It’s week 33 and the hot flashes have begun! Everything else is perfectly normal. (Yay!) That is… aside from my late baby bump update post. With a baby shower and two birthdays (for another post), our weekend was fairly busy.

But before the business of the weekend, we were lucky to get two packages for Baby Girl Wickham:

The first one was from my mom. She found her discharge outfit, a few other outfits, some way too adorable shoes and sent more burp clothes courtesy of my aunt. Clearly, baby girl will get spoiled by her abuelita. I’ll have to have a talk with her. ;)

The other package came from Jason’s sister, Kristy… a very handy baby journal and this oh so cute baby blanket:

I really love the heart squiggles she added to it.

If you remember last week, I picked out a dress for the baby shower this past Saturday. When it finally came in and I put it on, it was way too hot and I wasn’t even doing anything at the moment. I knew I wouldn’t survive 10 minutes so it was time to go with a different dress. The dress I’m wearing in my bump update photo above is from Target. Super affordable, comfortable and as flattering as something can be on my frame. I was happy.

Our baby shower was fantastic, by the way. It was co-ed so Jason was able to partake in the festivities. I like that a lot, after all, baby girl is also *his* baby and a part of his life.

One of the things I liked a lot about the shower was the level of involvement for the guys. DeDee did an excellent job of choosing active shower games like Guess the Baby Food, Baby Bottle Hot Potato/Drink the Juice and Blindfold Diaper Change. We got a few clips with our waterproof mini video camera (yes waterproof, because it will hang out in our diaper bag) to share with you:

We also saw lots of friends we don’t see often because they live far enough away to make it slightly inconvenient to meet up. It was a really fun time.

Another thing I liked, as we were leaving the church Jason says to me, “That was fun. We should do this every weekend.” Exactly the reaction I wanted.

The one thing we all didn’t like was that our mothers could not be there. With one in Florida and the other in California, there was no real way to plan it so they both could be here with us. So this video of us opening presents is for them. Be warned, it’s a total of 30 minutes long… just us talking about baby presents, so if you don’t *love* us, my feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t sit through them:

Once all was said and done, it was amazing to see at all the baby items we received. The back of my Explorer was packed. Even crazier to think this one tiny person coming into our life could use SO MUCH STUFF! I’m trying to be a minimalist when it comes to her, but it’s definitely a challenge I’m failing here and there.

One of the downsides of being an independent contractor is not having paid maternity leave. So most of the extra money we are making right now is going to a baby fund stash meant to help us purchase any other necessities not received after our other baby shower.

The fund is also there to allow me to spend a couple of weeks with baby girl, without having to worry about bringing in an income. I would love for that to be several months, but I have to face reality and am simply grateful I work from home.

And this is why I cannot begin to express how moved I am by our family and friend’s generosity. Their gifts have alleviated much of our financial worries in regards to buying the things we *think* we need for baby girl and in the process allowing us the room to make other purchases that will help me work from home with baby girl. Thank you so very much!

I didn’t cry at the shower, but just writing that makes my eyes misty. :) <3

He responded with, “Soon we’ll be looking at her 1 year birthday, 3 year birthday, first day at kindergarden, middle school photos…it will all go by so quickly.” Made me a little sad (and I’ll admit I’m tearing up at the thought of this right now.)

But back to the present. I know I normally write these posts on Saturday morning, but tomorrow we have plans. I’ll do a photo later tomorrow and post on my Flickr account.

Anyhow, tomorrow we are attending our one-day Childbirth Preparation class here in Cumming, GA. Despite having one of the most distinguished maternity and newborn hospitals in the country (Northside Hospital) just an hour away, I’m excited that we are able to do classes locally. That’s mainly due to the brand new Women’s Center built here at the Northside-Forsyth campus:

How beautiful is this building, right? Inside it’s more like an upscale hotel than a hospital, but more on that some other time.

Tomorrow’s classes won’t be at the Women’s Center, though. Tomorrow we find ourself in the classroom building, just adjacent to the center. I love how all of this is less than 5 minutes away from the house. Despite all the niceness, I guarantee you we will be hanging out here for a while before heading in for our birth. I try to avoid hospitals like the plague.

So what else is new this week? We had a mix up with our bedding a few weeks ago and the piece not ordered finally arrived:

I’m really loving the monkey girl.

Also, the baby shower is next weekend, so DeDee was kind enough to offer to buy me a dress for the shower as my birthday present. I’m loving the colors and print:

Hopefully it will arrive in time… and fit my pregnant belly. I cannot describe how difficult it is to find something nice to wear if you fall into the plus size category.

Right now, it seems like the cute things are only made for regular sizes or if you do find something, it looks like your grandmother should be wearing it, not you. I’m not a fan of muumuus.

After a massive search for something to wear, we’ve decided that if we were seamstresses, we could make a killing in the “plus size maternity wear” department by creating young, stylish clothing for plus size maternity with an affordable price range. Just throwing that out there for those of you who can sew…

Hope you guys have a good weekend!

You may also like -

On Hiatus - Sort OfLesson: Learn to Step Back and Re-AssessBump Update – Week 33