Workplace Love

Wednesday when I walked into work I was greeted with a loud cheer of "Surprise!" When I rounded the corner I saw that my team had decorated my desk with all things adorable, and had filled my cube with gifts. Seriously, I work with such thoughtful people!! I think they are trying to induce my labor with all these amazing surprises.

Baby girl got hooked up with precious outfits, blankets, socks, headbands, toys, teethers, bottle and nursing supplies and diapers.

J and V's team even pulled together and made that sweet bouquet of baby socks and flowers and gave me a tear-jerker of a card that they gave me later in the week.

After talking things over with the hubs and doc we decided my last day at work will be March 22nd. I'm a mixed bag of emotions about it. One thing I know for sure is that I can't wait to bring in baby girl to meet all of my amazing coworkers friends <3.

Meeting Surprise

Every other week we have a Leadership Meeting at work. This week the Operations Manager sent out an email saying it was going to run long and would have to be a working lunch. We voted on a restaurant and then chose what we wanted off the menu. I was pumped because my restaurant choice "won."

We started our meeting just like normal and then when the food arrived the Operations Manager said we would need to move to the Conference Room because she didn't want any spills and messes all over her desk. When I walked into the Conference Room my jaw dropped. Those little Sneaky McSneakersons had decorated the room and filled it with presents for baby...oh AND there was cake AND balloons!! COME ON...best workday ever. I was totally surprised; I had no clue. They had all been rushing around keeping things on the down low worried that I would suspect something was up, but they totally got me.

I wish I had more pictures but because I'm a good lil worker I don't bring my cell phone to meetings. (I took the photo above once I got home, hence the messy table). We had such a blast - the whole time was filled with laughs. I'm gonna miss this team when I'm gone :-( We're just going to turn a spare office into a daycare right?

Everyone was so generous and thoughtful. We love all of the gifts...they will be put to good use, that's for sure. One of my coworkers wasn't sure what some of the stuff really was so we had fun explaining to him how swaddles and diaper genies work hahah.

Crazy to think I can count on my fingers how many work days I have left.

SURPRISE Virtual Baby Shower

This weekend I got a HUGE surprise. My friends back home organized a virtual baby shower on Google+ Hangouts.

One of my friends joined from a coffee shop in Colorado [ I'm not familiar with the language ;-) ], another from her Chicago apartment, I joined from my home in Washington and the other ladies gathered at a friend's house in Michigan. That's four time zones represented...wowzers!! I love that even though we are geographically spread all over the place, we remain the best of friends <3

I was totally taken by surprise. They coordinated with Tim to have him hide gifts from me that had been arriving. He even hid the cakepops they sent, without sneaking one!

It was the webchat party of the century. The girls decorated onesies that they'll be shipping our way, we all ate "together" and played games. "Guess how big my belly is" was one of the games....turns out I'm not quite 5 feet around as some suspected ;-) We also played a word scramble game where we had to see how many girl names we could come up with by just using letters from my first, middle and last name. We learned I don't have ANY "A"s in my name....who knew! We had some creative spellings for traditional names, and some sassy new age names like Tre'Erin and Le'Christine. We got lots of laughs.

At the end I opened gifts (ya'll are so generous and I'm overwhelmed by your kindness....cannot thank you all enough!!) I showed the girls some "suggestive" birthing positions in one of the books I have, and took them all on a tour of the nursery via webcam. Ahh the wonders of technology.

My friends are more creative and tech savvy than yours :-p xoxox

Road Trip Ready!

A few weeks ago when we were in Oregon we bought our car seat. We figured since we were already down there we may as well take advantage of the tax-free situation for this larger purchase. We knew we wanted to Graco Snugride 35 because we had done our research on it and have friends that love their Graco Snugrides.

Did I mention we scored an awesome deal? So automatically by getting it in Oregon we saved ourselves from the 9.4% tax rate in WA. And we had a 20% off coupon...holla. AND we had a $36 dollar merchandise credit for Babies R Us. Rock On. When all was said and done we got the car seat for half price, which is nothing to sneeze at!

This past weekend we decided to finally take it out of the box and figure it out. Tim installed it in the car and we played with the harnesses and straps to make sure we knew how to adjust everything. Tim will take it to the Fire Station in the coming weeks to have it inspected so that we can get the official stamp of approval to bring her home in it from the hospital. I wonder how many babies hospitals hold hostage because mom and dad don't have a suitable car seat? Probably not many haha. They sure do like to threaten it though. 

I wanted to install our JJ Cole Bundle Me (think warm burrito wrap for baby that attaches to/covers the car seat) that we received as a gift and naturally in pure Erin fashion, I made it 10 times harder than it needed to be. Long story short I pretty much disassembled the entire car seat to try and weave the harnesses through the Bundle Me and then forgot how to put it all back together. There mayyyyy have been some cuss words shouted, and mayyyybe even some tears, and the thought definitely crossed my mind that at some point I might be making a frantic call to 911 asking them to help me unbuckle my child from her carseat because I can't figure it out. Tim ended up figuring it out after we strapped in a stuffed animal to make sure it all worked properly, hahah.

It's silly because I've been around kids my whole life and have never been intimidated by a carseat but now all of a sudden I have this feeling that everything related to this child's life is ultimately my responsibility. Me and Tim are the go-to people in charge of this girl's life. Wowza. 

Thankfully I've got our awesome stroller (Baby Jogger City Mini) fully mastered. We had that baby picked out before we even knew about the bean. Small victories. 

Tea Party Shower

On Saturday a couple of my wonderful friends threw me a Tea Party Baby Shower. It was beyond perfect, and more than I could have ever hoped for! From collectable teacups and countless types of tea to lace and pearls, delicious finger foods and desserts (and of course pink!) the theme and venue were adorable.

We played fun games (word scramble, guess the baby food, guess the candy bar, guess the belly size and don't say "baby") while eating together and some talented ladies won very cute gift bags that the hostesses put together.

Our little one is very blessed to have so many amazing people in her life. She is very loved (and spoiled!) already. Many of my friends at the shower are mamas so they had great advice and bought us some of those "baby essentials." Baby girl even got her first tea party set from the hostesses.

Oh and she will without a doubt be the best dressed baby on the block, hands down.

Thank you everyone for organizing the perfect shower and for going out of your way to make us feel special and super-loved. Words can't express our gratitude <3

Also, many many thanks to our friends and family back east that have been surprising us with packages  in the mail for the baby! Ya'll are too generous and we love you.

Registry Time

Our registries have been a work in progress for over a month now. We're learning what we need (or don't need) and what our preferences are. Truth be told registering wasn't all fun and games! All of the choices were overwhelming at times!

How are we supposed to know if the little one prefers this bottle or that one?! We haven't even met the girl yet!

We did learn to register for things that the little girl will need over the course of the next year or more, not just what she'll need in the first few months.

We are registered at Amazon.com and Babies "R"Us . If you're interested and check out the registries you'll notice we didn't register for specific clothing items because let's face it, everything is adorable.