It was pretty muddy out, so Willa wanted to ride on Daddy's shoulders
Got it!
My little cheeser
Evie was NOT excited by the fall fun
And why do I have to sit in the dirt among these vegetables?
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Carter Mountain
This past weekend we went to Charlottesville to visit some friends, and of course we had to hit up my favorite place to spend time in the Fall, Carter Mountain apple orchard. Willa has been here a couple of times, but it was Evie's first visit. We picked up some tasty apples and got the requisite pumpkin patch photo shoot. As you will see, Willa was more enthused about it than Evie was, haha!
A silly Harry Potter photo shoot
I was cruising Pinterest, like I do, and I happened upon a bunch of Harry Potter newborn pictures. So of course, if you know me you know what happened next. Yup, Harry Potter Evie photo shoot.
Behold!
Behold!
Some hospital pictures
I finally got around to digging through the many pictures we took at the hospital when Evie was born. Enjoy!
I snapped these next couple when my parents were in town. So sweet!
Monday, September 11, 2017
Evie's two month update
There's our little ray of sunshine!! She had her two month appointment this morning, and she is perfect. 12 pounds, 24 inches of love. This means she is growing well and in the upper quartile for both! She was pretty cooperative until the shots, when her screams rang out louder and sadder than I have ever heard. It was the moment she realized that pain is a thing, and it broke my heart. She zonked out not long after and spent the rest of the day sleeping it off, my sweet precious one. It was extra hard to drop her off at the sitter today!
Let me just tell you, she is the best baby ever. She already sleeps from 11:30-6:30 at night, eats like a champ, makes great eye contact, and has the most killer smile. She loves to watch her sister be silly and could snuggle all day if you let her. I would have eight more if they didn't cost anything to raise and were guaranteed to be just like her!
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
The countdown, the birth, the aftermath
Holy cow, I have not updated at all since I delivered! I am so sorry! Let me break down everything that happened in the month leading up to the delivery, the delivery itself, and maternity leave. Yeah, I know, it's going to be a lot, so I'll make little headings if you are only interested in part of the story :-).
The Final Countdown
As anyone who spoke to me towards the end of my pregnancy knows, I fully anticipated that Evie would be early. I was an early baby, my brother was early, Jeremy was an early baby, and Willa was early. Makes total sense that I would have another baby early, right? With that thought fully embedded in my brain, I made all my plans for her arriving the week(s) before July 5. I made and maintained a list of clients to notify if/when I missed my appointments due to being in labor. I planned for my maternity leave to start right at the holiday weekend, which gave me pretty much the whole summer off, which is a slow time for clients anyway. I made arrangements with friends for emergency Willa-care until my sister-in-law would be arriving on July 1, just praying that I would make it until she would be there to take care of everything while we were in the hospital.
WELL.
She was four days late. Yeah, she was salty to the end. At the end of June I was grateful to still be pregnant, since I was able to transition my clients and finish out my time with the NBCC. When I got to July 1 and Katie, Sahil, and Lark arrived, I breathed a sigh of relief and felt ready. I got an induction massage with a masseur that reported a 75% success rate of delivery within 24 hours, 85% within 48 hours. While it was awesome and relaxing and indulgent, it was ineffective.
Then July 3 came and I got to move into my job's new office building, which made me happy, but I did as much lifting and squatting as I could to try to start labor. Then the Fourth came and I walked as much as I could, to and from the Kirkwood parade, out to get a pedicure, and started looking up yoga poses to jumpstart the process. All during this time, I kept fielding calls from people checking up on me, also utterly surprised that I hadn't yet delivered. I started to feel pressured on my due date, since Katie could only stay for a few more days, which meant my time to have her there not only during delivery, but in the two days in the hospital afterwards to care for Willa and Roxy, was dwindling.
I burst into tears when my Dad called that day with an innocent question as to when we wanted them to come. Since I was basing that on when she actually arrived, and I was frustrated that she hadn't come yet and I didn't know when she would, I broke down. I felt like I had let down everyone who had put their lives on hold for us, even though rationally I knew I couldn't control it and no one blamed me. I started posting daily funny gifs on my Facebook page to give me something to look forward to and to help me to be more positive, but I was miserable.
I tried as many tricks as I could find, the most effective of which was actually using my breast pump. It made very strong contractions start, but as soon as I stopped pumping, they stopped. I talked to my doc about it on the day after my due date, and she pretty much told me nothing works to start labor, other than drugs. "If she's not ready, she's not going to come." GREAT. That didn't stop me from walking, squatting, and doing yoga though, if only to prevent total insanity. But I was grumpy.
It's on.
On Saturday, June 8, aka Katie's last full day with us, I woke up still feeling normal. I scheduled an induction date for July 14, which seemed ridiculously far away. Jeremy and I talked about it and asked my parents to come to cover that time, and they agreed to come as early as July 12 to help us out. I breathed out and resolved to be happy that labor wasn't starting before they arrived. Well, of course, you know what happened next.
All through that day I felt what I believed to be Braxton Hicks contractions, which I had been feeling since I was 32 weeks along. I even had a false alarm on June 30 when they came regularly every 4 to 5 minutes, but I held off on going to the hospital and they stopped after a few hours. With that experience fresh in my mind, I didn't think too much of the pains. Then I got my bloody show and got excited/a little frustrated that the timing was what it was. But oh well, I was overall ready to meet my baby, so I was hopeful it was real this time. Katie and I went for a walk after dinner, I sat on my exercise ball to relieve pressure on my hips, and I started to believe in them more. They were every 4 to 5 minutes apart so I called my midwife, but she said that intensity is more important than frequency, so as long as I felt comfortable between contractions and the pain lessened when I walked around, I should stay at home.
This led to laboring overnight. I didn't sleep at all but Jeremy did so that he could be ready for what the next day held. At 4 am I got up to take a bath with a special bath bomb I saved for when I was in labor, and the warm water helped with the pain. By 5 am it was pretty bad, and we decided to go to the hospital. Katie was at the house with Willa, and I woke my girl up to say goodbye and wept a little at the enormity of the moment. This was my last night as a mom of one, and I hoped we would be able to help her through the transition feeling loved and just as cherished as before. (Still do.)
At the hospital. they checked me in and checked me out. Since I had previously been 2 cm and had been laboring all night, I felt like a contestant on a game show ("Come on, big numbers, big numbers!!). 3. Yup, just 3. I asked if I should just go home and the nurse asked me the Big Question, drugs or no drugs? I told her I wanted to go natural as much as I could, but I wasn't opposed to the idea of an epidural. She told me that if I wanted to go drug free, my best bet was to go home. I was still on the fence, so she suggested waiting and laboring for an hour to see how quickly I was progressing. If I was making progress I could stay, if not I should go home. Ok, cool.
Let me tell you, that was my LEAST favorite hour of labor. They had me and Evie hooked up to monitors which required that I stay in the Worst Bed Ever. Seriously, if there were a competition, it would win. SO stiff, no lumbar support, tiny, short, ugh. All of the techniques I was using to manage pain were movement based, so being stuck in the WBE meant I had no effective tools. After every contraction I said (or perhaps yelled) "I hate this bed!" At one point it was so bad that I had to request the world's tiniest barf bag, which I later used while Jeremy bolted to the other side of the room. It was awful.
After that hour was over, I was 4 cm dilated and they agreed I should stay. My midwife came by, did an ultrasound to check her head placement (still down, woo!) and I went to a labor and delivery room. Jeremy got all of our stuff, got some breakfast, and we settled in for the long haul. I was super annoyed at all the questions the nurse asked me about my medical history, but Jeremy tells me he answered most of them, although I tried to be helpful. I got to 5cm in another hour, and it was decision time, to epidural or not to epidural? I thought about it and realized I hadn't slept in 24 hours and had no idea how much more labor was ahead of me, let alone how much pushing. After Jeremy reassured me that he wouldn't think any less of me, and I entertained the thought of actually sleeping for a little while, I went ahead and asked for an epidural.
At this point, I have to share something weird about me. Since I love what I do, I tend to be willing to talk to people about their issues when others may find it inappropriate. As an example of this, consider my actions while I was in active labor. The nurse in training who was shadowing my main OB nurse mentioned that she has an acute fear of needles, leading her to faint the last time she witnessed an epidural. Cue this crazy lady ::points at self:: talking about relaxation and anxiety management techniques WHILE CONTRACTING. The main nurse also (somehow) mentioned her veteran nephew with some issues, which I reflected could be PTSD, and I made a couple of suggestions for treatment options for him. Yeah, I think it's good I went back to work after 6 weeks. It seems my therapist side is deeply ingrained. And also needs to work on its boundaries.
Anyway, back to me in labor. I had the epidural, griped at the anesthesiologist for ripping the tape off my back (which actually hurt more than the contraction in the moment), then felt immediate relief. I was still able to move my legs and feet, which was reassuring, then passed the F out. Like, hard zonkage. Jeremy too. I woke up after another hour when they came to check me and found that I was at 7cm. Great! My doctor (my fav and the one I was hoping against hope would be on call) said that she was considering breaking my water to help speed things along. Except, wait a minute, I hadn't gotten my penicillin shot (I was Strep B positive). Whoops. I needed two courses of the drug, four hours apart to be safe with a vaginal delivery. So they gave me the first shot, scratched the idea of breaking my water, and I went back to sleep. They woke me up after another hour to check me again. The good news in that moment was, I was 10 cm! The bad news? My water broke on the doctor's fingers as she was checking. And, AND she didn't feel a head, she felt a bum.
WHAT.
Time for a C section.
NO.
Somewhere between when I was admitted at 4cm and when my water broke at 10, my salty girl flipped into frank breech position. Since my water broke they couldn't try to turn her, and since I was a VBAC the doctor wasn't going to attempt a breech vaginal delivery (which is apparently a thing). I cried with the disappointment of it. My doctor was amazing through this. She held my hand and asked about all of the things that made me not want a C section. She reassured me that they wouldn't take Evie away from me, would tell me her weight and length right away, and that we would be all together in the recovery room. She also played music in the operating room because, as she said, "Babies should not come into the world to operating room sounds, it should be to beautiful music." I love that. She even let me choose the song to be playing when Evie emerged (I asked them to change it from Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven," for obvious reasons).
Evie came out, no problem, and everyone remarked on how big and how beautiful she was! When they walked her past me, I had to gasp at how big she was! My first thought was that she looked like a newborn on TV, when they actually use a three month old baby instead of a newborn. They gave me an estimate of her weight (over 9 pounds) and said that she had a perfect APGAR score, but that they had to give her a 9 since "no one gets a perfect score." I was amazed and happy and so in love. They gave her to me, latched her on, and she started nursing like a champ at 9 minutes old while the ukelele version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" played. It was awesome.
Evie Lois, 9 pounds, 6.8 ounces, 22 1/4 inches long. Perfect.
The Final Countdown
As anyone who spoke to me towards the end of my pregnancy knows, I fully anticipated that Evie would be early. I was an early baby, my brother was early, Jeremy was an early baby, and Willa was early. Makes total sense that I would have another baby early, right? With that thought fully embedded in my brain, I made all my plans for her arriving the week(s) before July 5. I made and maintained a list of clients to notify if/when I missed my appointments due to being in labor. I planned for my maternity leave to start right at the holiday weekend, which gave me pretty much the whole summer off, which is a slow time for clients anyway. I made arrangements with friends for emergency Willa-care until my sister-in-law would be arriving on July 1, just praying that I would make it until she would be there to take care of everything while we were in the hospital.
WELL.
She was four days late. Yeah, she was salty to the end. At the end of June I was grateful to still be pregnant, since I was able to transition my clients and finish out my time with the NBCC. When I got to July 1 and Katie, Sahil, and Lark arrived, I breathed a sigh of relief and felt ready. I got an induction massage with a masseur that reported a 75% success rate of delivery within 24 hours, 85% within 48 hours. While it was awesome and relaxing and indulgent, it was ineffective.
Then July 3 came and I got to move into my job's new office building, which made me happy, but I did as much lifting and squatting as I could to try to start labor. Then the Fourth came and I walked as much as I could, to and from the Kirkwood parade, out to get a pedicure, and started looking up yoga poses to jumpstart the process. All during this time, I kept fielding calls from people checking up on me, also utterly surprised that I hadn't yet delivered. I started to feel pressured on my due date, since Katie could only stay for a few more days, which meant my time to have her there not only during delivery, but in the two days in the hospital afterwards to care for Willa and Roxy, was dwindling.
I burst into tears when my Dad called that day with an innocent question as to when we wanted them to come. Since I was basing that on when she actually arrived, and I was frustrated that she hadn't come yet and I didn't know when she would, I broke down. I felt like I had let down everyone who had put their lives on hold for us, even though rationally I knew I couldn't control it and no one blamed me. I started posting daily funny gifs on my Facebook page to give me something to look forward to and to help me to be more positive, but I was miserable.
I tried as many tricks as I could find, the most effective of which was actually using my breast pump. It made very strong contractions start, but as soon as I stopped pumping, they stopped. I talked to my doc about it on the day after my due date, and she pretty much told me nothing works to start labor, other than drugs. "If she's not ready, she's not going to come." GREAT. That didn't stop me from walking, squatting, and doing yoga though, if only to prevent total insanity. But I was grumpy.
It's on.
On Saturday, June 8, aka Katie's last full day with us, I woke up still feeling normal. I scheduled an induction date for July 14, which seemed ridiculously far away. Jeremy and I talked about it and asked my parents to come to cover that time, and they agreed to come as early as July 12 to help us out. I breathed out and resolved to be happy that labor wasn't starting before they arrived. Well, of course, you know what happened next.
All through that day I felt what I believed to be Braxton Hicks contractions, which I had been feeling since I was 32 weeks along. I even had a false alarm on June 30 when they came regularly every 4 to 5 minutes, but I held off on going to the hospital and they stopped after a few hours. With that experience fresh in my mind, I didn't think too much of the pains. Then I got my bloody show and got excited/a little frustrated that the timing was what it was. But oh well, I was overall ready to meet my baby, so I was hopeful it was real this time. Katie and I went for a walk after dinner, I sat on my exercise ball to relieve pressure on my hips, and I started to believe in them more. They were every 4 to 5 minutes apart so I called my midwife, but she said that intensity is more important than frequency, so as long as I felt comfortable between contractions and the pain lessened when I walked around, I should stay at home.
This led to laboring overnight. I didn't sleep at all but Jeremy did so that he could be ready for what the next day held. At 4 am I got up to take a bath with a special bath bomb I saved for when I was in labor, and the warm water helped with the pain. By 5 am it was pretty bad, and we decided to go to the hospital. Katie was at the house with Willa, and I woke my girl up to say goodbye and wept a little at the enormity of the moment. This was my last night as a mom of one, and I hoped we would be able to help her through the transition feeling loved and just as cherished as before. (Still do.)
At the hospital. they checked me in and checked me out. Since I had previously been 2 cm and had been laboring all night, I felt like a contestant on a game show ("Come on, big numbers, big numbers!!). 3. Yup, just 3. I asked if I should just go home and the nurse asked me the Big Question, drugs or no drugs? I told her I wanted to go natural as much as I could, but I wasn't opposed to the idea of an epidural. She told me that if I wanted to go drug free, my best bet was to go home. I was still on the fence, so she suggested waiting and laboring for an hour to see how quickly I was progressing. If I was making progress I could stay, if not I should go home. Ok, cool.
Let me tell you, that was my LEAST favorite hour of labor. They had me and Evie hooked up to monitors which required that I stay in the Worst Bed Ever. Seriously, if there were a competition, it would win. SO stiff, no lumbar support, tiny, short, ugh. All of the techniques I was using to manage pain were movement based, so being stuck in the WBE meant I had no effective tools. After every contraction I said (or perhaps yelled) "I hate this bed!" At one point it was so bad that I had to request the world's tiniest barf bag, which I later used while Jeremy bolted to the other side of the room. It was awful.
After that hour was over, I was 4 cm dilated and they agreed I should stay. My midwife came by, did an ultrasound to check her head placement (still down, woo!) and I went to a labor and delivery room. Jeremy got all of our stuff, got some breakfast, and we settled in for the long haul. I was super annoyed at all the questions the nurse asked me about my medical history, but Jeremy tells me he answered most of them, although I tried to be helpful. I got to 5cm in another hour, and it was decision time, to epidural or not to epidural? I thought about it and realized I hadn't slept in 24 hours and had no idea how much more labor was ahead of me, let alone how much pushing. After Jeremy reassured me that he wouldn't think any less of me, and I entertained the thought of actually sleeping for a little while, I went ahead and asked for an epidural.
At this point, I have to share something weird about me. Since I love what I do, I tend to be willing to talk to people about their issues when others may find it inappropriate. As an example of this, consider my actions while I was in active labor. The nurse in training who was shadowing my main OB nurse mentioned that she has an acute fear of needles, leading her to faint the last time she witnessed an epidural. Cue this crazy lady ::points at self:: talking about relaxation and anxiety management techniques WHILE CONTRACTING. The main nurse also (somehow) mentioned her veteran nephew with some issues, which I reflected could be PTSD, and I made a couple of suggestions for treatment options for him. Yeah, I think it's good I went back to work after 6 weeks. It seems my therapist side is deeply ingrained. And also needs to work on its boundaries.
Anyway, back to me in labor. I had the epidural, griped at the anesthesiologist for ripping the tape off my back (which actually hurt more than the contraction in the moment), then felt immediate relief. I was still able to move my legs and feet, which was reassuring, then passed the F out. Like, hard zonkage. Jeremy too. I woke up after another hour when they came to check me and found that I was at 7cm. Great! My doctor (my fav and the one I was hoping against hope would be on call) said that she was considering breaking my water to help speed things along. Except, wait a minute, I hadn't gotten my penicillin shot (I was Strep B positive). Whoops. I needed two courses of the drug, four hours apart to be safe with a vaginal delivery. So they gave me the first shot, scratched the idea of breaking my water, and I went back to sleep. They woke me up after another hour to check me again. The good news in that moment was, I was 10 cm! The bad news? My water broke on the doctor's fingers as she was checking. And, AND she didn't feel a head, she felt a bum.
WHAT.
Time for a C section.
NO.
Somewhere between when I was admitted at 4cm and when my water broke at 10, my salty girl flipped into frank breech position. Since my water broke they couldn't try to turn her, and since I was a VBAC the doctor wasn't going to attempt a breech vaginal delivery (which is apparently a thing). I cried with the disappointment of it. My doctor was amazing through this. She held my hand and asked about all of the things that made me not want a C section. She reassured me that they wouldn't take Evie away from me, would tell me her weight and length right away, and that we would be all together in the recovery room. She also played music in the operating room because, as she said, "Babies should not come into the world to operating room sounds, it should be to beautiful music." I love that. She even let me choose the song to be playing when Evie emerged (I asked them to change it from Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven," for obvious reasons).
Evie came out, no problem, and everyone remarked on how big and how beautiful she was! When they walked her past me, I had to gasp at how big she was! My first thought was that she looked like a newborn on TV, when they actually use a three month old baby instead of a newborn. They gave me an estimate of her weight (over 9 pounds) and said that she had a perfect APGAR score, but that they had to give her a 9 since "no one gets a perfect score." I was amazed and happy and so in love. They gave her to me, latched her on, and she started nursing like a champ at 9 minutes old while the ukelele version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" played. It was awesome.
Evie Lois, 9 pounds, 6.8 ounces, 22 1/4 inches long. Perfect.
The Aftermath
Evie arrived with enough time for Katie and Lark to get to meet her before they had to leave for the hospital. Awesome friends of ours took Willa for a night for her first sleepover (big thanks to the Giovans and Andrew for sharing his room!), and Jeremy and I spent that first night in the hospital together. Evie didn't sleep unless one of us was holding her, as she started to choke on amniotic fluid that was still in her throat any time we put her on her back. We slept in shifts and made it through the night. The second night it was just me and Evie in the hospital so that Jeremy could be at the house with Willa. That was a rough night for me since Evie wanted to be walked so much, and it was hard for me to be up and about post-surgery, but I did it! Noshed on a cheese plate, watched some Criminal Minds, and had a nurse hold her for me so that I could take out my contacts. I slept a little when I nursed her in bed, which was apparently not allowed, but my nurse let me get away with it since she saw how little sleep I got over the past three days.
The next morning, Jeremy dropped Willa at school and we went took Evie home. I noticed that I wasn't as nervous as I had been as a first time mom, since everything wasn't so new. It is also easier in some ways to parent a newborn than a toddler, as what she needs is fairly straightforward and she doesn't argue with me nearly as much!
I was excited to see Willa with Evie when she got home from school, and she was very sweet indeed. I have found that this is true across the board, Willa just loves her baby sister. She seems to only get upset when she misses an opportunity to be helpful, like if we turn on the swing or get the clean diaper during a diaper change. She hasn't acted up more than usual, but does seem to be more demanding of my time and attention, although tantrums haven't really increased (knock wood!). I am lucky to have such a good kid.
All the days of my maternity leave seem to blur together. My parents were here for the first ten days, and they were most helpful in making sure that Willa got attention and outings when I couldn't move well or drive at all. I was nervous when they left, but Jeremy and I got a rhythm fairly quickly. He made this great mental flow chart that has been serving us well: "A thing needs to be done -> Are you holding the baby? No = Do the thing. Yes = Congratulations! Your partner will do the thing!" This has worked with everything from housework to Willa's immediate needs. We have been working to make sure that Willa still gets time with me and Jeremy gets good bonding time with Evie, since it's easy to slip into me having to say no to Willa all the time because I'm nursing (see previous, more demanding of my attention). We have largely stuck to our preexisting routine with the mornings and evenings, and after a few weeks I was even able to get back to Wednesday storytime and Friday playdates. My guess is that this has helped Willa to transition well. I hope I can keep it going!
I started back at work yesterday, which has been ok. I shed a few tears, but I knew I would. Today has been a little easier, and I know it will continue to get easier as time passes. I'm lucky in that I only work part time, so I still get good morning time with my baby, and I get all of Friday to myself with both kids. I know this might have to change some day, so for now I am trying to be mindful and to enjoy it.
If you made it through this whole long post, I thank you. It has been a crazy whirlwind of the last two months, but I am grateful to have made it out the other side, fairly unscathed and utterly content. Here's hoping I keep this up with pictures and stories more reliably, now that I am documenting the lives of two precious girls!
Friday, July 14, 2017
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Willa's bedtime story for Cubbie
Every night, Willa recites a story to her little sister. It is the sweetest part of my day! She gets very into the story, and loves to hug my belly and to give it kisses. Last night I made a video, and may have Jeremy shoot another one since it's so dark, but I hope you enjoy this one in the meantime!
Belly updates
So, here are the last two belly shots, taken at 6(ish) months and 7(ish) months.
Six months
Seven months
She is getting so big! I am definitely feeling large and in charge, in full waddle mode. None of my favorite shoes fit any more, but luckily it's sandal season so I can get away with strappy shoes. My feet also routinely swell by the end of the day, which (because my blood pressure is actually on the low normal side) I'm taking as a good sign that she's putting pressure down low where she needs to be. I'm also starting to feel a couple of Braxton Hicks a day, which my doc says is normal. So basically, starting to feel uncomfortable on a regular basis!
Cubbie is also quite the feisty little one. She and I regularly get into what I like to call "turf wars," when she kicks my arms and hands any time I rest them on my belly. Her little feet are so knobbly, and I love to feel them on the right side of my belly, right under my ribs, even if she is being a little salty with them :-). She continues only to kick for me and seems to have an uncanny ability to know when her Daddy or her sister is trying to feel her. I actually don't think Willa has gotten a good feel yet!
Overall, we are both doing really well. I am excited to meet her soon, but hope she waits until her due date so we have lots of time to get ready for her!
As a fun little bonus, here is a video I took at work where you can see her moving from the outside. Look to the right side of the belly to see little "pops" as she kicks with her strong little legs!
Monday, May 22, 2017
Tea with Brie
This past Saturday I was honored with a baby sprinkle by a few awesome friends, Nikki, Callie, and Molly, with valuable contributions from my sister in law, Katie, and friends Audrey and Sandi. My parents flew in to help and to celebrate with us, which was so wonderful. All I had asked for was that there be peonies, and boy were there!!
The theme was "Tea with Brie," and so we had a lovely luncheon with tea in many forms. We wore fancy hats and ate finger sandwiches and tea. Everyone got a vintage teacup as a favor, as well as a tea bag and a little honey straw. It was just so amazing and perfect! The activity was for everyone to write thoughtful letters to Cubbie, to be put in a teapot time capsule for her to open when she's older. Yeah, there were tears. So, so many happy tears.
The theme was "Tea with Brie," and so we had a lovely luncheon with tea in many forms. We wore fancy hats and ate finger sandwiches and tea. Everyone got a vintage teacup as a favor, as well as a tea bag and a little honey straw. It was just so amazing and perfect! The activity was for everyone to write thoughtful letters to Cubbie, to be put in a teapot time capsule for her to open when she's older. Yeah, there were tears. So, so many happy tears.
A sign specially made for our girl
Willa and I made her a fun fabricator to wear to the party
A table full of sweet treats and tea
The most beautiful cake I have ever seen, thanks to Katie!
Our place settings
The whole table
A close up of the dark pink peony centerpiece
Vintage teacups galore!
The gift table
Fancy hats!
Thee masterminds
Raspberries in the ice cubes!
Chick Fil A lemonade, yum!
Such a fun group!
The most beautiful diaper cake, that will keep Cubbie covered for the first month, I'm sure!
My parents decided to get Willa a big sister gift so that she wouldn't feel too left out when I was opening so many gifts. They found her the absolute perfect match in an American Girl doll, down to the name! It had her same eye color, hair color, teeth spacing, and was named "Willa"! I bought the doll some purple glasses to match Willa's, and she was smitten. When she opened it, she said, "Can I play with me?!" Love it.
Perfect match!
She was enamored.
Overall I was so thrilled with the whole day. Everyone was so sweet, and every detail was so well thought out. How lucky I am to have such an amazing group of women around me. Also, that I have a Dad that was willing to come just to work and take pictures for me! I can't stop counting my blessings.
At the end of the party, Willa got some good big sister practice in with baby Eric. She was a little startled by him poking her face at first, but after Nikki hooked his arm under hers, she was smitten. She kept giving him hugs and kisses, and I thoroughly melted.
What a precious day <3.
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