Great Friends

I have fantastic friends. I have the best friends in the world. I have such good friends that I am not worthy of all the greatness they possess. I feel like a crappy friend next to the friends that I have.

These great friends threw me a baby shower. My mom's great friends threw me a shower in Chicago at the beginning of the month, and my great friends threw me a shower here in Utah on March 28th. So many of my friends came to celebrate the impending birth of our child and brought all kinds of great gifts.

Bree and her mom, Margo, threw me the shower at my house. It was great to be in my own place and everyone could come see the baby room too. They got this massive Subway sandwich and made beautiful cupcakes. The shower was Polka Dot themed so there were lots of little dot things.

Here are a lot of my great friends:

Thank you everyone for all the great gifts! I got so many clothes and books and blankets and bath stuff and bedding and toys and diapers (well you get the idea). I'm so blessed!

Fridge

Because I'm a little crazy these day - gee I wonder why - I've been wanting to get some things taken care of around the house. One of the things that Fogg and I have talked about since we moved in last August is getting a new fridge. The fridge that was here when we moved in was way too small for the space and very inconvenient. Why did they ever make fridges with the freezer on top? It doesn't make any sense when most of what you use is refrigerated not frozen! Anyway, I finally got Fogg to buy me a new fridge! We debated for a long time about what the best type of fridge for the space would be, side-by-side or a french door with a drawer freezer. We went back and forth several times and shopped many different days to what seemed like thousands of different stores to find the perfect fridge at the perfect price. Well, our trip to R.C. Willey on Saturday (my "please pick a freaking fridge" day) yielded the almost perfect fridge at the more than perfect price (by the way, that equals perfect). So we ended up with a new fridge! Fogg of course had to pick it up himself to save the installation fee but it was flawlessly removed from our truck, expertly moved down the steep driveway, almost perfectly fit through the front door and successfully installed last night! So without further ado - here is my new fridge (sorry I'm bad at before pictures, you only get after pictures):

It's a side-by-side AND a drawer, so we got the best of both worlds. The drawer can be either extra fridge space or extra freezer space, whatever you choose at whatever time. It's pretty sweet that we can change that. The brand is called Haier, which we had never heard of, but it is made in the US and seems pretty good!

Isn't it so clean and organized? I love it!

Thank you for indulging in my craziness!

Pictures

Dad took some nice pictures of Fogg and I before the baby comes. Thought I'd share a couple with you. Don't make fun of how fat my face is - ok?

Baby Shower

On Sunday, March 1st, a good family friend threw me a baby shower in Chicago! It was great fun to see some old friends again and to meet some new people. Mostly, the party guests were friends of my parents, but still a great time.

Sue had beautiful tables set for lunch. We had chicken salad, fruit skewers, pasta salad, and croissant rolls. Sue brought out here fine china and antique table linens, she sure doesn't skimp on anything! Then we had cheesecake, banana cream pie and chocolate cake for dessert. We only played one game - just my style - guessing how many inches I was around my belly. I didn't even know so it was interesting to find out! I don't think I need to publish that number now though... Then off to open gifts, which of course was so fun. People sure did give me some fantastic gifts and it was so thoughtful of everyone. Here are a few highlights in photo form.

Here are the placesetting cards, they are names on little bottles - cute!

One of the beautifully set tables.


Yummy fruit skewers!

Sue Herrmann (the host) and me.

Fran, me and my mom.

Presents! This is from Fran actually. There is a Fogg family tradition with the sock monkey (which they call Jocko), but because I'm doing a moose theme, she found a sock moose! The best part is that I saw this sock moose before the shower and mentioned it to Fran telling her how much she was going to love it, all the while it's from her and I didn't even know it! I died laughing when I opened the card and saw it was from her and I went on and on about it to her the day before! Anyway, super cute, we'll have to come up with a name for it. Maybe I'll let the kid name it.

Me with the "New Mom To Be" crown on - it stayed on as long as it took to take this picture.

Super cute gift from my sister in law, Georgette. It has a matching blanket, hat, booties and onesie.


This is a hat and sweater made by (two different) guests! The sweater has owls knitted in it, so cute.

Opening another great gift - a baby monitor!

Then the next day, at my parent's fitness club, their running group gave me a great gift of an organic stuffed bunny and a very large gift card to babies'r'us! How very thoughtful of all these people that don't even really know me! I am so grateful for all of the wonderful gifts I got over the weekend in Chicago. Thank you everyone!

Xterra

Dad and his friend Dawn, and our friend Katie, did the Xterra race at Snowbasin on Sunday, March 8th. It is a 10K of mountain biking (on snow), then a 5K of snowshoeing, then a 5K of running (on snow), then an 8K of ski mountaineering. For those of you that do not know what ski mountaineering is, it's putting skins (a piece of fabric that has hairs that move in one direction so that it stops the ski from sliding backwards) on the ski, then walking up, then taking the skins off and skiing down, then putting them back on, going up... Well you get the idea. The race had them putting them on and taking them off three times. Each time they came down, they had to go through gates. Anyway that you look at it, it's quite crazy and I would never do it! But they did! Katie finished second in her age category, unfortunately Dad and Dawn didn't finish. They made it in the transition for the skiing just in the nick of time (they were the last people to make it) but took too long on the ski and were kicked off the course. They made a monumental effort and it was really hard! I got tired just walking up and down the hill to the transition/start/finish area!

At the start line!

Dad and Dawn finishing the 10K bike.

Dawn and Dad starting the 5K snowshoe.


Here is Katie starting the 5K run.

This picture cracks me up. This is Dad and Dawn starting the 5K run, but it looks like they are doing a little dance!


Dawn and Dad in the last transition, after the run, getting ready for the ski. Dad is trying to recover a little.


Dawn putting her boots on.


Here is Katie (in the green) passing Carla (she smiled the whole time). Carla ended up coming in third in the age group, Katie got 2nd!


Katie at the finish! Yay!

And here is a videa of Dad coming up on the transition to the ski. He is hurting a little bit. Listen to the announcer at the end, he is saying his name and then saying that Dawn should be there soon. All day, they were coming in at the same time so the announcer knew that when he saw one he would see the other. Dawn had come in just before Dad, so she was already waiting in the transition area.

So that is the day at the race. It was a ton of fun to watch and don't know what possess these people to do stuff like this! Katie's first words when she finished was "I'm going to volunteer next year - don't let me do this again!" As you can see, it was a nice sunny day and we ended it with Frito Pie!

London and the b

This speaks for itself.

Baby Room

Well, it's not finished but I thought that if I waited until it felt finished then you would never see any pictures of it. The before picture is non-existent but you can imagine these pictures with white walls instead of color and there was almost no furniture in it (well a futon and some small dressers but nothing special). My mom and I painted the two colors and Fogg put the chair rail up. Work still to be done is getting decorations on the walls, get a chair and lamp for the below noted picture area, get curtain holders, then place baby in room. Easy enough right?

New dresser (thanks to Fran!) that will also be the changing table (just put a pad on top).

The crib and window seat.

This empty space will be where the chair and ottomon will go and I'll put a lamp between the chair and the dresser. I'm also hoping to get a small bedside table the matches the dresser to put on the left side of the picture there as well.

Well, that's it, nothing special but I really like the colors, cute, calm but not overly "baby".