a {surprise} birthday

This past weekend, I threw a surprise birthday party for my friend. We invited a bunch of good friends from Grace and Peace to celebrate and she was indeed SO surprised! 

Decorating ideas ran wild in my head and I planned weeks in advance to make sure I had things done before I got too pregnant, but in the end, I came to terms with the fact that I am going to give birth in two weeks so a couple fabric flower banners and streamers and minimal decorating fluff will be alright! and it was :) 

Happy Birthday to Stacey!

A {magical} baby shower

This past weekend, my good friends threw me a baby shower inviting all our family from church and neighbors. I was particularly excited for this shower because I love so dearly our church fellowship and it would be the first official "event" at my best friends new house! (new to them, the house was built in the 1800's) Its a fabulous home and perfectly cozy for a baby shower celebration :)

All of the decorations, from the flowers to the antique children's building blocks, to the doilies hanging from corner to corner, it was exquisite. the spread of delicious butternut squash soup, breads, cupcakes with raspberry whipped cream, candies, fruit, truffles, homemade chocolate ice cream, coffee cakes, and more! was astounding.  

So much effort and thoughtfulness went into every little detail that I think back and can't really believe that was my shower :) 

These were the fabulous hostesses and magic workers of the lovely celebration. Two of the most sweetest, humble, and incredibly loving women I know.  

Side note: I am 37 weeks this coming Sunday. Dilated to a 1 cm and 80% effaced. Hooray! 

Have you ever seen anything more lovely?! I am so humbled by the great love of my friends shown through such a beautiful and welcoming event. It is one that I will most certainly never forget :)

For baby Cora

These were a gift from a friend at work. She found them on Etsy and I absolutely *love* them!

Lemon cream ice cream

Homemade lemon cream ice cream is this weekends new flavor...happy weekend!

33 weeks

*33 weeks*

It's difficult to see where my belly ends but you can tell if you looks closely :) It's getting a little harder to move around from day to day. She is so heavy and I know she has a lot more growing to do, Lord willing. However I'm not having any trouble sleeping or working so that's a plus. She might wake me up at 3 am with kicks and movements but we both fall back asleep soon. It's fun to have a schedule with her already. Her active times and sleeping patterns are always the same everyday. I love it. 

So my doula noticed I was scratching my belly at church one Sunday and she mentioned that I should try using coconut oil. I mentioned it in my last post too. I took a trip to Costco today after work because we were out of our bulk items like TP and Jonathan's peanut butter. So I got the usual costco purchases, Kerrygold Irish butter (its the best butter in the world!) cat food, bulk rice, a 50 pound bag of bread flour for all our homemade bread-making, + this bulk coconut oil!

I had a little coconut oil that we use for cooking from Trader Joes (its great because its such a heat-stable oil) but when my doula mentioned it to use on my belly, I didn't realize it was literally the same stuff. Who really thinks about smearing themselves with cooking products? well now I do and I love it. It's made my skin so super soft and it absorbs so quickly. I use it all over right out of the shower. (Well I cant reach my legs and feet so well right now so I just ignore them.) I'm also using it on this nasty burn I recently acquired on my hand from the oven, and it's healing really fast!

Anyway, I was just excited about costco carrying it now so thought I'd share!