Showers, Showers...but No Rain!

Spence and I have been so blessed by our families and friends and all the support we've been given in our preparation for little Briggs' arrival! Here are some of the highlights from our baby showers in Virginia and Tennessee...

 Not part of the baby shower but Meredith got a new bike for her 2nd birthday...how exciting!

 We're prtty sure William is going to be a famous line backer and make Jason and Libby very rich some day!

 Playing corn hole in the yard with Jason's new set that Spence made him. Hilarious!

 We had a great turn out!

 Hilarious! I am pretty sure Spence will use this before the baby!

 At our TN shower, MK made some AWESOME burger-related treats. She thinks she is funny. These are actually burger-shaped cupcakes and sugar cookie fries. Can you believe that!?

 MK & John got Spence a book called "The Baby Owner's Manual"...hilairous!

 Briggs already has his first camp chair!

He's gonna be such a good dad!

The Second Act Gets Great Reviews!

We went back for a second try at the 4D ultrasound on Saturday. SInce Briggs was being so stubborn (wonder where he gets that!) last week the ultrasound tech invited us back to try and get a better look at his little face. Spence wanted to see the beauty that will soon be his son. I wanted to make sure he didn't have 2 heads or 4 eyes or something else crazy happening like being the one in 40,000 babies born with a full set of teeth!

Needless to say he did MUCH better this time around and it was a perfect appponitment. No stress like last time. He was moving around a ton-opening his eyes, yawning, kicking around-it was AWEOMSE! Spence thinks the trick is the cheeseburger we ate from 5Guys before our appointment. Maybe Ultrasound places and local cheeseburger joints should get together and franschise something! :)

Here are some of our favorite close-ups...

 His nose looks a little smooshed in this one but it kept going in and out depending on where she put the ultrasound wand thingy.

 Peek-a-boo! His eyes are opened!

 The next three are the yawning series. Not sure what is so wonderufl abotu a baby yawning but I think I love it!

We go tomrorow to the doctor to have our last ultrasound to measure him and hopefully get a better idea of when he'll be ready to make his great debut. Fingers-crossed he isn't a NASCAR fan because the big race weekend would make him a week late...yikes!

Ready for His Close-Up...

I have big ideas sometimes and more often than not they don't exactly pan out. This weekend I had planned to take Spence to a 4D ultrasound as a surprise Father's Day gift since the one at our doctor's office cost A LOT of money and someone at work recommended a place in Bristol that does them at 1/3 the cost.

We called our parents to tell them the news that the ultrasound studio hosts live webcasts so our families could watch with us. We were pumped since having a baby when your family is a million miles away has proven to be less than fantastic.

An hour into the session we realize that my mom hasn't been able to log on, Spence's parents logged on and had to watch an hour of blank screen just to see 12 minutes of ultra sound, and little Briggs is as stubborn as his mother and decided that the best place for his hands and feet would be RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS FACE!

Needless to say we were more than grateful to find out that the ultra sound tech invited us back for a free session next weekend to try again to get a better look at the little guy. Here are a few of our favorite shots from his photo shoot...these are pictures even I could identify!

 He was fast asleep...of course, when I want to rest it is apparently time for him to throw a dance party in my belly!

 His eye is opened in this one (Above).

 Put 'em up! Put 'em up!

 The thinker...

Although his opened mouth makes him look a little like an alien or some other thing that might haunt your house...he is actually trying to eat his foot (to the left of his face). Gross.

My Dad's FAVORITE Day-Our Ohio Baby Shower...

I am pretty sure my dad would have rather had his front teeth extracted with no novicaine than sat through our baby shower this weekend but it was AWESOME! I'm sure he secretly had a great time.

Below are a few of the pictures from our highlight reel...

 Spence went neck deep in a "poopy" diaper filled with chocolate to dig for beads with letters in our name. He did NOT win a prize!

 Seeing my grandma dig in a dirty diaper was well worth the 7 hour drive!

 Lynsey thought liking the chocolate off her bead was the obvious choice of cleaning methods. I thought some people would barf!

 How many baby showers boast baby outfits with skulls!? Loved it!

 This is the row of men who were having the best day of their lives. Dad, I know you LOVED the party!!

 Is this my size??

 Briggs was the star of the show!

Birthing Class...and Other Things Ridiculous...

Spence and I went to birthing class last weekend. Wow. The good news is that we won a free Bobby pillow so our $30 registration was worth it. The rest is the bad news. It can probably be best summed up in a top ten list of why birthing class is a horrible idea:

10. Hospital food. When you are 7 months pregnant your tastes are usually pretty specific and none of them are for jell-o or orther jiggly-type questionable items. All which were offered as part of our "free lunch."

9. Old Parents-No Sense of Humor. Even though Spence and I are geting dangerously close to 30 we were EASILY the youngest couple in class (with the exclusion of one couple who came in really late). It was wierd. I guess TN will have a whole lot of 80 year old parents at high schol graduations in about 18 years!

8. No Guarantees. The only time they taught you anything that seemed encouraging they followed it with a reminer that there are no guarantees. So after freaking you completely out about one thing they would try and smooth it over with something that may or may not happen. Not the best odds!

7. Corny Cartoons. The Power Point presentation had random slides they calle d"laugh breaks" which were cartoons of something gross about birth. I usually LOVE to laugh...but I think I woudl have had more fun being the test model in an epidural training course.

6. Fake Moms. One 40-something couple was a balding dad who I can only assume made a lot of money paired with his wife who was made up of at least 85% plastic. Seriously. I understand that everyoen carries baby weight differently but I wanted to punch her.

5. Foreign Moms. The plastic mom was also from Russia or Romania or somewhere wherethe women are blonde, mostly fake, and have HUGE noses. After already envsioning putting her in a headlock for her perfect preggo figure she raises her and to ask "How will I know the difference between a contraction and the baby kicking?" Are you serious!?I fully recognize that I have no clue how badly this will hurt but I am pretty confident that I will know the difference between a playful kick and my uterus clamping down with all its might in an effort to push 8 pound of human out of me! COME ON!

4. Pediatric Disappointment. They brought in a local pediatrician to talk to us about questions to ask when considering a doctor, etc. He was apporximately 97 years old and a self-proclaimed commedian. (emphasis on "Self") Not funny.

3. Breast Feeding Scare. Our "hilarious" pediatric special guest asked how many of us were planning on breast feeding. After nearly everyone raised our hands he laughed and proceeded to explain how we were all failures and it would never work out. No joke. He spent about 20 minutes explaining how hard it is and how we would probably do it wrong and turn to formula in the first week. Awesome!

2. The First Night Home. Again, Comedy Central's Pediatrician called ths night "The Night From Hell." He said most people don't feel like they will make it through the night and how horrible it is and every baby screams the whole night because we won't know what we are doing and we won't make enough milk to keep the baby full.

1. The Live Birth Video. Not only the most disgusting, traumatising, and horribel hign I have ever seen in real life but it is terrifying to show to someone with a baby already growing in their belly. Show that to pre-teens. I imagine it would be an EXCELLENT form of birth control!


Overall, there was a lot of good information presented but most of it was either meant to totally freak us out and make us lose sleep or they wee just really terrible at their job! I mean, yikes. I will literally never be able to forget that birthing video. I think I just threw up a little...

Proud Wife...

Just a little note to brag on how proud of my husband I am. Spence fell in love with the nerdy yard game "corn hole" when my parents bought him a set for Christmas last year. He and a co-worker ghetto-rigged a set out of a pair of old closet doors sot he boys at the group home could play and they've been wearing it out! From there he decided to learn how to build the game sets according to the American Cornhole Association...which cracked us up that it even exists!!

Now, he is building and selling these sets to help us make a few extra dollars before Baby Burger gets here! He is just the best. So here are a few pictures for bragging rights. He is currently adding foldable legs and trying to fashion a set that can fold in half for easier portability. He is pretty much a professional carpenter!

Grant  it, UT is terrible but so is NASCAR -- sometimes you just have to embrace it and build what sells! :)

Man Basement...Mission Accomplished!

The following are the pictures of Spence's newly completed man basement. Special thanks to Jason and Libby who worked very hard to spend an entire weekend to tile the formerly smelly and discusting basement. Yay!

 Compare those to the following before pictures...YIKES!!!