First Baby Shower

I was blessed with my first baby shower this past Saturday and the wonderful women who threw the shower went crazy with the details. I posted just a few pictures that I took and will post many more when I get the other pictures from Karen. I just wanted to give you a small sample of the detail that went into this shower. If you don't guess by the pictures, the theme was Nursery Rhymes.

Shannon made this amazing Humpty Dumpty and just to give you an idea of how big he is, you can see me standing next to him below.

The party favors.

If you can't read it, the tile says "And the dish ran away with the spoon..."


We were blessed beyond measure and thank you to everyone who was there. I was overwhelmed by so much love and generousity.

Visiting Ashley

We're a little behind on the blog, so I thought I give you a couple of quick updates. I (Erin) flew with my parents to visit Ashley in Viginia. It was amazingly beautiful there and it was so much fun to meet her co-workers. Ashley really has a gift for working with people with disabilities and I can't wait to see what else God has planned for her. Here are a couple of pictures from Innisfree.

Ashley at the free range chicken pen.

Ashley's house

Ashley's house from across the field.

Do Not Cross!

So Erin and I went to our first Bradley Method Birth class the other week. I learned that there is a lot of stuff to learn. We saw a video of a birth and also got a book that had some birthin' pictures in it. After our class I stopped at the store and picked up some of that giant sidewalk chalk. My plan is when we get to the delivery room I am going to draw a line across the room in line with Erin's belly button. This will be the official "Ryan Do Not Cross Line". This will remind me to stay behind that point so that I do not have to see in real life any of the stuff I saw in that video and book. It was grosse!

Birth Classes

We started our birthclass last Thursday. We decided (well, I guess I decided) to do the Bradley Method. The Bradley Method classes are taught by independant teachers (not through a hospital or doctor's office), last for 12 weeks and are intentionally kept small in size (2 to 5 couples only) and focus on a natural, drug and intervention free birth (as long as there are no complications). What we weren't expecting was to be the only couple in the class. Actually, we won't be the only couple in the class forever, there are a couple of other couples who are coming later into the 12 weeks because they are doing a refresher, having had children by the Bradley Method before. Anyway, it was a little interesting having a private birthclass teacher, but Ryan was a trooper. We did watch a short birth video at the end of the class and yikes, June/July suddenly seem a whole lot closer as does the reality that this baby has to come OUT. I guess I'll just have to distract myself by getting to work on the growing list of "things to get done BEFORE the baby comes".