Little Bean's Sweet Shower Weekend

This past weekend was wonderfully busy! We went to Winnsboro for our baby shower hosted by Josh's Mom, Tammy. It was a great time of friends and fellowship. We enjoyed quick but sweet time with family, and were once again overwhelmingly blessed by the generosity of others. We are tremendously grateful for the abundance showered on us by our families and the women of Crooked Run Church!!

The Beautiful "Bean" cake to match the invitations!

We enjoyed such yummie food :)

Beautiful women!

Cute...cute....cute!

Hunter green baby crocks!

The women were amazed by our "modern" cloth diapers!!!!!

They each had a fun story of how it was when THEY used pins and folded :)

See how EASY it is...SNAPS :)

Outfit to match the theme: "Peas on Earth", so cute!

Gerber, baby!

So sweet

To continue the creative "Little Bean" theme, Tammy made the cutest 

"Bean Bags" as thank you gifts!! 

After the shower we had the chance to go out to dinner with David & Tree and Josh's brothers! Little Bean's grandparents came all the way down from Virginia for the shower!!! How wonderful! It was a super fast visit, but a very sweet time :)

Here we grow....

We attended our final childbirth class on Sunday afternoon. We had the opportunity to walk a labyrinth. The journey, as lead by Josh, took me around turns and through long walks, which brought us to the center..where we got to meet our Baby!!!!! As I rounded each corner I got more and more excited. Josh encouraged me to keep breathing and coached me through the hardest parts near the end (tough contractions, etc.) When we arrived in the middle I nearly cried with PURE JOY at the thought of seeing our sweet baby and hearing him cry for the first time!!!! The journey back out, as lead by me, was to represent our entrance into parenthood and the walk through Wesley's growing up. It was all such a neat metaphor for how the Lord will guide Josh and me through raising Wesley in His ways! 

And after a 5-hour long childbirthing class, what better to do than enjoy a YUMMIE meal with My Dad!!!! :) Grandaddy Ed came to town on Sunday evening and met us downtown for a special supper. Conversation was fun as we talked about how big my belly is getting, and felt and watched Little Bean swimming around in there with my scrumptious flounder dinner :)

Thank you ALL for a Fantastic weekend!!!!!

35 weeks..catch up!

Oh wow oh wow...where to begin! We are 35 weeks in to the pregnancy this week, and it is REALLY beginning to sink in that SOON we are going to have a BABY! We are, of course, excited and anxious all at the same time. We are looking forward to meeting this little man! Josh and I have tried to be intentional about spending as much quality time together as we can, realizing that things are about to change! So today we took lunch to the park :)

This is my..oh my goodness, is he really going to only put on weight for the next 5 weeks, face.

My handy husband put up the clothesline AND the curtain rods, yeppieee!

On March 14th the wonderful women from work had a lovely baby shower for us. Kim and Deanna were beautiful hostesses, and the shower was a HUGE blessing! We were given SO MANY amazing gifts and just could not thank everyone enough! The food was awesome (especially my favorite, the fruit pizza), the company was wonderful, and the blessings abundant! Josh & I (and Little Bean) are tremendously thankful to the girls from the nursery!

Thank YOU ALL!

As a game, they all had to put paper plates on their heads and draw what they think Wesley will look like...

It was SO FUNNY!!! And hard to choose a winner! I also found it interesting that everyone gave him curly hair...humm...had never thought of that!!!!!! FUN!

Their "group gift" was our whole travel system!  stroller + carseat + base 

WOW LADIES!!!!! Thank you :)

.....and this is what Josh did while I enjoyed the baby shower....

Josh had a lovely time skiing and vacationing in Colorado with friends :)

Thanks for keeping up with us and in touch with us. We appreciate your love, prayers, and encouragement!! We love you all very much :)

J&L&W

Wonderful Women in our Church

The last I heard, there are 11 women in our church who are currently pregnant, plus three who just delivered - and one was a set of triplets!!! God is showing Himself to be VERY faithful amongst us! The women of Redeemer Presbyterian are absolutely amazing. They have welcomed me for nearly 7 years now! They embraced Josh & me as a couple with open arms. And now they have lavishly showered us with prayer, encouragement, love, and pointers as we prepare to welcome our baby Wesley into the covenant family. 

The Redeemer showers are not your typical baby showers. They have a different twist. They seek to bestow upon the mother-to-be warm words of encouragement, wisdom, and warnings as well. They include a time of open sharing in which any woman present is welcome to share advice, tips, tools, or even a funny story. Another special part of the shower that happens quietly during the time together is that a little journal is passed around and the women write their thoughts and wisdom in their words that they later share out loud. Along with the insight comes a basket full of anonymous gifts, so sweet! I just love these women! 

I was just thinking today how very special it is that the Lord has coordinated His perfect timing in each of our lives to bring this group of women together. How neat that there are so many covenant children who will all be born so close together. And what a great opportunity for the women in our church to be united by such CUTE little beings and common life-changing events! Praise the Lord :)

The beautiful cake, it was scrumptious!

Lee, Me, & Laura

Me, Beth, & Alla

"There is nothing more amazing & beautiful than seeing your lives duplicated in the life of your child; seeing yourself will take you to new heights as well as depths than you ever thought possible" Kathy Bailey