Our First Baby Shower 4.17.16 {32 weeks}

My sweet baby boy and I were blessed with our very first baby shower last Sunday. 

Some girls from Sunday School decided to throw a shower for us and it was so sweet! 

I'll admit I was a little nervous about the turn out, because even though we have lived in Conway for going on 4 years now, it has taken us a while to get plugged in and for us to start thinking of Conway as "home." 

My husband always says we sleep in Conway but we live in Little Rock, which, most days, couldn't be more true. 

Someone once told my parents (who also live here) that it takes about 7 years to get plugged in here. That really just blows my mind. I can't believe we live in a society where it would take someone, a family with kids of varying ages at that, SEVEN YEARS to feel like they fit in somewhere. :(

God has provided us with a great church home while we have been living here. I get that everyone is in a busy season of life, especially those around our age, so it's hard to connect and change up routine. Everyone is having babies, just really getting into our careers, and trying to find where they "fit" into it all. 

I believe I was the one who asked/begged my mom to go to our church choir practice with me after we (Aaron and I) had been at the church for a little over a year (ish) that we could just kind of scope it out….and we've been going ever since.
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Let's back track for a second…

Our Sunday School class, the one we currently are a part of, has changed A LOT the past few years. 

Our first Sunday to visit the class, we walked into a room of sobbing people, completely heartbroken people. As it turned out, they had a young husband/father lose his wife that morning due to an undiagnosed heart condition. So they, obviously, made plans to leave ASAP for the hospital to be with their fellow class member and his family. Aaron and I were (probably) big-eyed and left the room with them, and then we wandered around in the hall and tried to put together what had just happened. Our associate pastor at the time, who had brought us to the room, found us and apologized profusely and offered to take us to another class for the morning. We (obviously) declined and walked out to our car and ended up getting coffee and discussing how this was probably our "sign" (along with a few others) that this class, this church, was NOT the place for us. 

BUT... we did eventually go back to that church and that class, after visiting other churches and classes for a while. 

And we stayed.

As much as my hubs and I have discussed how sometimes our class has felt a little different at times, with all of the different people and stories, I think that God has put us here for now and for a reason.
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Our sweet class is all about some babies and baby showers this year. We have had two sweet babies join us this year so far, and we have at least five (that we know of) coming over the summer and in the fall. All the current pregos (minus one) know we are having BOYS. The most recent baby (born a few weeks ago) was a BOY. It's the summer of boys. I think it's Mother Nature making up for all of the baby girls born over the last year and a half. :) 

We are very excited about our little boy. It is wonderful that we have people who are excited for us (and for my parents) and want to celebrate that. 

At our shower, it was a hodge podge of people, but it was completely comfortable. We had people of my class, people from choir, people from the church, and people that didn't even really know ME, but know my parents and wanted to celebrate with us. It was so wonderful. I can't thank the girls enough. We came home with a LOT of stuff, which is funny because my husband used to think that babies didn't really require a whole lot of STUFF. :)

Don't get me wrong, he is SUPER excited and is now wanting to shop for our baby constantly. It's awesome :)

my fantastic hostesses

my mom :)

delicious bow tie cookies 

I am just so tickled and feeling lots of love! We are ready for our little nugget to make his arrival, in several more weeks of course ;)

'Tis the Season,
Holly

Lucky 13 & a Cold

I reached my 13 week of pregnancy mark on Dec. 13th, which was also my birthday. 

We had our church Christmas program the same day.

Oh, and also our Sunday school class Christmas party.

We had a full day, which, in all honesty, is fine with me. The "older" I get, the less I care about making my birthday a big to-do. I actually don't know if I've ever really wanted a huge fuss over my birthday. Probably because that's how my family has always treated birthdays.  They are special days, where you definitely feel loved, but it's no parade with fireworks. 

And I'm fine with that. 

Back to Sunday,

We had our Christmas program at church. The day before, my mom had bought us all tickets for The Living Christmas Tree at First Baptist in Little Rock.  It was fantastic and I'm glad that most of our family (minus Logan and Morgan- boo to finals!) was able to come and enjoy it together.  I teared up a couple times - it doesn't take much lately - but the choir was SO good. I am a sucker for the old Christmas classics.

We ate at Chuy's (my pick) after the show.  My dad was the only one that had never been there and I do believe that he enjoyed himself. ;)

My baby brother Clark had to go back to OBU after dinner because he had to study for finals coming up, and when he told me to have a happy birthday and that he'd see me soon, I had to quickly say goodbye because I almost lost it again in the parking lot. 

baby brother

These pregnancy hormones, YALL :| 

Oh, yeah….our Christmas program. 

I think it went well, despite my husband saying that a few of the songs were a little long (insert eye-roll here). We had several testimonies shared…they were tear-jerkers….and I'm not just saying that because I am hormonal, because even grown men in the church were wiping their eyes. 

I was a hot mess by the time the second service ended. A HOT MESS.

I'm sure the video will be attractive LOL!

That afternoon, we had our SS class Christmas party. It's always fun to get together with that group. The only "negative" thing is that our class has grown so much in the past few months, that is hard for me to remember everyones name and what they do and which kid belongs to which family.  I blame pregnancy brain… I think it's a real thing. But our party went well, we played dirty santa/white elephant, and ate some delicious food.

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Monday morning rolled around and I did not feel good, but I went to work anyway.

Monday evening came and I was miserable. 

I had "caught" a cold. 

Tuesday and Wednesday were not pretty days. I decided to call into work on Thursday because I felt like I did not need to go in sneezing and with a hacking cough when I have to work with sick babies. SOME people I work with don't care about that, because either they don't want to miss work or they simply can't afford to miss work. But it still irks me because I feel like everyone is just passing it from one person to the next.

But I digress…

As I'm typing this, it's Friday. I work Sat-Mon and so I am praying that I can just make it through the next three days without getting worse and hopefully all this sinus mess will finally go away. I am already feeling like I can almost breathe normally again, so here's to getting well!

I hope the {few} that read this are staying happy and healthy this week!

'Tis the Season,

Holly