Showered with love

Last weekend i was completely humbled and tremendously showered with love like i haven't been before...especially at one time...by an incredibly beautiful and elegant baby shower to celebrate the soon arrival of little Silas. From gorgeous decorations, to delicious food, to the fellowship of close friends and most especially, the ability to share it with family. My sister, Annie, left her vacation from Gulf Shores to be able to make it (and she lives in St. Louis!) and Scott's mom came in all the way from Arkansas, so both of them being able to be there made the day so much more special. It was not quite complete, since my other sisters could not be there, but they were there in spirit! It's really hard to put into words how wonderful this celebration was, so i'll just try and illustrate below with some pics taken.


Showered with DELICIOUS food!

Showered with the love of my sweet family (from left: my mother-in-law Peggy; my mom; me; and my sister, Annie).

Mom and Annie with me (and Silas in the middle-though you can't miss that big belly :)).

Showered with love by such dear friends. Here are three of the four hostesses (from left: Jennifer Froehlich, me, Jennifer Croxall, and Jenni Miles. Allison Haupert is not pictured).

Showered with blessings beyond belief! Jen had set out a jar for ladies at the shower to write notes of encouragement, advice, or just whatever God laid on their heart to write to us as we near this journey of parenthood!

Showered with party favors! Not only one favor, but TWO for each lady who attended. One was a candy bar with an adorable little wrapper on it that matched the invitation AND the whole color theme of the shower, and the other was a handmade soap, compliments of Good Fortune Soap, created by my good friend Jennifer Jack (sorry, have to plug here because this stuff is awesome...check out www.goodfortunesoap.com for all kinds of deliciously scentuous soaps, lotions, oils, sprays, etc.) :)

And, yes, showered with gifts. This is a VERY COOL baby wrap that my sisters gave me, but as you can see, i need a little practice before i try and place my newborn in it! :)

A HUGE thank you, gracias, danke, graci, merci, mutsumesc, asante, any way i can think of to say it....to everyone who made this day so special for me. I truly can't put into words how wonderful that day was....which is probably why it took me a while to post about it :) I do seriously think that the two Jennifers should go into business planning things together....they have such great ideas and incredible taste!!


BTW....those will count as my 32 week pic (though it was not officially the date i turned over to 32 weeks, but it was the day before, so close enough) :) And, here i was at 31 weeks (sorry, a little late in the posting!)
Be back soon with a 33 week pic.....

30 weeks!

Check it out--i'm getting bigger by the minute.....and so is big boy Silas! We are now at 30 weeks and only 10 more (Lord willing) to go! This pic was taken after our Monday night Amigo fitty cent taco night (well, now they've increased to 75 cents...stupid inflation, but it's fun to say fitty). So, you can see i had more than a couple of tacos, because that sucker looks huge! :) I also have changed the photo-taking venue to the nursery....rather than the previous brown wall. Since we're closer to having it finished, and closer to having Silas here, why not?

We've had a good week, though i did have a little bit of a "scare" late last week. I had some tremendous pain in between two of my teeth on Wednesday and i was soooo fearful it was an abcess. The fear got the better of my sound thinking because i started thinking that i hadn't felt Silas move, which really got my freak out mode in high gear. I had an OB appointment the next morning, so i told my doctor all about it and though we didn't have a scheduled ultrasound, she whipped the machine out anyway to calm both of our nerves. She turned it on, slapped the deal on my belly and then there he was on screen--just perfect. Between the overwhelming sense of assuredness and just seeing him moving on screen (with cute little hiccups), not to mention i'm a hormonal pregnant woman, I started crying just looking at him...and i couldn't stop! What a sap I am! But, everything was good....he is so big (I hadn't seen him on screen since i was 19 weeks!), my glucose test was “perfect” his heartbeat is “perfect” and his amniotic fluid is “beautiful” (their words, not mine, which is why I probably choked up.....it just feels so good to hear them say things like that about this sweet baby) :)

oh, and the tooth--not an abscess! Praise the Lord! I went to the dentist the very next morning and it was just that a filling had fallen out and i'll need to get it fixed (via a ROOT CANAL!!!). I'll probably have that done before the baby is born, because who wants tooth pain AND labor pain together? Not this girl.

29 weeks!

Here we are at 29 weeks! Silas is getting so big and quickly running out of room to move. His movements are more "rolly" than "kicky" if that makes any sense. I was trying to explain it to mom last night and those were the best descriptors i could come up with. Sure, there are still some hard kicks/punches from time to time, but it's become much more "rolly" and at times i totally see a body part sticking out, like an elbow, or his bum, or something. So cute! I am feeling good too--a few aches and pains here and there, but for the most part, just trucking along.

I haven't had an ultrasound in a while (and probably won't until about 32 weeks), but all the books say he is a tad over 15 inches head to heel, weighing over 2 1/2 pounds and growing rapidly. Most growth from here will be his weight, but if he's anythign like his dad, he'll come in at 22.5 inches long and just under 8 pounds--STRING BEAN! We'll see....i can't wait!! Only a little over two months to go!

oh, and we've gotten a lot more work done in the nursery. I finished the bubbles on the wall--and now only have to paint the dresser/night stand and we'll be pretty much through with the big stuff. After that, it's just accessorizing.....oh wait, i still need a chair. Well--that will come with time too :) Here is a pic of the finished "bubble wall" and the bedding to show where i got the pattern. The lighting on the wall makes some of the colors look off, but they all pretty much exactly match the colors in the bedding (except the lime green turned out looking really yellow on the wall--oh well!)

I'll be back soon with another update!

And we're back!

Okay, so yes, it has been over a month since my last post. Not sure i have a real good excuse so i guess all i can do is apologize (not that this blog is in high demand or anything). So last time i posted, i turned to 22 weeks.....now i'm 28 weeks and officially in my third and FINAL trimester! It's all down hill (or uphill, depending on how you look at it) from here! I can't believe our sweet baby boy will be in my arms in less than three months! And my how that time will fly!

I will try and keep a better handle on updating this thing because though it may not be read by the thousands, it is fun for me to go back and look through old posts and see where we've come in the last few months. In the mean time, though, here is a quick recap of the last six weeks.


The MOST exciting thing that has happened is that sweet baby Kaiya came into the world!!! She was born June 27 weighing in at just over 8 pounds and was a long one, just like her momma :) She is absolutely beautiful and Lainey, and we can NOT wait to meet her. Silas is pretty stoked about having another girl cousin (i know because he told me :)). WE LOVE YOU!!!!!!

Kaiya Ann Shuler

Here is Mommy (Alaina) with baby Kaiya
Big sister Josie with Kaiya...how tender and sweet :)


SILAS' ROOM! (in progress).....
We've been working to get the baby room ready to go. We ordered the crib, which arrived this past weekend, and we started the painting and have it almost finished! Here i am as we started on the painting journey....and it just so happens it's a 28 week pic! :) Notice the overalls are NOT maternity, so all buttons are unbuttoned and the straps are as low as they possibly can go! These are my only painting pants, so it's good that we are doing this now because as you can tell, i don't have much longer i could even TRY to wear these!

So excited!!

Here is the crib with the bedding in it (well, without the mattress, etc.). How cute is this bedding--Amanda found it at a garage sale for SUPER cheap and is in pristine condition. Apparently an interior designer custom made this, so not only is it cute, it's one of a kind!

I decided to do all green and blue, with black furniture. Three walls in the room will be a light lime green and then one wall is blue. On the blue wall, i'm going to paint bubbles like the bubbles in the bedskirt (see above). Once i get the room closer to done, with all furniture, lighting, etc. in there, i'll put up more pics.

27 WEEKS!

COLORADO!
Here is my belly at 26 weeks (had to get some awesome scenery behind it :))

Freakishly white....nice.....

Look at this majestic creation....even though pictures DO NOT do it justice. I felt like i could reach out and touch the mountain tops. It was breathtaking! Makes me want to sing praise songs!

My girl

Parker and me; and also one with Will....making silly faces :)

This is Amanda, me, Will and Parker during one of our short hikes we took. Can you believe this is the view behind their house?!! I LOVED my time with them all (including Chris, though i don't seem to have any pictures of him!)....they made me feel so special and even pampered me with foot baths and belly rubs :) Guys thank you so much for making it such a special trip. Next time i see you, Silas will be here!!

24 weeks!!!!
....this was about the time i started feeling less comfortable showing how chubby my face has gotten. But, the belly sure is cute!

Scott's first Father's Day.
Here we are at 23 weeks!

Okay, that was a super quick recap of what's been going on over the last several weeks. I'm going to try and do MUCH better at keeping this updated--at least weekly. Thankfully i am still feeling good, and Silas is doing great! He moves all the time....kicking, punching, twirling (pretty much getting ready to be able to play kung fu fighting with his cousins Parker and Will--which if you haven't, you should check out their blog because it is hilarious to watch them kung fu kick!!) He is about 2 1/2 pounds now and is about 14 inches long! I only have 12 weeks to go! October will be here before we know it!

Gulf Shores--at 22 weeks!

This week we went on a rockin' trip to Gulf Shores. We went with two other families who are close friends of ours. Of course, we had a blast, but with my prego skin being slightly more sensitive in the sun, i did accidentally overdo it one day and got a pretty burned. Thankfully now all is well and it's turned to tan now :) Here are a few pics from the trip.


view from our back door. one morning i woke up to spend a little quiet time out on the balcony. look at the beautiful rainbow that was greeting me.

Scott's first cup of coffee--that he liked! This is a HUGE step, considering he's never liked coffee nor would he ever really try it again after the one time he did try it plain and almost gagged. I guess french vanilla creamer did the trick. I think he's hooked now!

Here i am getting some baby experience :)
This is Tucker Froehlich, son of our friends Jen and Chris. He is SUCH a good baby--seriously! It kind of spoiled us, considering he's only six weeks old and was a trooper the whole time! He's definitely made for the beach because he literally chillaxed the whole time! He even wanted to feel the kicking that was going on by his soon to be best friend!

One morning we had breakfast, praise and worship on the beach. We aimed to be down there closer to sunrise, but with nine people, it was more like 9am :) It was still so awesome!

The boys being weird.....

Ah, that's more like it! So handsome! (Chris and Robbie too, of course)

And here we are before and at dinner one night-- in all our sunburned glory!


TCBY after dinner one night--a Croxall family tradition! This is Jen F., Jen C, Anna and Chris.


Now this is one rockin' tent :) They were our neighbors on the beach one day....and obviously true Hog fans!


There are lots more pics, but the majority of the great ones are on the other girls' cameras. But, we had a wonderful time and it was a great place to ring in my 22nd week! :)

Go Dee, it's your birthday!

Last night we celebrated Dee's 54th b-day! There was no way we could get that many candles on the cake, so Scott decided it would be more suited to say "RIP" :) HA. We had so much fun--we even lasted until 10:30 (well, scott and i did, but mom had had her two beer cut off, and you know what that does to her)! Anyway, we made flat enchiladas, one of mom's favorites, and topped it off with cake and corona--and not necessarily in that order.
Then, because mom felt so cute in her new saucy little dress, we had a little modeling show and looked just about as horrible as you would think we would look when trying to model. Such posers. ha. I've got to give it to Dee, though, she busted out some moves that unfortunately weren't caught on camera :)


Okay, and here was one of us as real "posers" :)


Happy Birthday Dee--we love you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Oh, and i forgot to add some pics of me and baby--sorry to steal your lime light, dee :) i forgot to do a 21 week post, so here i am at 21 weeks, and i took a picture of my most recent ultrasound, since i haven't had it scanned in digitally yet. Love to all.