Baby Shower

I had my babyshower this last Saturday, March 14th. It was so much fun. It was also surreal, like my wedding shower was. I have been to so many baby showers for other women over the years, that it was wierd being at this one and knowing it was for me! I have such amazing friends and women who are a part of my life, and I walked away feeling so blessed and totally loved. Not the least of which by these two amazing and awesome women who planned and threw my shower...

Stacy Barrett and Jeanne Sinclair

Here the soon to be "first-time grandmas" are kissing their grand-baby....

Here are some more pictures from that day...

4 very special women in my life prayed over the baby and over Nathan and I. This blessed me more than anything that day!

If you haven't heard yet, I did something a little extra special for my mom and Nathan's mom. I told them I had a gift for them, because not only is it my first baby, but their first grandchild. We revealed the sex of the baby by giving them a special gift. Here is a picture of the moment they found out.

It was a personalized picture frame to each of them from their grandchild with a picture of the Sonogram of the sex. See if you can tell what it is...

Okay...Okay...If you can't tell because the picture is too small, we are having a BOY!! On the bottom of the picture frame it has his name...Judah Nathanael.

Nathan and I felt like the Lord gave us this name when I was only 8 weeks pregnant. Judah, in Hebrew, literally means "Yahweh be praised" and Nathanael means "gift of God." So, when you put the two together it means... "Yahweh be praised for the gift of God", which is exactly how we feel about this precious miracle of ours!

So, you may be asking yourself, "Why did you find out the sex, when you have been so adamant, that you weren't going to know?" Well, I was the one who didn't want to know. Nathan was willing to go along with it, but really he was dying to know if it was a boy or girl. Over a few months, the Lord slowly worked on my heart and eventually showed me that I was trying to control and manipulate the situation to fit what I THOUGHT would be perfect...and I wasn't letting Nathan have any say in it. I realized that I was being selfish, and wanted to bless him. So, when we were at our 14 week Ultra Sound, the tech asked us if we wanted to know the sex if he saw it. I surprised Nathan by turning to him and saying..."Now, if we find out, will you promise me two things. One, let's keep it to ourselves for a while, and two, the next pregnancy we get to keep it a secret even from ourselves." He was giddy with excitement and readily agreed.

So, we have known since I was 14 weeks. Judah wasn't shy and it was CLEARLY obvious that it was a boy! I will say, it's been fun to have something that just the two of us shared for a while, though it was definitely hard not to say something to those I am closest to...especially my mom! I also hated lying outright to people and always tried to skirt the issue if I could. The bold-faced lies definitely went against what Nathan thinks is my sometimes "too honest and too open" nature, but there was a secret enjoyment of having a secret others didn't know about as well.

So, now you know. Since there is no point in guessing, I will turn off the poll for boy or girl. Funny that the votes for girl actually won out. Sorry to the majority, but you guessed wrong! I want to show one more picture of something I got at my shower. Because everyone did not know the sex, I got pretty neutral everything...except for one gift. The wonderful woman who gave me this said that she couldn't find anything neutral and went for the outfit, because she liked the girl things better than the boy things. As you can see my sister-in-law Bethanne and all of us, got a good laugh, because by the time I opened this, everyone knew it was a boy!