Blessings for Critter...

The time is getting near (just 4 weeks until my due date!) for our little Critter to arrive and we are getting so excited! We've had two wonderful baby showers thrown for us by great friends and I can't wait to share some of the photos with you!

Our first shower took place in early March and my sister, Jessica, was able to fly out to be a part of it. We enjoyed Chick-fil-A, manicures, shopping and just hang out time while she was here and had a great time!

The hostess' for the evening were my friends Kate and Amy and they did a fantastic job! 

They had an adorable table set up with lots of yummy treats and photos they had collected from the Grandma's-to-be!

We also had another shower with our church family and Benjamin's mother was able to come out and celebrate with us for this one. 

I'm very bummed that I didn't get as many photos of this shower as the other one. I forgot my camera but was able to get some photos of all the yummy food including these bottle cookies that tasted as good as they look! 

The hostess for this shower was my friend Sharon whom I did not get a photo of from that day but I do have one of us from the first shower. She is the one standing next to me in the white shirt.

And heck while I'm at it. Here are some photos of the ladies who came to celebrate with us! I really wish I had been able to take more photos of the second shower and all of the lovely ladies who came. It was such a fun evening and we received so many needed items for our sweet girl. 

Here is just a small glimpse of all the wonderful gifts we recieved. We really feel so blessed to have so many who wanted to celebrate with us and rejoice with us in the coming of our little girl! 

And so it begins...

I promised to write the fun details of how we found out we were pregnant and how I told Ben. So here it goes :)

We took a trip to visit my sister and her family in Las Vegas for my 30th birthday during the second week of August and returned home that Friday evening. I was feeling a little different after we got back and I took a test on Tuesday but it came back negative. I was disappointed, but by this time we were used to getting a negative result. Later in the week, on Thursday, I was still not feeling great. I thought I was coming down with something but wasn't sure so I took another test while Ben was at work. I was standing at the counter in the bathroom waiting for the result, it was taking longer than normal but I still didn't think anything of it. Finally, after a couple of minutes, I looked down and saw this:

I almost feel over. I started to cry and laugh and had a whole slew of emotions wash over me (one of which was disbelief). I didn't have any tests left so I decided that I needed to run to Wal-mart and get a couple of more before I was sure. All the way to Wal-mart I chugged water and tried to keep from completely breaking down. After rushing home and pulling into the driveway I realized that I had left the garage door open and there was a stray cat making himself at home in our garage. After I ran around the garage trying to get the dumb thing out, I then realized I had not only left the garage door open but I had also left the door from the garage to the house unlocked. Do you think I had something else on my mind when I left? :)

After taking the other two tests and seeing positive results on all three I realized it was true! About five minutes after I came to that realization my friend Kate called to ask me a question. Using all the control within me I kept my voice normal, answered her question, and hung up without mentioning anything.

I then began to think about how I wanted to tell Ben our shocking news. I first sent him a text asking him if he could come home early. He knew I hadn't been feeling well but told me he couldn't. I then began to think through how to tell him. I didn't trust myself to drive anywhere to buy something special so I had to work with what I had. This is what I came up with:

As soon as Benjamin came home I told him I had bought him something that day. He seemed a little annoyed as he thought I had spent money on him. When he came inside I told him I wanted to show him my new chalkboard first. I flipped it over to show him the message. He asked me if I was serious and dropped his bag in shock. We laughed and celebrated in the kitchen and then as I sat on the couch he paced around the house saying "I can't believe it" over and over again. We decided to go ahead and call our families that day to tell them. We just couldn't keep it a secret! After dinner that night we went out to get milkshakes to celebrate.

A few weeks later we had our first doctor's appointment (at 8 weeks) and got to see our little Critter for the first time and listen to the heartbeat. It was so amazing!

That next week we began to tell our friends and church family the exciting news. We then took this photo and posted it on Facebook to make it "official" :)

We've since gone in for our second appointment at 15 weeks and everything checked out okay. We go back in a couple of weeks and hopefully find out the gender! We are so excited and can't wait!

Thanks again for all of your kind words, congratulations, and prayers.