Baby Fred - Baby Shower!!

Last Sunday, my sister along with the help of some other family members, threw me and the little baby inside of me a fabulous baby shower!

Who's excited for this baby to be here?!?!
THIS girl!!

When the guests came into the shower, they chose whether they thought "Baby Fred" is a boy or a girl and then hold the respective flower and take a picture with me. Each of the pictures will then go into the guest book next to some other fun things that each guest filled out for the shower.

After taking their picture with me, each guest filled out a prediction sheet of when they thought the baby would grace us with his/her presence, what they thought their length and weight would be, and then gave a name suggestion for our little one. The dates of birth ranged from August 6 to August 22nd. (I did notice no one picked August 13th!! No Friday the 13th birthdays for our baby! haha) I'm thinking it's going to be more towards the 22nd, so we'll see who's right in the end!!

Each person also filled out a little sheet where they wrote down things that they wished for the baby and wrote down some advice for me as well! Trent and I read through them the other night and there were some really good things in there! Some very sweet, some very practical and some a little humorous!! It will be fun to go back through it from time to time over the years!

Everyone doing their "homework" and enjoying some food!

While everyone filled out their cards and ate some food, I opened some presents. Baby Fred got quite a lot of good stuff and I can't wait to actually have a baby here to use all this great stuff. We're pretty lucky to have such generous and loving people in our lives! 

The rest of the shower was spent talking and eating and imagining and telling stories about the guests' children and fun stuff like that! One of my very favorite friends, Grace, was in the area with her family as well, so she stopped by at the end of the shower with her family. This meant that I got to meet her little baby girl, Eliana, who was just born in April. Talk about a cherry on top of the already great day!!

It was such a fun day that I can't believe has already passed! Who would have already had a baby shower for this baby and in a few months he or she will be here with us!!

A HUGE thank you to my sister for making the day so great and planning the whole shower. It was amazing!

And thank you to the rest of my family members who helped my sister out with pulling off the great shower and to everyone who came to the shower and made our little growing family feel so loved! 

And now we wait for the baby's arrival!

Grandpa Kock and Uncle Nick stopped by the shower too! 

(Uncle Dan did too, but he left right as the picture taking was beginning)

#1 Grandpa

A few weeks ago when I went back home to visit my mom for the weekend, I finally had the chance to go out to my dad's grave site and hang up the flag I got for him. 

I miss my dad all of the time, but when I think about actually getting to hold our baby in my hands, it's very easy for me to think about how I'll never get to see my dad hold our baby in his big, strong hands. I imagine that my dad would be to my kids (and Kellsey and Jared's) like Grandpa Kock was to us. He'd be fun and goofy and play off his toughness to "scare" them, just to make them laugh about it afterwards. Of course, he'd tell them lots of inappropriate (but clean) jokes - like "How do you know that the flat cat had blue eyes? Because when it got run over, one blew one way and one blew the other" (Grandpa Kock will have to correct me on that one if I'm telling that wrong!) He'd love to play with them and watch them grow up and he'd be there for all the fun activities in their lives! I can just imagine all the basketball advice they would have gotten at a very young age! Most importantly, I know he would have done anything for them, just like he did for us growing up, and would have loved them so very much!!

There's so much that our kids could learn from him. Now it will be up to all of us who knew him to pass on what we know of him to his grandkids and teach them all about the wonderful man he was! I know he'll be watching over all his little ones and will be proud of the people they become!

Five on Friday and a Favorite Song {03.13.2015}

This was supposed to go up last Friday, but it ended up being a super busy day at work and that just carried into the evening, so it never got done. So I mixed some of last week's stuff with this week's stuff and called it good!

ONE.

Last weekend, some of my best friends and I met up in Omaha for a little girl time. We all met at the mall and did a little looking/shopping and a lot of talking. Some of us then got our nails done and went out to eat at Roja before retiring for the night at Lauren's. These girls' weekends are usually very late nights, but I don't think many of us made it to midnight... we decided that we need to start our girls' weekend earlier in the day next time!
 

 

TWO.
When Mattie and Millie eat, they usually like to take turns so that they can watch each other. This really makes the whole process take longer than it needs to, but as long as it gets done, I guess... I think it's so cute and funny when Mattie's eating and Millie is watching her because Millie will get as close as she can to Mattie and her bowl of food. This happened, as usual, the other evening when I was feeding them (I usually only feed them in the morning because Trent gets home from work before me), so I had to get a picture of it.

 

THREE.

I have been thinking a lot lately about what it will be like to actually meet our baby. It's crazy to think about them actually being here (on the outside of me) and seeing their little face and hands. When I think about it, I really just feel like I am going to cry every time I see them! I just cannot imagine what it will be like to hold a baby that is all ours and we will be their mom and dad!! August really feels so far away! I love this baby so much already, I just can't fathom what it's going to be like to meet them for the first time!!! Ah!

FOUR.

Last week, I purchased the Eyefi Mobi SD Card for my camera. It basically acts as a wi-fi hotspot so when you take pictures, it can connects and uploads them right to your phone without having to get out my computer and upload them there before uploading them to my blog. Normally waiting to upload them isn't such a bad thing, but I bought it for when I take my weekly pregnancy update photos in the mornings so I can get the pictures and the blog post posted during the day without having to hassle with getting out my computer in the mornings (because I would never have time for that anyway... I like to sleep too much). It's not quite as slick as I was hoping it would be, as it kind of takes a long time to connect at times, but so far it has gotten the job done. I think it will be fun to use when I want to take pictures of our little baby with my good camera and be able to share them without having to find time to get my computer out and all that jazz.

 

FIVE.
This song is on Jeremy Camp's latest album and is, of course, a new favorite. (Is anyone surprised? I didn't think so...) I put some of my favorite lyrics below, but it's definitely worth a listen!

Same Power - Jeremy Camp

The same power that rose Jesus from the grave

The same power that commands the dead to wake

Lives in us, lives in us

The same power that moves mountains when He speaks

The same power that can calm a raging sea

Lives in us, lives in us

He lives in us, lives in us

 

We have hope. That His promises are true

In His strength. There is nothing we can’t do

Yes, we know. There are greater things in store

We will not be overtaken. We will not be overcome

 

Greater is He that is living in me

He’s conquered our enemy

No power of darkness

No weapon prevails

We stand here in victory

Five on Friday {02.20.2014}

ONE.

We have a graduate in the house!!! Millie graduated from Beginner Puppy Training on Sunday! They had a little final where we went around the PetSmart store and took turns doing all the things they'd learned and then celebrated with some puppy-safe ice cream. Only three of the dogs from her class were there that day, but I kind of think that was better because it was hard enough to get those three to sit still for the picture!! She's still got a lot of puppy in her and a lot to work on, but it was a nice start to get her trained and more Mattie-like. :)

Millie with her graduation cap on!

Millie and two of her classmates and their owners

Eating her ice cream

TWO.

Lauren sent me this picture last weekend showing the size of our little baby! That's still so hard to believe!! I can't wait to snuggle our little baby for real (when it's much bigger, of course).

THREE.

I didn't have to work on Monday because it was President's Day! That meant I got to stay home with the dogs all day. The days always go by so much faster when I'm at home!! 

I'm sure me being home messes up Mattie's routine for the day, but she still found plenty of time to sleep on Monday I think.

FOUR.

I started my new Bible study at Christ Community Church at the end of January. I was reunited with most of the ladies that I did the Bible study on 1 and 2 Thessalonians with back in the fall and it's awesome. This study is once again done by Beth Moore and this one is called A Woman's Heart: God's Dwelling Place and is all about The Tabernacle. I have already learned so much in the first few weeks and I can't wait to get even farther into it. 

FIVE.

I may have bought these headbands yesterday... juuuust in case we have a girl :)

I figured I could always give them away if we don't have a girl, but they were too cute to pass up!

I probably should start working on getting useful things that we need for the baby rather than things like this that we have a 50% chance of needing in the end... but oh well. That'd be far to practical!