Rhinestones, Ribbon, and Chantilly Lace

 This past weekend we celebrated Stella with a small shower from my mom's side of the family.  The invitation said it just right.  There were rhinestones, ribbons, and lace everywhere.  It was so beautifully decorated!

 We had amazing food!  It seems we always do when my mom's side of the family is involved!

These sweet ladies plus my aunts did an awesome job with everything!  I am so thankful to have these amazing women in my life.  It was such a peaceful and very relaxing shower.  Here are the 3 soon to be sweet little girl cousins!  Sydney is coming this month, Stella is coming next month, and Caroline will be here in February.  I am so glad that Stella will have two little girls to grow up with!  

They will be so close!

We enjoyed the food, amazing cake, and presents.  The company was the best of course!  We always have an enjoyable time together!

Stella got some wonderful and very special things at this shower.  I am so excited to get to tell her all about the special ladies that already love her so much!

A special thank you to my amazing sister April for loving every moment of making this event so special from start to finish for me.  And a thank you to all of the other ladies for making everything so delicious and beautiful!  It was an incredible day!  Love you each so much!

Maholland Shower

John's side of the family had a shower for us last weekend.  I loved what Andrea did with mine and Johns coming home outfits.  That's them hanging from the twine.  As I opened gifts, they added her clothes to the twine.  It was really sweet.  The picture hanging in the middle is cloth from our gender reveal party that we gave them to remember that special day.  It is from the paint filled balloons we threw to reveal.  Each grandparent has one and Stella will have one in her room as well.  The shower was a lot of fun!  

We played several games like "guess the candy bar" which was melted in a diaper, guess how round my belly is, and they gave Stella a special journal that each guest wrote in.  

The journal will be an heirloom that we will give to her when she has her first baby.  I just LOVE stuff like that!  We enjoyed the games, ate wonderful food, and opened awesome presents!  It was a great day filled with making fun memories.  Thank you ladies so much for making this shower so special for the first Maholland girl in over 50 years!

Chamily and Friends Shower

We kicked off our weekends of showers two weeks ago with our church family (Chamily) and friends. The oh so precious Dyce family hosted our shower with the theme of "Ready to Pop"

Emily and Jessi did an awesome job making the shower so special for us!  Everything was pop related.  We had popcorn, oreo pops, pop rocks, and blow pops just to name a few things!

We played games, ate, enjoyed each others company, and opened presents.

Stella got some awesome stuff!  I cannot wait to start dressing her up in all of her sassy clothes!

One special that I we took from this shower was a "Hope for Baby" paper that each guest filled out.  On the paper each guest filled out different things that they hoped for for Stella.  John and I read them together that night after we got settled in.  It was a really special moment to read them and to see what all of our closest friends and Chamily had to say to our sweet daughter.

We are so grateful to have sweet friends like Emily and Jessi in our lives that would give us something so special to remember forever.  Thanks so much girls!

Maternity Pictures

We were so excited that we got to have our maternity pictures done recently.  My cousin and I are both pregnant and just a few weeks apart.  She helps me on my photo shoots some and is a fabulous photographer!  We thought it would be perfect to just do each others pictures.  I am so happy with how they turned out!  It was so fun to spend the afternoon with her too!  Thank you so much Katrina!

Thoughts about 10 weeks remaining

It is really crazy how fast our pregnancy with Stella has gone.  I remember when I was only 10 weeks along.  Now, thinking we are 10 weeks from her due date is incredible.

We have been working really hard on her room and getting our home ready for an addition.  I'm to the point to where I am fighting off a lot of nesting and will continue my fight until Fall break.  I hope.  Once her nursery is finished I'm sure we will reveal it on the blog.  It is coming right along.  Little details here and there are very exciting to work on.

I have really enjoyed being pregnant.  I am very thankful that this has been an easy pregnancy. I have enjoyed every moment.  From her first kicks, to waking up and seeing an instant "bump", from not being able to paint my toe nails myself, to waking up to leg spasms (ok, those aren't fun), from singing to her and watching her respond to my and John's voice, to seeing her move my belly all over the place it has been a blessed experience.

 I can't fully comprehend how amazing it will be until she is here I am sure, but we already love her so much.  She has a very special place in our lives and we are already very thankful for the time that God has given us with her.   We are humbled that God has given us a gift from Him to love and raise.  

And have we mentioned....

Stella will have a cousin to play with too!