Unexpectedly Great Birthday

John's mom passed away Thursday so I was expecting this birthday to be a pretty bad one. We had decided not to head to Arkansas until Sunday morning because our friends were giving us a baby shower today and Shelly's family couldn't make it until then anyway. To start the day we headed to Kate's baby shower. Let me just say it is so much more fun when you can have the baby at the shower. One of the advantages of only having five days notice that you are having a baby. Our friend Ashleigh threw us the most fantastic shower. The food was great, we got some wonderful gifts, and best of all most of my favorite people were there.

Jennifer's mom Janie. I spent many nights at their house growing up. I even had my own bedroom.

Jennifer saying "Her fingers are so tiny!"

the boys that were drug to the shower. love you guys!

So happy to see Melissa at the shower. It had been a while (if you read this we definitely need to get together)

Isn't he adorable. I know Jacob and Kate are going to be buddies. In fact so many of my friends have children within a year of Kate and I am so excited about them growing up together.

Of course Annie had to help open the presents.

Doesn't John look excited?

Kate hasn't quite gotten the hang of sitting up straight and smiling for the camera and we haven't quite gotten the hang of how to hold her for a good family pose.

After the shower Jennifer surprised me by having everyone meet at TaMolly's for a birthday lunch. I walked in and saw John Greninger sitting inside and I said "Hi John. Are you eating with anyone? If not you are free to join us." He was just like uhhhh. Then Jennifer told me surprise! he was there to eat with us. It was fun to see everyone. After lunch we took Cody, Gwen, and Jennifer on a tour through our almost completed house. We had to hustle because Annie was cheering in the GCS homecoming half-time show. She was so cute and did such a good job. Sad to say though that Jennifer and I were the only ones representing our class. Never thought we would be the class of '98 representatives.

I don't see any of the other girls doing this move.

On a side note Dad told me that some of the cheerleaders came up to him and said your granddaughter is so cute but when we would try to teach her the cheers she would say no I think I'll do it this way and then do the cheer however she wanted.

We left immediately after half-time and Jennifer came over to visit for a while. John and I still had very sad hearts but thank you friends for bringing some joy to my birthday.