The Book Shower

Welcome to Baby Shower week! We were so lucky to be honored with three baby showers. What an amazing feeling to have such an outpouring of love and enthusiasm for this next phase in our life!

So, let me just get right down to things. Our first shower was organized by lovely friends from Ryan's office. I went down on a Friday at the end of February (I was 31 weeks along) and was stunned at the turn-out. Well, they do love a party... Not only was the majority of the staff in attendance, but also several of the attorneys - including many of the partners. That's a lot of people!

The office treated us to lunch from "Give Pizza A Chance," a fantastic cart downtown that makes great pizza. It's well worth cheating for! As an aside, they also make delicious craft sodas, and have a terrific sense of humor. There's a pizza on the menu called "i give in," which is ham & pineapple. Love it!

After we finished downing pizza and salad, we got to the business of opening gifts. As you may have guessed from the title of this post, there was a distinct theme to the shower. Just about everyone brought a book with which to help us start Baby Bee's library!

I should've taken a shot of the basket of books before we opened them all... It was such a lovely presentation.

The books ranged from simple board books like Daisy Duck, to classics like Good Night Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, to more grown-up reads like The Little Princess, Nancy Drew, and the entire Ramona series. Some people brought their own childhood favorites and some brought their children's favorites. Some of the titles were familiar, ones I remember loving as a young reader, and others were new and wonderful surprises.

In addition to the books, we also got one or two gifts from outside the theme. My favorite is this adorable doll, made by Alison. Isn't she sweet? It's a good thing that Bee won't be ready for dolls right away, 'cause it will take some time for me to be ready to share this... (Oh, and Alison got the pattern from Hilary's wonderful new book.)

After the gifts, we enjoyed this yummy, yummy cake. It's a carrot cake from Beaverton Bakery - also well worth the cheating! Nikki, who arranged for the cake, said that she had a hell of a time trying to communicate her wishes for the cake decorations. The bakery is an institution and they just couldn't grasp that she didn't want a shower cake decorated with a baby buggy overflowing with flowers, or something similar. We love those baby animals, though. Thanks for persisting, Nikki!

Of course, we received lots of well wishes and great advice. No, really, the advice was all good stuff! We were told things like: "Trust your instincts," "Cuddle her every chance you get," and "You'll never regret making more time to be involved."

Here are all of the books at home on their very own shelf in our newly cleaned & reorganized bookcase. There a couple there that we already had on hand, but most are gifts from the very kind and generous folks in Ryan's office. Thanks, ya'll!