A great weekend!

This past weekend was spectacular! It was both Mark's birthday and my final baby shower. We were blessed to have several of Mark's family members come into town for the celebration. Several arrived in Indy on Friday night and we had a great dinner at Mark's parents' home--they were amazing hosts the ENTIRE weekend!

With Grace/Graff's Great Grandmas

Daisy loves to celebrate Mark's Birthday!

Saturday was Mark's 30th birthday (yes THIRTY!!!) . He commemorated the milestone by running in the Indianapolis Marathon that morning. His sister, Amy, and cousin, Brian, ran the first half of the marathon with him which helped considerably! This was his 11th marathon. He is a member of the 50 States Club and his goal is to run a marathon in each of the 50 states. A highlight of the race was Mark seeing the Governor of Indiana standing on the corner cheering on the racers. Governor Daniels is an alum of Mark's highschool so of course Mark gave North Central a shout out!


Post-marathon we had another great evening at the Williams' house. Fun times with family and friends--lots of food, playing of Bags, and watching babies.

Grace/Graff's friends can't wait for her/his arrival!
Shanna and Gabe, Jill and Noah, and Joy and Caleb

The girl cousins--Lynn, Shanna, Anne, Gloria, Joy, Amy, and I

The soon-to-be grandmas!

The final party was on Sunday. Mark's family put on a fabulous shower for Baby Grace/Graff and me. They thought of all the little details. It was a delicious meal, the tables were gorgeous (complete with little bags of green and yellow M&M's with the names Grace and Graff imprinted on them!), the cake was both delicious and beautiful, and the entryway had an adorable diaper cake courtesy of Aunt Janet (notice the Hawkeye on the pacifier in the giraffe's mouth!). It was a great afternoon with all of the Williams/Hone families and all of the Williams' family friends who I have been so blessed to get to know over the years!

All the hostesses--GG Hone, Amy, Aunt Janet, Aunt Julie,
Aunt Barb, and Soon-to-be Grandma Williams

All of the Grandmas

This was the biggest surprise of the shower. Mark's mom made this quilt for Grace/Graff. The fabric is based on the Hungry Caterpillar book and is absolutely adorable. There were two matching pillows and the book with a little stuffed caterpillar. It was simply adorable and will definitely be something that Baby will cherish for years to come.

What an amazing weekend and what a fabulous family we have! Grace/Graff is so lucky to be joining such a great group!

The Williams boys--Brian, Caleb and Mark

The cousins: Shanna, Anne, Brian, Greg, Amy,
E, Mark, Lynn, Caleb, Rick and Lynn

One month to go!

Well it's October 13th--that means we're exactly one month (or 31 days) from our due date!!! We are getting so excited! We had a doctor's appointment last Thursday and are now on the weekly schedule--another sign that we are nearing the end of pregnancy and the beginning of parenthood. The appointment went well and calmed many of my fears. First, the baby is still in position and the doctor indicated that the chance of it flipping out of position is only 1%--not bad odds. The other piece of good news is that the doctor thinks the baby is about 4 1/2 to 5 lbs right now. Since at this point babies typically gain 1/2 lb. a week, he is predicting the baby will be beteen 7 and 8 lbs. Perfect size!

With the big day feeling closer and closer, we have been busy doing things around the house to prepare. To start with, we finally got our curtains hung in the nursery and put a new fan up. Doesn't it look better than the old black one?

We are still waiting for the crib and dresser to come in but we did receive a small pillow so we were able to put the sham on it. This gives you an idea of what the bedding looks like. Aren't the bees cute?


Since we don't have the crib yet, and we want Baby close by for at least the first month or two, we borrowed a bassinet. It's all set up in our bedroom just in case Baby decides to come early.


While we've been working on projects in the Baby's room, Daisy has found her new favorite spot. We got her a doggy bed for the Baby's room. Some of the people in our lamaze class have worked on training their dogs to stay out of the nursery but I think Daisy will adjust much better to having Baby in the house if she's able to be included, so here she is on her bed in the nursery.

Speaking of Daisy, Mark was able to catch this picture of her last week as she and I were relaxing. She already loves little Grace/Graff!


In other exciting news, we celebrated my birthday this past weekend. The last one in my twenties--yikes!!! Mark planned a great date night on Friday. We went to a corn maze just south of Lafayette. I had always wanted to do one and this one was amazing! It was perfect weather for a walk through the corn. We then went to dinner at a restaurant we had never tried in a nearby little town and caught a late movie (The Duchess--I'd recommend it, not Mark's cup of tea, though). Mark also surprised me with a perfect birthday gift--a digital video camera. It's one of the Flip cameras which captures everything right on the camera and has a USB thingy that pops out and downloads right to your computer. It will be perfect for catching all of Baby's special moments and sharing them with friends and family! The celebration continued Saturday night (yes--I definitely felt spoiled!) with dinner and a visit to Comedy Sportz in Indianapolis with Mark's family. Dinner was at a new tapas restaurant downtown, Zing, and believe it or not the weather was nice enough for us to sit on the balcony. Good food and great company :-) A very fun weekend, indeed!