Our dear friends Lindsey & Mitch are expecting a baby boy very soon and
I had the pleasure of throwing a baby shower with three other awesome ladies to celebrate the occasion.
This was definitely a “divide and conquer” baby shower, which was great.
We all noticed that we weren’t stressed on the morning of the shower,
when we definitely would have been if we were throwing it ourselves.
We chose the nautical theme based on the nursery decor and it couldn’t have turned out better.
Nautical is very in right now so it was easy to find inspiration on Pinterest of fun
ideas that we wanted to incorporate. Here are all the fun details:
The menu included: chicken salad & croissants // fruit // caprese skewers // sausage balls //
veggie pizza // antipasta salad // cucumber water // arnold palmers // punch
Lemon and Cookies n Cream cupcakes for dessert
Red velvet cupcakes in a jar for the road
The hit of the party was the chalkboard print, which we all LOVED!
They are wonderful for many occasions and can be found here.
It was fun thinking back to all the previous showers we have been to together.
Sally was pregnant with her first at Lindsey’s bridal shower, then found out on
the day of my baby shower that she was pregnant with her second.
I am now pregnant at Lindsey’s baby shower. It’s been an eventful five years of friendship!
We all had such a wonderful day celebrating Lindsey and baby Wyatt.
He is already so loved and we can’t wait for him to get here!
i love when toms are on zulily. i clearly can’t contain myself.
we headed down to the jenkinson’s for a movie night. the adults watched happy feet while the girls played. they really weren’t too into the movie, but they sure liked pretending to be asleep.
wearing her new toms with her pjs on saturday morning. and seeing how many cups she can carry in one trip. silly girl.
we scored this light fixture on craigslist for $35! which then turned into greg working on the downstairs guest bathroom all weekend. totally unexpected and random considering we have a list of other things we should have been doing, but i’m excited about the progress so far!
lowe’s may be becoming her second favorite store. ps when did she get so old?!
on top of everything else, we’re in the midst of picking out interior and exterior paint colors, which is way harder than one would think.
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our last weekend of july was super productive, thank goodness! how was your weekend?
We had, what will probably be, our last ultrasound yesterday.
It was at a different doctor’s office so the machine was a little bit more high tech,
which made it more fun, and we got a few more pictures of the little nugget.
The common consensus from everyone is that it is a boy.
I tend to go back and forth, depending on the day, which makes it fun.
However, I always call the baby a “he”… I’m not sure why, but it’s just a habit now.
When Kenley saw this picture she immediately said “baby”, which I thought was interesting.
We got good news from the doctor yesterday and I have been cleared to resume activities!
I’m not sure how much activity I’m going to be wanting to do over the next 14 weeks,
but I’m planning on resuming prenatal yoga classes, at the very least.
I cannot believe how much I’ve popped out in the last three weeks!
I knew I felt bigger, but wow!
I got to partake in my one hour glucose test today which was thrilling.
Crossing my fingers that I pass with flying colors!
At this point, I’m just trying to make it to August when my class is over (one more week!),
so I probably won’t update until we hit our third trimester.
I’m not even sure how that is possible, but we’re just a few weeks shy at this point.
I promise I will be sharing our nursery progress & inspiration soon…hopefully.
Thanks for hanging in there with me.
I’m not really sure how we’re only three months shy of Kenley’s second birthday,
but here we are! This month really snuck up on us. This summer has been crazy busy.
Here are some fun things:
The past couple weeks have been filled with her singing songs,
which is amazing to listen to. She can say/sing full sentences and phrases now.
Her favorites to sing are Twinkle Twinkle, Old McDonald, and No More Monkeys Jumping On The Bed.
There have been a few instances where she has said the entire alphabet correctly
and has counted to ten. Usually she skips a few or does them out of order.
She loves to ask “Who’s that?” and “What’s that?”
When we read Dear Zoo, she always says “ephelant” instead of elephant.
Likewise, her place mat has an octopus and she calls it an “opicuss.”
We may be in the market for some new books, which will make good birthday gifts.
She can recite most of the books from memory when we read them to her.
Shes loves playing with baby and has been playing the role of mommy very well.
She runs into her room to get a new diaper to change the baby and loves
to play with wipes. Yes, wipes. She always asks for “one wipe” and will
clean the baby off, as well as start to clean other things like our furniture.
She will also give her own lovies to her baby for night night time.
She can say her whole name now, which is also the name of several other things. Me: Kenley, what’s your baby’s name? Kenley: Kenley Dee Gilbertson!
Me: Kenley, what should we name our new baby? Kenley: Kenley Gilbertson! Me: Ok, but that might be awkward.
I don’t think that I’ve shared this, but for a while now, we have called Kenley “buddy” or “bud”.
Nothing more than “come here bud” or “hey buddy”, stuff like that, and we didn’t think anything
about it until recently. One lovely gentleman referred to Kenley a “he” upon hearing Greg use the term “buddy”
and another flat out said, she’s not a boy.
Greg’s response: “well, she’s my buddy”. So there you have it people.
Here are a couple other random fun facts:
Kenley has 13 teeth with two more coming in.
She is in 2T clothes and quickly moving out of size 5 and into size 6 shoes.
When she wears a disposable diaper, she’s in a size 4.
She recently started to sleep on her back and will tell us “back” when she lays down.
On the same note, she’s started to use a pillow in her big bed.
We are testing out using a big girl cup at dinner instead of a sippy cup.
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is her favorite show.
I can’t believe it’s been three weeks since my last update.
A lot has happened. The short rundown is that we celebrated the
4th of July, our 5 year anniversary, and went on vacation!
There were also a slew of doctor’s appointments and ultrasounds in there too.
Each day I am realizing more and more that the whole “every pregnancy is different”
saying is absolutely, positively true. From the surprise of getting pregnant,
to the weird pregnancy symptoms and random cravings.
On top of that, I have been seeing a lot of my doctor, more than last time,
but we’ve also gotten to see more of little baby G2 in the process,
which I am not complaining about!
Here are some shots of our last ultrasound at 23 weeks, including our first 4D ultrasound!
Upon seeing the pictures, my mom swears it’s a boy because he/she looks just like my brother.
Again, it’s still killing people that we don’t know, but you will be happy to know that
I stood very strong during our last ultrasound…especially since it was just me!
I willingly looked away each time she told me that she was moving towards the lower half of the body.
At this point, I am determined not to find out. It’s getting fun!
Overall, this second trimester has been going well… going FAST, but going well.
At first, 25 weeks doesn’t sound that bad, but last night it dawned on me that we
only have 15 weeks left… which caused a little big of anxiety.
I am feeling good, most of the time, but also starting to feel very large. Very. large.
I know that I still have a long way to go, but this past week I have felt ginormous.
The progress in the nursery and the baby name department has stalled.
I have been teaching a class for the past 4 weeks, which has been a lot,
so a lot of other projects around the house have stalled too. I only have two more
weeks of class and one long to-do list started for the month of August.
I am hoping to post some of our nursery inspiration then.
Hopefully I’ll be back next week with some evidence of my growing belly,
I’ve been slacking in that department!
It’s been quiet here on the blog, but rest assured, we are back to the real world.
We had a wonderful week away following the 4th of July holiday & our anniversary,
where we headed over to Anna Maria Island for a family vacation.
This was our second time on the island. Ironically enough, the last time we were all there
was at our last family vacation almost exactly two years ago when I was pregnant with Kenley.
Last time, we went over the 4th of July and I was 24 weeks along… this year we decided to
go a week later since the price was a lot better and again, I was 24 weeks along.
We’ve already joked that the next time we go, probably in 2 more years, I’ll be getting my party on, finally!
We were in the market for a house to rent with a pool so we could be occupied during nap time each day.
This house did not disappoint. It was so beautifully decorated and had a great outdoor space.
The best part was that it was only a couple blocks from the beach.
The bonus points came when we showed up and there was a ton of pool toys AND a wagon.
Big win for us!
After a couple of days, Kenley was a rock star in the pool.
She loved swimming, but also loved when we filled up empty cans with water,
and she got to pour them out. I’m not kidding when I say that she did this for almost an hour one day.
She also loved throwing empty (or full) cans into the pool, which became tricky
for those who still had full beers just sitting around the pool.
We got her a Puddle Jumper right before we left that worked out wonderfully.
She had no problem keeping it on and was even “swimming” with it by the end of the week.
She also did a lot of swimming in her flip flops since the pavers were so hot
when she got in and out of the pool. This led to some wicked flip flop tan lines!
Pool time also included intense games of Pro Kadima, which meant the
boys battled all week to see who could have the longest streak.
Dad & Michael won with a grand total of 184 (or so they say!).
The beach was also great. Kenley loved being in the water and it was so warm!
We usually went to the beach for a couple hours in the morning, then headed back for nap time.
We did a great job of sticking with Kenley’s schedule and she slept great for both naps & bedtime.
After nap time, we hung out in the pool for the afternoon.
On Friday we headed out right when the storms were rolling in.
You can see the rainbow and the clear line of storms to the left.
Luckily, the rest of the day was beautiful.
Thursday, we took a break from the sun and headed up to St. Pete
for the Rays vs. Twins baseball game at Tropicana Field.
In addition to the pool and beach…and just relaxing in general,
we ate well, drank plenty, and played some games.
Apples to Apples was the biggest hit, until we went through all the cards. Twice.
Some of our favorite restaurants included Sharky’s (a favorite from last time),
The Beachhouse, Tortilla Bay, Lobstah’s, and of course Two Scoops, which we got a lot!
A lot of these photos were taken with our iPhones and a few good one with my camera.
I really wanted to use my camera more, but it was just easier for one person
to whip out their phone, than for me to be in charge of pictures all week.
Looking back, I’m not sure where the week went!
We had a great time hanging with family and relaxing as much as we could.
Anna Maria Island, we’ll see you again in two years.
Now that we’re back from vacation, I have a lot of posts to catch up on,
so stay tuned!
Five years ago today, I married the love of my life.
I am still amazed by the way God brought this Long Island boy and homegrown Hoosier together.
I am excited to share our special day with you.
All festivities were held at the Hilton Indianapolis Hotel & Suites.
We loved having everything in one place, especially for the many
out of town guests who were new to the area.
The day started bright and early for pictures.
Greg and I had our moment seeing each other before the ceremony
so we could get rolling early and get pictures out of the way.
This allowed us to have more time during cocktail hour to enjoy ourselves and mingle.
The ceremony was officiated by my pastor growing up and was short & sweet.
Cocktail hour followed, then everyone headed up to the ballroom for the reception.
We ended the night dancing and drinking with our most favorite people in the world.
To celebrate our five year wedding anniversary tomorrow,
I thought it would be fun to take a look back, five years ago.
During the wedding planning process, we originally avoided 4th of July weekend since it was a holiday,
but we finally decided that having it that weekend was absolutely perfect.
Everyone had a three day weekend already and some turned it into a longer weekend.
We also thought it would be fun to have fireworks each year we celebrated.
We welcomed guests throughout the day on the 4th and got to catch up with so many people.
Our rehearsal was held at our venue mid afternoon, followed by our rehearsal dinner.
Some would say it was nontraditional, as we enjoyed the evening at Victory Field, home of the Indianapolis Indians (Triple-A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates).
We chose Victory Field for a number of reasons.
If you know us at all, you know that we both love sports, especially baseball for Greg.
The Indianapolis Indians always host the 4th of July game against the Louisville Bats,
so we know first hand that it’s a great evening filled with tradition, plus a great view of the downtown fireworks.
The field was just a few blocks from our wedding venue and where all the guests were staying,
so no one had to mess with driving to or from the game, especially great for out-of-towners.
Most importantly, this is the very place that Greg and I met just two summers prior.
There is no doubt Victory Field will always hold a special place in our heart.
We hosted our guests on the Third Base Terrace, located on suite level.
Everyone enjoyed great seats for the game, yummy ballpark food, and the best view for downtown Indy.
If you know Indiana weather at all, you’d think that it would be hot and humid in July,
but to our surprise, it was very chilly… freezing I would say.
I distinctly remember people buying sweatshirts because we were not prepared for the cold.
There was a small window following the end of the game and before the start of the fireworks
where there were some on-field promotions. Four members of our bridal party got to participate
in dizzy bat on the field. Let me tell you, it is still funny to think about to this day.
Michael, Maggi, Joe, and Jeff definitely provided entertainment to a sold out crowd.
At dusk, the fireworks began, which was a great way to celebrate the 4th of July
and end a wonderful day with our closest friends and family.
The Gilbertson Family 