Two Tiny Hands, Two Tiny Feet

Saturday, June 23rd we had a baby shower in Loomis!

(I'm posting these a little out of order - the Fair Oaks baby shower was June 9th, but don't worry, I'll post about that one next)

My bestie, Breanna put together the WHOLE shower and worked on this party for months. She said it is probably the most crafty thing she has ever done, and I would have to agree. She has come a long way since working at Bev's and I'm so proud of her!

Grey and Yellow has been my favorite color combination over the past year, so I was very excited when Breanna decided to theme the whole shower in those colors.

Look how cute this dessert table is! The banner says "baby alston" and the table runner is even in cute grey and yellow fabric:

Breanna made silver tissue pom poms to alternate with the yellow paper lanterns above the gift table:

 

The cupcake inserts all said "baby alston 2012" or "sweet love"

Some of my FAVORITE candies - sour patch kids and sour green apple straws. YUM!

All of the treats were delicious! Banana dark chocolate raspberry bites, strawberry pound-cake kabobs, pumpkin pie dip, apples with caramel sauce, chocolate chip cookies, rice krispy treat pops...

A big surprise at the shower was that Jon had made this guest book for people to write advice in. He even tea-dyed the pages. I absolutely love it! And everyone's advice was fantastic :)

Cute water bottles, napkins and plates:

 

 

Welcome Baby Alston 2012!

Me and my camera-baby :) I'm pretty sure I had a strawberry in my mouth...

I was so glad to have my mom and sister there!

Bailey girls:

 

And it was awesome to have Jon's mom, Chris there! (sister-in-law Beth was there in spirit of Dr. Seuss)

The shower was also full of fantastic friends. I'm so glad that Nicole was in town from San Diego!

Nicole again with my friend Liz's mom and sister, Kathy and Becky:

Sarah!! I love this gal :)

Sarah again with my friend Betsy's mom, Cindy:

 

Me and Victoria - dang she is so tall! 

Victoria is also a fantastic hair designer. Look her up at Minx Salon in Loomis!

Me and Brenda:

Me and Crystal (she took my maternity pictures at 32 weeks!)

 

Me, Lindsey and Christian 

(Lindsey's husband, Jared is my hairdresser. He is fantastic and everyone should go see him at Minx Salon in Loomis! That's right, I advertise for my friends.)

Baby Alston was definitely spoiled at this pre-birthday party. There is no way that I could cover every single thing received, but it was truly a HUGE blessing to help us get started.

One of the best parts of this shower was that we did a children's library theme! Since we don't know if we're having a boy or a girl, it was fun to build Baby Alston's first library in place of getting pink or blue clothes.

Some of the books from family included:

A set of Harry the Dirty Dog stories (one of Jon's favorites as a kid)

 

A beautifully illustrated collection of Aesop's Fables:

 

The Lorax! Classic Dr. Seuss:

 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar (a favorite of both mine and Jon's from childhood)

There were amazing homemade gifts, blankets, diapers, booties, toys, diapers, wipes, clothes, diapers... I mean, seriously LOOK at these newborn size diapers. They are SO incredibly cute and small! I know it sounds silly, but seeing the size of these things made me really excited about the baby being here. (Please, no comments on the fact that in about a day after the baby is born I will never want to see another diaper again. I get it - but right now I'm just excited! Babies have to lull their moms into a false sense of security. It's why God makes them so cute - otherwise why would you make the effort to change diapers 12+ times a day??)

The BEST part of the shower (ok, there were a LOT of "best" parts) was this:

Breanna worked INCREDIBLY hard to put together a group gift so that we could get our car seat! She "wrapped" the box in grey and yellow scrapbook paper to match the decorations of the shower, and I thought it was so fun that Caitlin caught a picture of my face as soon as I realized what it was:

I am SO grateful for those who have helped us in all aspects of preparing for Baby A, and we are SO happy to have the car seat! We wouldn't be able to bring baby home without it, so this was definitely a big must-have. It is so adorable and awesome! As soon as Jon puts it together I will post pictures :)

Here I am at the end of the night. Can you see the tired in my eyes? It was a long day considering we had our birthing class from 9am - 5pm before the shower...

Me and the amazing shower hostess!! (I love that she even dressed to match the party)

 

 We always have to take a few pictures in a row to make sure at least one turns out well. Of course you know we must be besties because at the same time we both made faces at the camera. This was completely un-planned.

Thank you sincerely AGAIN to everyone who participated, sent us well wishes, or was there in spirit to help us celebrate Baby Alston! Tomorrow begins the official 30 day countdown to our due date.

Happy Pre-Birthday, Baby A!

This Baby of Ours

About 3 weeks ago I had maternity pictures taken by my friend Crystal. She and I grew up together in Loomis and she has been one of my closest friends all my life! (our birthdays are only 20 days apart) When she had her son Jace 3 years ago I was able to be there for her baby shower and to see Jace in the hospital after he was born. Now she gets to share in Baby Alston adventures with me!

Here are some of my favorites from that afternoon. I loved the ideas that Crystal had incorporating the fact that we don't know if the baby will be a boy or girl :) Blue dress, pink ribbon, green tag.

  

It's also funny that even from a few weeks ago my belly looks so tiny to me!

Can't wait for our Summer Baby Surprise :)

 

Manresa

This past weekend we went camping in Santa Cruz with our awesome friends!

The Weber's

The VanWagenen's

And the Taylor's (who were very tired...)

 

Oh, and here we are!

 

 

Day one was mostly setting up camp, eating and watching the ocean. We tried to make it in time for the sunset but barely missed it!

The next day we were on the beach from about 11am - 5pm.

The boys (of course) decided to dig a giant hole:

Jon went skim boarding...

And our friend Terra who lives in Santa Cruz came to visit us and play!!

I officially made it to 34 weeks (and still camping!) I'm telling you, this baby is going to love everything awesome; the mountains, the beach, fudge jumbles and dutch oven chili!

Also, thanks to Noelle and Joey for my awesome new maternity swimsuit ;)

Sunset day 2

 

 

Even though we had AMAZING weather, it was still pretty chilly. The sun was nice, but it was WAY too cold for me to get in the water. I'm just grateful that for being on a Nor Cal beach we didn't have cloudy skies the whole time.

Anyway, there are a TON more pictures on FB, there were just too many to upload here on the blog. We had such a fun time and are really grateful that we had this last mini vacation before baby A gets here (only 6 more weeks!) We love our group :)

In other news, we celebrated Father's Day!

Breakfast in the morning was spent with my family, making my dad blueberry pancakes :)

We attended our Fair Oaks ward for church to hear one of our favorite youth give his mission farewell talk. AMAZING. He is going to Guatemala and will be a fantastic missionary!

Then we had dinner with the Alston's (where Jon and his brother had a water gun fight. At the dinner table.)

And I gave Jon this painting. It wasn't Father's Day related, but it seemed like a good day to give him something personal that I've been working on. (Thank you to Jon's dad for helping me learn about shading and color!) Green is Jon's favorite (hence the background) and the way I see it, the house is a metaphor for life. I made the painting look unfinished on purpose, because I feel like we're still building our story. And the quote says "I don't like walking around this old and empty house...  So hold my hand, I'll walk with you my dear"

It's based on his favorite song by Of Monsters and Men - you can listen to it here!

Jon said he thinks the painting would be awesome to hang in the baby's room. Hopefully the room will be ready to take pictures of in the next couple weeks and I'll post them on the blog.

I can't wait for the next part of our life adventure!

Camping and Other Happenings

 Oh my gosh - so many things going on!

Firstly - Baby A is doing amazing. He/she moves around ALL the time and we're as healthy as can be! Although I'm officially 32 weeks now, I'm a little behind with posting the pictures. So here I am at 30 weeks :)

Jon and I took our late pregnancy class and hospital tour at Kaiser last week. It made me more excited for the baby (actually going through labor and the baby's upcoming birthday!) and nervous (holy crap, we are going to actually have a BABY. In 8 weeks. And forever.) What was really awesome though was that Jon said the class made him more excited :) Now we can actually picture the delivery day being here and we feel a lot more confident with where to go and how it will all work out. I really am not daydreaming about what to expect, but I do feel better knowing that we have great resources all around us!

Last week I also got together with the girls for a craft night inspired by Pinterest! We've all been wanting to work on these fun things we Pin, but never make the time. Tiani was gracious enough to let us use her house, and she even had food!

Tiani, Kelsey, Karen and I made tile coasters:

I was so happy with how mine turned out!

Kelsey's coasters:

 

Breanne and Kelsey also made twine wrapped letter wreaths:

 

Bay and I made fabric hair flowers:

The girls are concentrating very hard...

We're talking about making this a monthly event now! Can't wait :)

 ***

For Memorial Day weekend we went camping (again) but this time for 4 days up at Plumas. MAN I love it there!

Jon, Margo and I went up on Friday and spent the first night by ourselves because everyone else was too worried about the winter storm warnings :) While it was definitely chilly, we were only slightly sprinkled on, so it was totally worth it. Look at that handsome mountain man!!

 

That night after setting up our tent, we roasted hot dogs for dinner and then Jon retired his ukulele that he made in high school. I absolutely LOVE how this picture that Jon took turned out!

We roasted marshmallows over the burning uke. Margo really wanted a taste of my mallow. "mmmm, tastes like music AND fire roasted awesome."

 

The next day we slept in until 7, had hot chocolate by the campfire

 

 and took morning naps after breakfast.

Margo was so snuggly the whole trip! She would curl up by my belly every morning and night while we sat around the fire. Jon thought she was probably in hibernation mode from the cold weather. My pup loves me :)

 

Jon's parents and brother and sister-in-law came up Saturday afternoon. Jon and I went on a  little nature hike while they set up camp, and then it rained! It wasn't anything awful, but there was some thunder. I LOVE the rain and especially hearing it hit the tent :) I'm such a nerd - I always wanted to go camping in the rain when I was a kid. There is something so awesome about rain. I also love watching Jon read. He's currently working on Paradise Lost. What a nerd :)

 Sunday was a very laid back day in camp. We don't do any big hikes or activities because it is the Sabbath, so Jon and I went up to Eureka Lake for lunch. There we took the 31 week picture! This baby loves camping already :) It will be an outdoorsy, crunchy-granola type baby for sure.

We met up with the rest of the family in Graeagle at the Mill Pond where Mike, Amanda and AnnMarie were fishing - and then Jon and I went hunting for awesome downed trees to make things out of. Our ETSY store planning is going really well! I can't wait to get everything launched soon.

Monday was BEAUTIFUL, sunny and warm. We spent the morning by the creek after packing up camp.

 

I wish I could have gotten a little more sun to fight off my pale winter skin, but at least it is heating up in Loomis too. Yesterday was 93! Guess summer is officially here.

We also celebrated my dad's 63rd birthday yesterday!

(The bow on his head was from my sister. We're so loving.)

 

We had burgers and hung out with the family at my parent's house. I was DELIGHTED to bring home some cherry pie (my fav!! - only next to Key Lime pie that is) but I was so tired I fell asleep before I even had a chance to eat it. Now I get to be excited about it all over again today haha!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!

Next up - baby showers, beach camping and adventures in wood-burning... stay tuned!