baby shower!

two of my dearest friends hosted a wonderful baby shower for me this past weekend.  we had so much fun, they did a great job with yummy food, beautiful decorations, creative activities, and i was so touched by their kindness and loved seeing such a sweet group of friends who came.  i was overwhelmed by the generosity of everyone, and our baby now has so many cute clothes and things for the nursery, so we are all set for his arrival!  

here are some pictures from the shower...

wonderful friends (we have a similar picture from three years ago at leslie's baby shower...we've all aged pretty well :) haha)

gift table with adorable banner!

cake made by leslie's mom (such a great baker!)

 

sweet hostesses (and little marian)

mom & me

grandmothers-to-be

onesie station - such a cute idea!

my mom came up on thursday, and we were able to get the nursery set up for the most part (minus some cushions we're waiting on and whatever artwork we end up doing).  we had lots of fun getting everything set up and going through all of the cute clothes and shower gifts from atlanta, and it was very special to have her here one last time before our little guy arrives.  

this is the progress we've made...

our crib (from craiglist) and bedding that i love! (crib is currently filled with clothes, which we will be putting away tomorrow :))

changing table (another great craigslist find) and glider (waiting on aqua zebra cushions to be ready!) - we'll probably move the bed before long and add a dresser over there

first attempt at a panoramic photo with my iphone :)

looking very pregnant (33.5 weeks)

mr brooks loves having the bed in there

jefferson wanted to help out by sitting in the basket :)

brooks sitting in the rocking chair from billy's mom!

catching up

i have been very negligent of the blog lately - after my last post, things got super hectic at work and have just started to get back under recently.  the time has flown by since then, but we've done lots of fun things and really enjoyed the time spent together.

after our anniversary weekend away, the next big things were my birthday and Christmas.  i always love getting our house decorated for Christmas and also spending time reflecting about God's amazing gift in sending His Son for us.  billy is in charge of the tree, and i usually do the other decorations.  he is super great at getting the lights just right on the tree (very particular about that :)), and i love going through all of our ornaments and thinking back about the fun times we've collected them.  we have lots from a wedding shower, so it's fun to think back about that, and since we got married, we get an ornament at each place we visit (that we deem ornament-worthy :)).  so, over 6+ years, we've accumulated quite a few ornaments from different places.

we were a little late getting Christmas set up in our house this year, but we haven't taken anything down as of yet, so we've been able to enjoy it for an extended period of time.  it probably should be embarrasing that we still have our tree up, but it makes us happy - and some of the neighbors have said they enjoy it as well!  i'm thinking next saturday, that will be my project, since i'll be out of town this weekend.

Christmas was pretty relaxing and low-key, which was nice for our last Christmas with just the two of us, although i'm sure next year will be much more fun and that it just keeps getting better :)  we went to church and had dinner with billy's family on Christmas eve and then had them over for brunch and to watch Christmas Vacation on Christmas day, so there was good family time as well as plenty of time with a long weekend for us to just hang out (we did work some earlier in the weekend but didn't do anything for work on sunday or monday, which was nice!).

for Christmas, billy's sister had gotten us a generous gift certificate to use towards a concert (or concerts in our case), so we took a spur of the moment overnight trip to greensboro to see the avett brothers for new years eve.  we don't usually do much for nye, but this was a fun getaway and was a perfect way to ring in the new year.  plus, greensboro is really affordable, so it was a very cheap trip - probably cheaper than if we'd gone out somewhere around us or to an organized new years eve event :)  we've enjoyed taking a few overnight trips here and there while we can, and i think we'll really appreciate these fun times together once it gets tougher to get away.

since then, january has been flying by - continuing to work a lot, staying busy working out and trying to keep things in order on the homefront (although at this point, parts of our house look like a disaster zone due to some baby preparations - aka lots of hand-me-downs, unassembled crib, gifts, etc), and just enjoying spending time together.

celebrating my 31st bday at cazadores

biggest tree we've ever gotten :)  

(all of the brooks boxes were empty, so no, we did not get tons of shoes for Christmas...billy was just doing a little decor)

billy & jefferson decorating

brooks watching :)

 dogs wanted to destroy the santa billy sr left at our house

our Christmas card picture

last Christmas with just us :)

 beautiful tree at busch gardens Christmastown

can you spot the terriers??

 sharing the giant bone from kendall

 worn out from all the festivities 

we got jefferson a new bed, and he knew just what to do (before unwrapping it)

 mr brooks' first snow!

avett brothers in greensboro

 g-love concert at the norva

billy's first indoor track meet - set a big 5k pr!!