Morgan's Bachelorette weekend in Seaside

Last weekend, 5 of the Jacksonville girls headed to Seaside (near Destin) for my college roommate's (Morgan's) bachelorette party. Morgan is marrying an older guy who owns his own trucking company based out of Atlanta. They just recently bought a vacation home in Seaside and thats where the bachelorette was held. The house was gorgeous!! She took care of preggo big momma and gave me basically the second Master bedroom. Emily was lucky enough to bunk with me so she got to enjoy the perks too. Here is a picture of Morgan and Jessica just hanging out in my bathtub! :) 

Friday night we arrived around 7ish and headed to dinner at The Great Southern which was exactly what it sounds like. Down home southern food. I got the shrimp and grits...no surprise, and it was delicious. After dinner we headed back to the house to drink and played Cards against humanity. It was a fairly early night. 

The next morning a few of us woke up early to enjoy a nice leisurely walk to the shops, farmers market,  and enjoy coffee on the beach. It was a lovely day. We headed back to the house for bagels and donuts and then ventured out for the day. 

We walked to see where Morgan's wedding was going to be held. It is in the building on the water in the right picture called the Boathouse. There was something going on in there so I was only able to see the outside.

We then went to a wine bar for wine and apps. We ventured a little further down the road and had lunch at a food truck. I had the turkey, tomato, avocado grilled cheese...It was heaven! We ate on the beach and hung out for a while before heading home to prepare for the evening festivities.

Everyone dressed nice and we did a little lingerie shower where Morgan had to guess who bought her which outfit. She did horrible, but did much better on answering questions correctly that Andy had to answer. After the games we headed to dinner at Basmati's (a sushi place) and out to the Baytowne Harbor area where there are a bunch of bars. Sober momma drove around a car of 12 wild girls packed like sardines to and from the bar. That was quite the adventure! :) 

Morgan had a good time doing the normal bachelorette stuff of taking shots, and being serenaded by the dueling pianos guys. We only made it to one bar before heading home, but it was still a good time.

The next morning everyone just woke up and headed home. It was a fun weekend spent with great girl friends and we will be headed back to Seaside in less than a month for her wedding!

7 Months (28 weeks) Bumpdate

How far along: 28 Weeks (30 now!) I literally have been waiting for weeks for Dave to take my week 28 picture and there has just not been time. Sorry for the not attractive photo

Gender: Girl! 

Total weight gain: 22 lbs...Doing pretty good these days, I am starting to waddle a little and it is not easy to put on my shoes anymore. Breathing has also started to be a little bit more difficult, but I'm not complaining. Definitely gaining most of my weight in my face :/

Maternity Clothes:   Still rocking the maternity clothes. I borrowed some of Kelli's stuff so that increased my wardrobe some! Dresses are the area where it gets hard. I have jeans and sweaters/shirts for days

Sleep: Getting up about once a night to pee, and occasionally will not be able to sleep once I'm up bc my mind is running with all my to do lists. I'm also using my inhaler more which means I'm not in a true deep sleep, but I'm not too exhausted so it all works out. 

Miss Anything:  Putting on my shoes in a timely manner and easily shaving my legs. It takes me much longer to position myself to reach my feet. And if I sit down, forget about getting up quickly. Flipping this belly over from side to side is a feat too. 

Cravings: Still cereal, pasta, and cheese. I also live for the days I treat myself with an iced coffee. It's not too much so I really savor it when I do have one! Ice cream has been a frequent snack too. 

Symptoms: We are back in action as far as normal pregnancy goes. I had an ultrasound at 27 weeks and praise the lord my placenta had moved away from my cervix! This basically means I don't need a c-section, should have no more spotting, can lift Delainey and anything within reason, have sex, exercise...basically go back to living normal! D was so happy when I came home and picked her up. She ran around saying "you can hold me now!" So I am on to normal appointments every 2 weeks with regular checks and we will hopefully go full term. I also passed my gestational diabetes test with flying colors so onward we march. 

Belly Button in or out: No hiding this baby! It is 100% out

Mood: Happy. Just putting together some last minute things for Blakely's room and organizing her clothes and diapers... Time is flying by and I just can't wait to finally meet her. I am glad we are in a safe window now and have made it to 30 weeks and the previa issue is gone! 

Best Moment this month:  It was a great month for me! My placenta moved and I was surprised with a baby shower hosted by my friends Jessica & Erica which was lovely! We had a great christmas, new years, and baby shower. Dave also had a ton of time off lately so it has been great all hanging out together. 

Looking forward to: Going to Beech mountain the last weekend of January for our last trip as a family of 3. Call it a babymoon, last family trip, I just really wanted Delainey to see snow this year and skiing was out of the question so we are going to do a weekend of sledding and ice skating . Hopefully we actually get some snow. 

Blakely's baby shower

Saturday we celebrated baby Blakely with a diapers and wipes shower! I told my friends there was no need for a shower since I was having another girl and had practically everything except for diapers and wipes. Well low and behold about 3 weeks ago I got an invite in the mail. When I opened it, it was an invitation for my own shower! I was so shocked! Jessica & Erica were hosting the shower for me. They wanted to surprise me, but knew I would want to dress nice so the surprise was when I opened the invite. What great friends I have!!

The shower was at Jessica's house and it was decorated so cute! The colors are Blakely's room (well really Delainey's old room and we added in a touch of teal). Atleast I'm changing a little bit about the nursery! We made bows for Blakely, wrote down some wishes for her, ate some great food, and opened tons of gifts! Majority of the gifts were diapers, which is just what I needed. I'm thinking I won't have to buy diapers till B is around 6 months old! woohoo! Here are some pics of the decor and party. 

All the girl friends together! I am so lucky to have such a great group of girlfriends! 

The lovely family!! 

The hostesses with the mostest!!

New Year's Eve festivities

This is not exactly part of the New Year's eve festivities, but it was too cute not to share. We went to Bucca di Peppo after church 2 sundays ago and got to sit at the table in the kitchen. Delainey loved it! They gave us some free samples, a chefs hat, and we got to watch them cook. Definitely the way to enjoy lunch, keep her occupied :) 

Anyways on to New Years eve day. We headed to the zoo for the Noon Years eve party. It still had all the christmas lights and decorations up so that was nice. We weren't really concerned with the apple juice toast at noon so we just walked around the zoo and saw all of the animals. They did have some other fun activities set up like a bubble dance area, balloon animals, face painting...We also got to watch a Tiger demonstration on how they are trained. That was really cool.

Later that day after naps, we headed to Marcia's for dinner. Delainey is in love with Collier and had so much fun playing with her all night. Too bad they don't live closer bc it would be so great to have a reliable babysitter at the drop of a hat!:) Not that the grandma's aren't fantastic. Sometimes D just likes a little younger person to play with. hahaha

David and I headed out to Jessica and Gregg's to ring in the new year. I even made it up till 2:30 which is pretty impressive! The belly keeps growing! I can't believe we are in 2015, the year Blakely will be born!! It's gonna be a great year!

Christmas Recap 3 - Christmas Day

First of all I would like to mention, how cute did our Christmas plate turn out! I bought a plate from target and porcelain markers from hobby lobby and made our new cookies and milk plate for Santa from the McLaughlin's! Nice job mom! :) 

Christmas morning, everyone came over and we waited for D to wake up. She came running out of her room thrilled that Santa had come. I think she was most fascinated that Santa had eaten the cookies and milk and she didn't. Then she saw the dress up box with made for her and she was in heaven! She literally would try on a dress, we would try to get her to focus and open a present, she would, and then she would go try on another dress. This happened all morning long! 

 Once she finished with presents, I told her Santa had one more big gift for her, but she would have to do a scavenger hunt to find the present. She did awesome! (I included pictures so she knew what I was talking about. ex. this is where you go potty) She would run right to the toilet and find the next clue. The scavenger hunt lead to a bounce house in the garage and she was ecstatic! We will be getting lots of good use out of this!

I even was able to surprise Dave with a new pressure washer which was fun, bc he had no idea what I was getting him.

Here is a picture of the dress up box set up in her room with all her princess dresses.

 After breakfast and playing with our new toys for quite some time, we headed to Gammoe and Dodaddy's house to open gifts from them. Emily got her a light up Elsa dress which could have been her favorite present of the year. She racked up with tons of things from them and then we did a prime rib dinner that afternoon. We were exhausted by the end of the day, but it was so much fun. I can't believe this is our last Christmas as a family of 3. (Santa brought Blakely a few toys too since we already consider her part of the family) The years to come are just going to get better and better!

Christmas Recap 2 - Christmas Eve

In the 2 days leading up to Christmas we stayed very busy! We did last minute shopping with Gammoe and of course her and D had to ride the train around the mall, we had lunch at Olive Garden, we took naps, and we made birthday cupcakes for Jesus. Delainey did almost everything to help make them and she loved it. Her favorite part is breaking the eggs and of course licking the spoon:) 

 On Christmas Eve, Collins came over to play with Delainey for a little bit, then we took naps and headed to church for Christmas Eve service. I'm happy to report we made it through the entire service! We kept bribing her with the candle lighting at the end of the service which was almost about to happen. She actually did really good to sit through an hour and 15 minute service.

 I told you she was fascinated by the candle lighting ceremony!

 After church we headed back to Grammy & Pops for dinner and some Christmas eve games with more presents! The girls got their own pottery barn chairs which are so cute and great for D to sit in by her bookcase and just read her books!

We headed home by 9ish to put out the milk, cookies, and carrot for Santa and Rudolph, read the night before christmas and headed to bed to wait for santa to come. Of course mom and Dad had lots to still set up and cook for the next morning, but we made it to bed not too long after she did.