We have decided on a name:
Yes, the name is french. But that is purely coincidence. Joie is a fun spin on my name (the "ie" from Billie and the Jo), and my dad's name is Joe. Ricky's middle name is Elias, so Elise is a girlie version of his middle name. Plus, I've loved the name Elise for a long time.
This weekend, several of my amazing Oregon friends threw us a shower. It was so much fun. Some of our friends from Eugene even made the two hour trip to Portland to celebrate, and many who couldn't be there still sent thoughtful gifts for Joie. I must admit that there's just something so special about celebrating a new baby on the way. Many of my friends have had babies in the last couple of years, so it was wonderful to get advice from them as well as the gifts that I didn't even know to ask for but that they found super helpful in their experiences. I had a mix of friends from work, school, taekwondo, church, and kickboxing. We played a game where Sarah told us lines from nursery rhymes, and we had to come up with the title (super HARD...I have some homework to do before my mommy days officially start). We also had to estimate the price of a bunch of different baby items and whomever came up with a total that was closest to the actual amount won.
Ricky joked when I got home that he has already met his pink threshold. Lol. I love him bunches. :-)
Here are a few pictures from the day.
Yummy, beautiful cake.
My great friends who threw the shower. Candy, Sarah, and Allie.
The nursery colors are going to be lavender and yellow, so that was the theme. I also really love the light teal color, so they mixed a bit of that in, too. So thoughtful.
Our brunch spread. Cream Brule french toast (with raspberries, granola, and whip cream), savory egg bites, and punch (white grape, sprite, and raspberries). Sarah also had some cereal (one of my cravings) and muffins.
Jessica made the trip from Eugene with her new three week old baby Jack. He looked so cute in his big boy outfit!
Katrina and Rebecca surprised me by making the trek from Eugene. I miss my Eugene taekwondo friends so much!
In general, I must say Joie has been really good to me. I had quite a bit of queasies and a weird taste in my mouth (kinda metallic) for the first trimester, but it was tolerable. And as I am wrapping up the last bet of the second trimester, I have had a little sciatica pain and some pelvis soreness, but that's been the main quirks of trimester two. I was almost six months pregnant before people started telling me I "looked" pregnant, but now I certainly feel it! At almost 26 weeks, I still have a pretty good view of my feet and have managed to keep up kickboxing (albeit a bit lower intensity than before) or elliptical training pretty much daily. In addition, we typically take the dogs on a 30 minute walk if it's not too wet.
So... that's the news on the baby front. We are getting closer to our move to San Antonio. More on that later, though. This girl is pretty worn out for tonight. :-)
