Last two showers and a camping trip

We were so blessed by this past weekend. I drove to Little Rock all by my lonesome for our final two showers. It's truly hard to believe that we have had five! What a blessed little girl Abigail already is. Also on Friday, David drove down into Oklahoma to meet all his old roommates for a good ole guys' camping trip. I'll talk about that later. There will be TONS of pictures in this post.

Thankfully, on my way down I was able to pick up some of my best friends, Lauren (& Ava) and Jessica and that made the last 2 1/2 hours so much quicker. Mom and I just hung out together on Friday night and had a great time.

The first shower of the day was one thrown by my sweet family. The hostesses were my cousins Adele Jackson and Louise Cashion, my Aunt Princess, and Marsha Allbritton and Mallory Marsh (who are essentially family). It was so fun to see famiy that I haven't seen in a while. There was a great turn out and the decor was beautiful. There was a diaper cake filled with goodies, lots of great food and we even drank lemonade out of silver goblets and ate on glass plates.

Here's the table at Mrs. Marsha's house...



Me with my cousin Adele and her daughter Ellen.



Mom with some dear family...some Easts and some Lasleys. :)



Me with my cousin Louise, my sister-in-law Sarah and a great friend from childhood Shelby.



My sweet mother and I.



Abigail was not only able to have both her grandmothers at the shower but one great-grandmother as well! David's mom, grandmother and I...



They had this adorable clothes line across the mantle with two outfits, shoes, and in true southern style, a monogrammed diaper cover and monogrammed bib. I'm obsessed with them.





They also had people write little notes on diapers that I will find during some of those late night diaper changes I'm sure.

After that shower it was on to the a shower thrown by some dear friends and their mothers. The hostesses were Lauren Davis, Terry Yelvington, Deborah Edwards, Debbie Johnson, and Sarah Rainwater. The shower was at Deborah's house. She is someone I grew up with and she was even a bridesmade in my wedding!

The cute table...Deborah's sister Rebekah made the diaper cake.





They had party favors for everyone that were bird nests. Lauren came up with the idea for "Take a Sweet Tweet." I also left the shower with sweet notes that had been hung in this tree. Such amazing sentiments and advice from everyone. Lauren's advice was when I am feeding/nursing Abigail to take the time to pray for her. What great advice. I won't forget it.





The banner that Lauren's sister Heather made!



Dear friends...









These showers were so great. Mom and I went through everything on Saturday night and just marveled at the wonderful things we were given. Beautiful, special things that I really can't wait for Abigail to wear. She has so many people that love her and can't wait for her arrival. I drove home all by myself again on Sunday and did it successfully! It's the last time I want to sit in a car that long while eight months pregnant though!

While I was doing all things girly, David was doing all things manly. In college, David had some great roommmates and friends and they still try to get together every now and then.

They fished...







They cooked everything outside on their own but didn't go without coffee. :)





Eric shot a 5-foot water moccasin and Austin chopped it's head off. I can't find that picture at the moment. They also shot some skeet. Most of their time was just spent hanging out together.



The group after a long weekend camping.



This week is great and we are actually in town this weekend! I'm helping to host a baby shower for my friend Katherine and then we are going to the Eric Church concert at the Sprint Center! How you ask? Yes, you guessed right, I won them on the radio (not sure if you actually guessed that). However, if their is concert to call in to the radio for, I do it. No matter what. I haven't had much success clearly. But this time, I got through and was the right caller! And as a bonus, we LOVE Eric Church. We got to see him for free one time before he was as big as he is now, but we can't wait to go Saturday. Justin Moore is opening for him, and he's as Arkansas boy! Does it get any better?!

31 week doctor visit

Here's a quick update from our doctor appointment today! It was so wonderful to go and hear that everything looks so good.

1. Heart rate: 155

Dr. Piquard found it very easily and Abby held still for the duration. She said it sounded strong and good. I loved that.

2. Flu shot: One of the very few times I have actually gotten one.

Dr. Piquard says she strongly recommends it to all her mothers having winter babies because the antibodies that I produce transfer to Abby, so when she is born she is "vaccinated." So I said sign me up! She also said it might make my arm really sore and might make me feel not so great for a little bit.

3. Braxton-Hicks: She said that the ones I described to her as having sound normal.

She only said to call her if I experience 6 in one hour that are my entire stomach and are painful.

4. Turning head down: She said that hopefully in the next 4 weeks Abigail will get into the head down position, but she wouldn't be surprised if she was not there now because she most likely still has plenty of moving space.

Apparently right now she still has enough room to make some fairly large movements. However, as the moving space starts to decrease, she hopes that Abby goes ahead and turns. I also asked her if because I was breech, if I would have a breech baby and she said there is no correlation. Woohoo!


5. Weight gain: I'm right in the middle of the normal range for 31 weeks.

I hardly gained anything this month, which concerned me at first, but she said that the last time they saw me was in the afternoon and that could have had an effect on my last reading. She also said she is most concerned with TOTAL weight gain, and mine looks right on schedule.

6. Measurement: She measured by uterus and said I'm measuring 31 weeks on the money. :)

7. Blood pressure: No news

She didn't tell me my blood pressure number, but I assume it was fine since she didn't say otherwise.

8. Doctors visits: We've gone ahead and scheduled our next two visits before we hit the home stretch of visiting every week.

At our next appointment (2 weeks) we will apparently do just like the one I had today. The next one is two weeks after that and at that appointment we will have another sonogram where she checks Abigail's positioning, growth, size etc. And after that we will go in every week until she arrives. Can't wait!

There really is NOTHING more fun than going to the doctor and hearing that your baby is developing normally. What a blessing.

A Sneak Peak at Abigail's Nursery

I'm finally posting a couple of pictures of the nursery! It has taken me long enough, but every time I thought about doing it, I would think, "Well, I'll just wait til I finish _________." It was always something. However, the room itself is really pretty much done now. Do we have all of the supplies necessary to support a baby, no, but she DOES have a room! Some of the pieces were store purchases, while other things were antique store finds. I'll give a small amount of explanation as I go. :)

This is the view looking in from our little landing area. Her room is right beside our (we share a wall). The chair is from Pickles and Ice Cream in Little Rock and the crib is from Restoration Hardware.



Here's a close-up of the crib and bedding. I love both sides and find myself flipping it back and forth trying to decide which I like better on the outside/inside. I think I've settled on this. I love lookingin and seeing the sweet flowers.





These are the letters that I made for the wall. I got all the supplies from Hobby Lobby and the ribbon matches the lamp shade on the dresser. They are painted with the same paint as the dresser and the walls.



This is the wall that is somewhat shared with our bedroom. The door on the left is her closet. I found the bookshelf at Mission Road Antiques and the little wall decor on the fall left was also from an adorable antique shop.



With the amount of book I have from teaching I had to literally contain my desire to fill the entire shelf with books. So I've limited my excited to these. I LOVE the book ends and I'm still deciding what will go in the frame. Abigail's soon-to-be Aunt Kara set her up with the adorable bow basket.



I found this window at First Fridays in KC and then cut up this wall decor to put on the glass. I found the "tree" at Hobby Lobby and loved the curly branches, so I just cut them off and put them where I wanted them. David attached the knobs for me, which match one of the knobs on the dresser.



Here's a view of the dresser/changing table. We found the dresser on craigslist in a much uglier state than this. David painted it for me, then I began the distressing and antiquing process. Mom came to town and helped me finish it up as well. The hardware is from Hobby Lobby. The mirror is from my great-grandfather's house and I painted it with the same paint as the dresser.







Here are two little baskets for some goodies. :) The lining pattern matches the crib sheet and lamp shade by the glider.



So that's all the pictures I have for now! I have had THE.MOST.FUN. working on it. It's so much fun. David has been unbelievable. Every project I have given him he has taken on with a smile. My mom has also been invaluable for her opinions and help!

I'm sure I'll have more pictures later. :)

The Hogs Lose...Again

This isn't shaping up to be quite the season that everyone was so excited about. In fact, our only win currently is Jacksonville State...not good. This weekend, Alabama KILLED us. And by killed I mean 52 to nothing. NOTHING. We couldn't even put a point on the board.

David and I had planned at the beginning of the season to go down for this game, and even though we didn't have much of a chance, we definitely weren't going back on our plan because this was going to be our first and last to go to this season. We did it in a day trip so that we/I could sleep in our bed like normal since I'm not sleeping super great these days anyway. The day was overcast, but we had a great time tailgating and getting to see people. Mom, as usually set up a wonderful tailgate with BBQ, dips, Razorback decor, and all sorts of other goodies to snack on.

We got to see Tripp and Kara and the Kella's as well!



I helped Mom set up the tailgate minimally. She had it all under control!



I got to see my bestie Lauren!



We headed into the game with rain boots, ponchos and smiles. In reality, our defense looked pretty good to start, but then it started pouring down rain and Alabama started playing like Alabama. Here are a couple pictures from the game.









We really did have a great time and I'm glad we went. I would have hated not to make it to a single game this year. One cool thing about the game was the honorary captain. His name is Jonathan Luigs and I graduated high school with him. He played for Arkansas for four years and was then a 4th round draft pick to the Bengals. He stood on the field while they did a little history of his career at Arkansas. Pretty cool.



Today we had a great day at church and have spent the day hanging out at the house. It has been delightful. This week we are 31 weeks and have only 9 weeks left, which we truly can't believe. She's going to be here before we know it. Sometime in the near future I plan to take some shots of the nursery and get them up on the blog. We have a lot more travels coming up, so we're trying to get as much rest as possible during the week. My favorite season is getting into full swing as well. It takes all my will-power not to buy every cute pumpkin I see at the store and plant mums everywhere. Thus far I haven't planted anything and am trying to show some will power and wait until the very end of September. :)

Mother/Daughter Shower

This weekend I had a sweet and special shower with some of the girls that I have had in class and their mothers. They were so thoughtful to even do it and it was so fun to hang out with them outside of school and celebrate together. Both my Mom and Kathy came to town for it and we had a great weekend with family. Mike and Kathy came to town Friday night and we enjoyed some shopping at First Friday on Saturday and then Kathy took me to get some much-need fall maternity wear. Thanks Kathy! My mom came to town Saturday night and the shower was on Sunday afternoon.

These women and girls seriously left no stone unturned when it came to the details of this party. Everything was pink and green and even the water bottles were labeled with adorable paper that said "Abigail Jane." The little girls also game me the lanterns that I had registered at Pottery Barn and put a tag on them for which specific one that they had chosen. Lots of Moms and daughters that I have had in class came and it was a really nice time to be together, especially having my mom and mother-in-law there, while knowing we're also having a little girl.

Here are some pictures from the shower...



















All the cute goodies!



The hostess mommies and their adorable daughters and myself.



It really was so fun and we got the most adorable things. Abigail is one lucky girl already. Mrs. Heck, Mrs. Sand and Mrs. Sutton, if you read this...thank you for such an amazing shower. Y'all are blessing to David and I in more ways than you know and I am so thankful to be able to share this time with you. Thank you for sharing your sweet daughters with me...what a meaningful shower.

An update on this week...

This is another busy week with more travel on the weekend. We're going down to Fayetteville at some point to watch the Hogs play Alabama. This weekend the Razorbacks lost to LA Monroe...we were so bummed and don't really think we have a hope or prayer for Alabama, but hey, we're still loving our hogs and plan on enjoying every minute of the game and tailgate. I'm working this week yet again and David is doing so good managing his patient load.

Mom, Kathy, and Mike, thank you for coming up this weekend and helping make it so special. The next time you're in Kansas City will be for an entirely different reason...it'll be time for Abigail to make her appearance. Love you all, and Dad you were missed greatly missed! Love you too! :)