Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Bedknobs, Broomsticks & other Implements of Destruction

Turning toward the home stretch this week. Getting ready for X-mas insanity/fun and then onto the New Year, where we will be celebrating in DC again.

For those of you who don't know, last year we said our vows again at the Catholic church we attend (gotta keep those priests happy). We did this on December 30th (my parents' anniversary), and then spent the next few days in DC together. The best part was a James Bond themed NY Eve party at the hotel. It was awesome. 10 different rooms with different themes from some of the more memorable Bond movies, and 2 Bonds (one looked like an older Sean Connery, the other looked like Pierce Brosnan). Great fun.

This year, we're going to take Greg with us. This will be one of his "big" presents. We're going to stay the night and then hit all the big landmarks. Should be a good time as long as the weather holds out.

This will also be the last trip of any kind for some while (and the last for a VERY long time without needing a stroller, diaper bag, change of clothes (or six), bottles, formula, pacifier & various assortments of ointments and powders, not to mention a baby!)

So bring on the holidays! And have a blessed Christmas and New Year!

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Loooong time to Wait

I'm really sorry. We're in full blown pregnancy preparations right now and it's been tough to sit and think about all the craziness to generate a coherent post. But here I am now, so be prepared for a long one. :)

We had the baby shower on the 29th of November. Our Thanksgiving weekend was thankfully mild in the traveling and hectic-family-seeing-department, so the party itself was still a lot of fun to put together and run.

We started off with the Pledge of Allegiance (if you forget, it was a school theme, so I was playing it to the hilt!) and announcements. For those of you who missed them, they are as follows;



  • Our friends Tom and Nellie Hewitt will be the God-Parents.

  • The baby is due (for those who didn't know) late February

  • Due to a New Jersey mandate to crack down on the spread of H1N1 (Swine Flu Baby!), no one under the age of 17 will be allowed into a hospital. The only people who are exempt are a pregnant mother or the father of the baby. Needless to say, Greg (who is 13) is severely bummed .

  • Please check the registry if you plan on getting anything for the baby for x-mas or afterwards. Still LOTS of stuff on there.
And finally, probably the most significant announcement since we found out we were having a girl;

Our little baby's name will be Victoria Rose Spalding. Nicknames we like are Tori, Via (my personal favorite) & Vikki (only if the other two are soooo painful to use that you can't help yourself, but if you do, two Ks please :p ).

There was much debate and suggestions emailed, texted, smoke-signaled back and forth, but we feel this is the perfect name for our little one and we are very excited to meet her soon!

So, on with the rest of the shower! Here's a pic of the cake!





Very cute birth sweater with matching knit cap and booties! The best part is we had the colors match the blanket my grandmother (soon to be 89 years old) knitted for us. As for the rest of the food, we had sloppy-joes, mac and cheese made by my Aunt Mary (very delish), Ants-On-A-Log (for those of you who don't know, that's celery with peanut butter in the middle and then raisins dotted on top) which was a surprise hit, and PB&J for the kids. We brought cookie cutters and made doggie, butterfly & various other animal shapes out of the sandwiches. My 5 year old niece Marissa acted as human vacuum cleaner for the scraps. :p

After that, it was on to the games! We had a word find and we played a game to measure the size of Bea's belly (36 1/4 inches, which Barbara's father guessed exactly! and her mom came in second at 36", funny that). We also handed out Old Maid cards to everyone at the beginning of the program. When we asked, everyone flipped their cards over. Whoever had the Old Maid (there were 4 of them in all) got to come up to the front and play a game of old maid. We made them wear the silliest looking hats (made by Bea's mom Debbie) and while they were playing, everyone else played an Old Wives' Tale Trivia where they had to guess if the Old Wives' Tale meant you were having a boy or a girl. Barbara's grandmother won that one (go figure, the oldest person in the room knew the old wives' tales the best). Barbara's cousin Nikki won the Old Maid hand and won a nice little jewelry box shaped like a pin cushion (a lot nicer than it may sound).

After all the festivities it was time to play Baby Bingo as Barbara opened the gifts! Lots of gifts, lots of laughs and in general, everyone had a great time! I'm so grateful to all the help I got from Nellie, my mom and sister, Bea's mom, Aunt Brenda, Aunt Mary and the host of people who helped set up that day.

And a special thanks to my two helpers, Greg and Lexi (Nellie's daughter) for helping hand out all the paper I was throwing at people and collecting them when they were done. They were oh so helpful with the little ones too (which was no mean feat as there were about 10 or 12 ranging from 5 down to 1!)

It went really well, and I will have no problem letting someone else take the next child's baby shower!! :p

Eventually I'll get some more pics up. And tomorrow I'll post the new updates as they've come up in the last half a month.