Cragg Baby Shower!
Yesterday was our first baby shower. It was thrown by Greg’s parents, so it was the Craggs and the Apodacas there, as well as our friends, Amber and Maz, and Jason and Katie. We had the party at Aunt Adeline and Uncle Paul’s house, which they just moved into a few months ago. Ronnie cooked, and Erin (SIL) did almost ALL of the work during the day and a lot of the planning prior. Anyway, there’s the background whatnot.
We arrived around 12:15 (the official start time was noon, but I was moving a bit slow due to residual pain from a Charlie horse the other night), I set up my snow cone maker for the kids (hey, adults get alcohol, kids (and I!) should get something too, right?), and we sat down outside under the awnings Paul had set up. There were 5 tables for about 8 people each, all out in the heat, but luckily, mostly in the shade. We sat next to their pool, which looked really tempting (the kids ended up going in around 3:30).
We all chatted for about 45 minutes or so, then we started playing games. Erin was the game master, and she did an awesome job. The first game we played was naming the baby items - everyone was given a list of letters of the alphabet and had to try to find a word that matched each letter in a limited time. The next game was a drink beer from the bottle race - 8 of the guys (well, 7 and one kid who had juice) raced to drink the beer. It should have taken a bit of time because they needed to suck the bottle, but Greg’s mom thought that would have been too difficult, so she took a knife and cut slits in all the bottle openings. As a result, it took them less than 5 seconds to finish the 4 oz of beer. (Mike (BIL) decided to cheat and rip the top of the bottle so he could drink it faster - he said that wasn’t cheating because “no one said [he] couldn’t do that!” - luckily, he didn’t have much of an advantage doing that since Viv (his mom) had done that to ALL the bottles already (ha!).) The third game we played was pregnant for a day. Everyone blew up balloons and put them under their shirt (if they could) or on their lap. They were then given a piece of string and had to bend over and tie the string around their foot. It was really funny for me to watch. :)
After that, we ate lunch, which was delicious. We had bbq pulled pork made by Ronnie (Greg’s cousin) on rolls, bbq baked beans, corn on the cob, cole slaw (which neither Greg nor I tried since we don’t care for it), fruit, and that soft sweet corn bread stuff (I don’t know the name). It was SO GOOD! We ate leftovers today, and they were still delicious. After lunch, we played a short impromptu game with Dave presiding where people had to answer trivial questions about Gone with the Wind (where we got Scarlett’s name) - Erin kicked butt! :)
After that, we opened presents. Everyone was very nice with their gifts, and we got a lot of wonderful things - especially clothes! We ended up with maybe 40-50 outfits, 12 blankets, 7 hats, 6 pairs of socks, 11 bibs, 2 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of slippers, some hangers, washcloths, diapers, burp cloths, a baby bather, an ear thermometer, a boppy, a Red Cross kit, some bath supplies, baby wipes, 2 teddy bears, a Pooh robe, bottle cleaning stuff, two gift cards, and some other assorted things I’m sure I’m missing (I can list it all off because I sorted it out today and it’s around the room right next to me). We also got a bunch of books from everyone! Erin had the great idea to have everyone write their note in the cover of the book instead of a card, so Scarlett got a nice collection of kids books with personalized notes. It was wonderful! Some of the (more specific) awesome things we got: Aunt Arlene found a Zebra blanket/stuffed animal with a head and tail that she had Scarlett’s name embroidered on. Greg called it Scarlett’s first road kill. :) Dave and Viv (Greg’s parents) bought us a glider and ottoman! (I’m so happy! I love it so very, very much.) In addition, they bought us some clothes and books in this really awesome box that had that old faded paper/French design look. Viv put motherhood scrapbook stickers on it, and it looks amazing. I’m going to keep and treasure that box forever. One of Greg’s second cousins (I think), Yvonne, found pink UCLA fabric and made a shirt for a teddy bear and a really cute little pillow. And Erin made us two (not one, but 2!) blankets - one was a patchwork quilt, and the other a blanket with rainbow fabric on the inside bordered by bottle fabric on the outside. The blankets were beautifully done, and must have taken a lot of time. I really treasure them. Oh, and Erin also found baby clothes with cowgirls and boots on them which totally made my day. They were adorable. Oh! I should also say that Papa Al (Greg’s grandfather) got Scarlett a baby Dodger outfit in pink - it has a Dodger bib and a baseball heart. It is really cute! All the other clothes were really cute too, but it would take me ages to describe them all.
We then played ate cake, which was SO GOOD. It was yummy, delicious carrot cake. It was a good thing that lunch tasted so good because I was rather full from lunch and couldn’t eat a lot of cake - otherwise, I might have devoured half the cake…it was so good.
After that, everybody started to head out. We loaded up our car and waited while Viv and some others went to see Josh (Greg’s second cousin) who was going to Prom that night. While she was gone, Erin cleaned up EVERYTHING. I was so impressed with Erin. She worked so very hard. I really wanted to get up and help, but my body wasn’t having any of that, so I sat down and did nothing except talk to Katie, which was wonderful. When Viv came back, 6 of us (Dave, Viv, Mike, Erin, Greg, me) headed out to go see the new Star Trek, which was awesome - Scarlett didn’t like the warp speed though. It was really nice because I got to sit next to Viv, and she could put her hand on my stomach for a good amount of time and wait for Scarlett to move. Usually Viv isn’t patient enough (or feels like she’s bothering me) to wait more than a minute or two before moving her hand after feeling nothing or almost nothing. However, during the movie, I told her to keep her hand on my stomach for a while because Scarlett loves (or hates?) action moves and moves a lot in response. Viv was very happy to feel her move so much, and that made me very happy.
All in all, it was a wonderful day and an awesome shower. I had a great time, and so did Greg. However, I think being in the sun all day was not so great with all that action, because I am totally wiped out today. I slept in, felt really sore, took a nap, and have done almost nothing. But it was totally worth it. Awesome baby shower. Too bad Scarlett won’t remember it!