Surprise Baby Shower!!!

I am WAY behind on blogging, but here are some fun photos from one of the best days ever! First of all, you should know I love surprises, if you don't already know this about me. :) One of my most memorable birthdays was my one and only surprise birthday party ever when I was in college. My awesome college roommate, Kira, and I had just watched Patch Adams and I loved the part where they filled the room with balloons and thought that looked so fun. Kira, being the fabulous roomie she was, remembered this, and filled our room with balloons, both helium and regular, so the helium ones filled the top 1/3 of our dorm room and the regular ones filled the bottom 1/3, and invited all our friends over. I was at brunch with friends in the cafeteria and when we walked back and entered my room, everyone jumped out and surprised me and it was AWESOME. :)

To continue on and improve this wonderful tradition of surprises by great friends, I was lucky enough to get an exponentially even better surprise party in the form of an amazing surprise baby shower a few weeks ago! Mandy, Brooke, Rach, Christi, and Richelle planned it all with my husband and they all kept it from me! I have no secret-keeping ability when it comes to Bob, so props to him for holding out on me--he's a very good secret keeper and I had no idea! Mandy and her family had planned to drive down to Disneyland for Spring Break so she planned this all to happen on their way through Utah and it all worked out wonderfully! I was on call this weekend and got off pretty early on Saturday, which I was so excited about, but I'd had a headache all morning and it wasn't going away and I was tired and feeling crummy so when I got home I told Bob I just wanted to lie down and try to nap. Usually, this would be the best Saturday EVER by Bob's standards, but somehow this Saturday he was bummed out by this and kept saying he'd been home and bored all morning and really wanted to go out and do something.... WEIRD--this is NOT my husband, yet I didn't even begin to put anything together. I took some tylenol and put my feet up on the couch for a bit and then complied with my sweet hubs and we went out to run some errands. Rach and Brooke were texting me about going to a movie later that day so as we headed home I was texting them that I was almost there, and did not even realize my husband was texting the girls updates throughout the day while they were getting everything ready! So we returned home to be surprised by 5 of my favorite girls yelling SURPRISE! I was sincerely completely surprised and so very excited!!!

These girls know me well and had planned all my favorite things! We had snacks which included Domino's cheesy bread, tomato soup, caesar salad, and red velvet cupcakes! We had delicious punch with lime sherbet and lemon lime soda and it was all delicious! They had a fabulous craft planned which turned out so cute--wooden plaques to put each of the letters of Johnny's name on with cute scrapbooking paper, and we all did it together and it was so much fun and so helpful to have these crafty ladies help me pick the color/pattern combos! They also had a super-fun game planned which I loved and we all had a great time cracking up playing! If any of you've played Funglish, we used those tiles to describe baby-related words chosen by George and Jesh and they were all so entertaining! Of course there were also some very thoughtful presents that were all super-cute, and great decorations--there were streamers all over and extremely adorable clotheslines with baby clothes strung across the room, and a very cute diaper cake, and it was all fantabulous. :)

It was seriously so very much fun and I loved it! Thanks so much ladies for making my shower so so so so very great! Especially because I never could have hoped for this--I had no expectation of having a shower since we really don't have that many friends here, but luckily 4 of our friends already lived here when we moved here and Mandy is wonderful enough to make a trip 700 miles to make this happen! I have planned a few showers in my day and they all paled in comparison to this, but now I've got a new standard to shoot for! :)

These are all pics from Mandy's camera, so thanks to her for taking these pics so I can remember this fun day!

Here I am still pretty dang surprised!

Rach was having a great time playing baby focused Funglish!

Richelle's bump is slightly bigger than mine at this point as she's a solid 7 weeks ahead, and now a mama for the 2nd time--Congrats to Jake and Richelle on Tessa--she is beautiful and I can't wait to meet her in real life!

The diaper cake was so impressive!

We set the camera timer to take a bunch of pics in a row and did a bunch of silly poses--clearly we're voguing here :)

Sassy hands on hips? :)

Pooching out bellies--easier for Richelle and I with our buns in the oven!

Bunny ears--always a classic!

Of course we had to show off our buffness since I'm pretty much in the best shape of my life... ;)

Hokey pokey? :)

Big kicks!

How great are these girls?

This is not the greatest group shot, but I thought it was hilarious how Lilo is staring at the camera! She heard it starting and is clearly a bit suspicious of it!

Another nice group shot!

Brooke's turn at Baby Funglish!

Trying to pick some good paper options for Johnny's name!

Christi and Richelle with the delicious food!

Brooke, Lilo, Christi and I enjoying the fun!

Sadly, because Mans took these pics, I have none of her really except the group shots! Thanks so much Mans--I'm lucky to have such a wonderful friend and hope our friendship endures another 16+ years! I just realized that we just passed a milestone as we've now been friends more than half of our lives! :)

Here is Mandy's video of my big surprise! I really was so surprised!! :)

Thanks again to you wonderful ladies---I will never forget this fantastic shower and every time I walk in Johnny's room I'll see these awesome tiles we made for his name and be reminded of this great party! I'm really lucky to have such great friends who are so thoughtful and I hope I can repay this someday. I'm also grateful to have so many mamas to ask for advice as we dive into parenthood! It's starting to get really intimidating that I'm 32 weeks now and Johnny will be here so soon! I hope we're ready! Thanks to everyone who's offered advice, stuff, and guidance on the millions of baby topics out there! I'm lucky to have all of you to help me feel so much more ready for this! There aren't enough "thank you's" to extend to you all and I'm just feeling super-blessed right about now! Have a great week and I'll leave you with the nearly finished wall-hanging with Johnny's name that we made at this fabulous shower! I just need to attach the ribbons and hang them in his room, and someday I'll get around to this! We've been pretty busy since this shower and I'll post about those two trips soon, but it's going to be dependent upon how busy work is this week, so here's hoping! :)