showered! again!

Tim and I were insanely blessed last weekend to have another shower thrown for us by dear family and friends. Paul and Amanda really outdid themselves with the planning, decor, food, games, and so many much needed gifts.

It was such a sweet time of fellowship with our closest friends in Wheaton. We almost forgot to stop partying to open presents.  

I'm not usually one for shower games (I probably made one too many toilet paper wedding dresses in my time), but these games were cool. The top photo is the baby picture game. Every attendee brought a baby picture of themselves and we had to guess who was who, with the help of a name bank. The below photo is The Price is Right, where everyone had to guess how much all the combined items cost. I probably loved this game because I got to take home all the items at the end :) They were mostly things that I didn't know I needed (butt paste? portable diaper trash bags? special baby Q-tips?) or didn't know which brand to buy (diapers and pacifiers: I had no idea where to even start), so walking out of there with it all bagged up for me was really helpful. 

Amazing cake, no? You should make friends with your local Whole Foods Cake Decorator and invite him to your parties. That's what we do.

Fall wardrobe tip: these cardigans are at Target and they're like $22. All your friends are wearing them...or maybe that's just me.

Really, it was such a swell time. Tim and I walked away that night feeling our first sense of "readiness" for New Tab to arrive. Between our own purchases, the two showers, and some early Christmas presents, we have all the must-haves: crib, stroller, car-seat, rocking chair, a few gender neutral outfits to get us started, some nursing and diapering essentials...that's all you need to bring home a baby, right? I hope so.

A word about the registry process: it was so overwhelming for me! And as I got started with some  early research on products I had a sneaking suspicion that the baby industry was out to try to fool me into thinking I had to have all their stuff just as like the wedding industry tried to do. Sneaky advertising campaigns. Plus, I just didn't have the time to tackle it during wedding season. My solution was to hand the bar-code scanner to my mother. I figured; she raised three babies, she knows what I need better than I do. We chose a nationwide chain store (Target) because she's in Florida and I'm in Illinois, and she picked out all of the things she knew I would really need. It turned out to be a great experience for her to get into the groove of grandmotherhood and it helped me so much. Then I went online and made the changes I wanted to the registry that she started for me. I also paid attention to what my friends use the most with their babies, asked them lots of questions, and even looked up their still-active registries online for specific product information when I needed it.