogrammed items for her and her name was incorporated into some of the decor, making it all the more special! To conclude, I'll leave you with an awesome group shot of all the ladies at the shower:
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Executive Board Shower
Last but certainly not least (and although none of them will read this), I must give a big thank you to my Executive Board for the surprise shower they through me during our meeting in Wilmington in September. As we began the executive business session of our Executive Board meeting on Wednesday, they said they had one item to add to the agenda and asked me to come sit in a seat at the front of the room. All of a sudden, Lyn, Kaye, and Julie start pulling gifts out from under a table and handing them to me! Apparently they had been sneaking them in all afternoon while I was running around like a crazy person (as usual during our seminars). Since we were pushed for time, it was a very quick gift opening process but we got lots of wonderful items - including a Petunia Pickle Bottom diaper bag (exactly what I wanted!)! Since I'm such a "snoop," I honestly couldn't believe that they got this past me with me having NO idea. It made it all the more special though, and we are so thankful for all the wonderful gifts we received!
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