Baby Shower for Baby Boy!

Baby boy has been officially showered! Some great friends offered to have a shower for me and my family and friends. We had a fun afternoon together!

I've known for a while I wanted orange and blue as a theme for his nursery so the girls did the shower in those colors too. Even the food matched - Peach cobbler and peach milkshakes with orange chevron straws!

I got lots of fun stuff including monitors, sound machines, appliqued bibs/burp cloths, and bathing supplies. I also got the "all-important" lovey! I got a blue bunny lovey that is just like Katie's pink bunny loveys. When I showed it to her when I got home, she immediately wanted to take it to her room. Instead, we just introduced her bunnies to their new brother bunny and that seemed sufficient!

I also received lots of clothes! Boy clothes are a very new thing to me so instead of ruffles and flowers and pinks and purples - I was showered with sharks and pirates and trucks and cars and dinosaurs on the clothes. I love the incredible contrast from girl to boy and am excited to dress him up! (Can you still say "dress up" for a boy?)

I also got a super nice (understatement) Kate Spade diaper bag. Despite my strong USC roots, I have an affinity for all things orange so I absolutely adore this bag! It came with a changing pad inside that I joked wasn't really for the baby to be laid on, it was to place under the diaper bag to protect it from germs and dirt!

Thanks to my friends for hosting and family and friends for showering us with gifts and love! And speaking of thanks - I actually went home the night of the shower and WROTE thank you cards. It was quite an accomplishment! I brought them to work to address and mail and just recently found them - unaddressed and unmailed. Please forgive my tardiness on the thank yous. They've been written just not mailed!

One more side note - a few people keep asking for belly pictures. I'm not a fan of belly pictures of myself at all. Mainly because there's belly and butt and arms and chins that appear in the picture. But the shower was in early June so that puts these pictures at 26 weeks. Yep - 14 weeks to go! Can you imagine what 40 weeks will look like?!

Beach "Portraits"

Because I am a glutton for punishment apparently, I took Katie out to the beach on our last morning to try to snap a few pictures that were worthy of printing and framing. I'll let Katie tell you what she thought of our "photo session."

Mom told me I could run a little bit and that would be cute. So I took off from right about here and ran about 30 feet past that trash can in the distance. Mom was about 29 weeks pregnant and she definitely couldn't keep up. This is as close as she got and then she was eating my dust (er, sand) after that.

But don't worry. I eventually came back. And I came back with a devious look on my face and a masterful plan to ruin her attempt at getting any decent pictures. 

I stood still for just a moment allowing mom to think I was going to cooperate. But I made sure to never look directly at her and definitely not smile with anything other than a straight lipped "I'm up to something" smile.

Then I bargained with her. I'm good at that and she hasn't caught on to me yet. I told her I'd smile if she'd take some pictures of me and my friends. So Max and Dolly hopped in the picture and I smiled great but made sure to block mom from seeing it.

So at this point, mommy and daddy are both a little frustrated with me and trying to get me to take some better pictures. Daddy suggests we go out to the water, but I have to stop and complain for 5 minutes about yucky the sand feels on my toes.

Enough complaining...The water feels great and I'm ready to splash around! I decide to let mom get a few good shots too!

I run back and forth stomping in the waves and giggling and having a blast.

I make sure to get my dress good and soaked to ensure these are the last pictures she'll want to take!

I zoom past her a few more times daring her to try to catch a smile on my face. (I think she got a few!)

I also make sure to splash as much as I can because I like it when she reminds me over and over and over not to mess up her "precious" camera.

And finally, to cap it all off - I give mom and dad a glimpse of my "Thriller" moves. These moves ended my show and didn't even call for an encore!

 

NMB 2012

We headed to North Myrtle Beach to our usual spot for a few days after ballet camp ended. We just went for the weekend but were able to pack in lots of fun in just a few days. Katie had her first putt-putt experience but I left my camera in our room so I had to get Doug to take some pictures with his phone. I also asked him to keep score and pick up my ball every time since "bending" isn't my specialty these days. All that to say - he only took this one picture because I overloaded him other tasks! But it's legitimate enough for documentation purposes!

We did some splashing around at the pool as well. We were out early enough to have it just about to ourselves! We went back and forth between the kiddie pool and the big pool several hundred times, I'm sure. She's not comfortable at all in the water so it was mainly an hour or so of splashing with one hand and holding very tightly to someone with her other hand.

We spent some time hanging out on the beach too! Katie took a break from throwing sand around to eat her Spiderman fruit snacks from her Spiderman beach chair.

And now we were off to frolic in the ocean. We had a long talk about how much fun it would be to splash in the waves and how warm the water would be and that mommy and daddy were right there with her. She seemed sincerely gung ho as you can tell from this picture...

But, this is where she stayed. She ran parallel to the waves just about as far away from any real water as you could get! But she had fun and who am I to push her into those jelly-fish infested waters if she'd rather splash around where she's comfortable!

 

Twinkle Toes

 Katie ventured into her 2nd organized "sport"/acitvity. After doing soccer in the spring, we found a ballet camp being offered at a local parks and rec center. It was Monday-Friday from 9am-12pm and Katie loved every day of it. She didn't drag her feet in the morning (which is the norm for anytime we leave the house) and she loved picking out which ballet outfit she'd wear each day. (I found some at a yard sale a year or so ago and couldn't resist buying them even if she never took ballet...there's always dress up!) Katie and Maddie did the camp together so it was a win-win all the way around!

The girls worked hard all week preparing for a mini-recital on the last day of camp. Doug and I took tons of pictures and videoed the "performance."

Here's our little ballerina moments before the curtain call getting a "break a leg" hug from her daddy!

Katie and Maddie giving each other some encouragement before the show!

A little bit of CHASE before starting to ease their jitters! 

The beginning! They were little fairies who were supposed to be asleep. The girl on the far right stood with her back the to audience for 95% of the show. Also - that tutu does wonders for Katie's hiney! She is sticking it straight up in the air!

This is what they called "alligator arms." Katie appears to have excellent form here including her little pointed toes!

The second song required the use of some sticks. I'm still not 100% sure what they were supposed to be, but the girls enjoyed making music with them! I love the sass being exhibited by Katie and Maddie!

Each girl also had the chance to showcase their running leap. I'm sure there's a real ballet term for that, but I can't remember it at the moment. This is about all the leaping she did...It was more like a quick sprint across the floor and then a little shuffle of the feet.

They also did some more fancy jumps where they tried to keep their toes pointed. I think she did a pretty good job on those! There was no official bow or curtsy - but these jumps were the end! 

The girls were a little tired of the parent paparazzi by the end of the show so these are the faces we had to work with!

And here's a little more attitude and ballet princess pose for you!

After the tutu was turned in and we were packing up, she wanted to pose for one last picture with her puppy, Max, who watched the entire show from my lap!

Katie really loved ballet camp and has talked about it a lot ever since. She's also developed an affinity for walking on her toes just about everywhere!