Farewell to Employment, Hello to Motherhood!

This has been a fairly eventful past couple of weeks! Last week was my last week of employment at the bank and I think it was one of the longest weeks ever because of that...lol. I was so ready to be done with work and start preparing for the baby at home so you can believe how time just dragged on for that reason. But I have loved working with the people there and they have been so flexible and patient with me throughout my pregnancy. That job has been such a blessing for Nate and I so that we could save up money to buy a house. They've had great benefits and they were so family oriented and were glad for me that I was going to be able to stay home and raise my baby. It is a great bank and there are great people there! My last day (last Friday) they threw a surprise little party for me before we opened and it was the nicest thing any employer has ever done for me. Of course I was running a bit late that day (which always seems to happen when you're supposed to be somewhere on time) and so when I walked in everyone was standing around waiting for me with pink balloons and streamers and flowers and they were like "Surprise! Can we eat now??"...LOL. It was kind of embarrassing because it seemed like EVERYONE was staring at me and waiting for my "ok" to eat the food. So I told them to please start and then they had me open some gifts. They were so sweet for everything they did! They brought fruit, yogurt, donuts, bundt cakes, zucchini bread, and juice and for gifts they got Emma diapers, wipes, a Mickey Mouse piggy bank, a Pooh blanket, and a generous gift card to Target. I could not believe it!! I will always be so grateful to them for their kindness and generosity! Seriously I don't know how I get so blessed to have all of these amazing people in my life. It honestly humbles me because I know that it means the Lord loves me and loves our little baby. I learn so much from these people, like how to be giving and loving and how to care about those around me. What great examples they are to me. And it's not just the people from work. I also was given a baby shower last week by my visiting teachers in the ward and many women from the ward came to it. It was really so nice of all of them to come. I received several absolutely adorable outfits and blankets and things, some of which were homemade. I also received a nice group gift of an infant swing, a carrier and diaper wipes. I even had someone make an adorable cake made out of rolled up diapers with ribbons and flowers all over it. SO cute! Everything I received was just what we needed for Emma and I am so grateful to all of the girls who came! It was so much fun!! See what wonderful people are surrounding me?? It was a great week last week and all of those baby things got me SO excited about the baby coming soon. This week has been really nice being off of work because I've been able to get the room organized and get baby stuff washed and ready to go. Nate even painted the room yesterday (mostly so the room looked nice and to help out his parents who've been wanting that room painted for a while). So we're almost ready to put all of the stuff back in the room and have it all ready for the baby. We bought a crib online and it should get here this coming Monday!! We already got the mattress and bedding in the mail for it so we're just waiting for that crib! I also had a doctor's appointment this week and the doctor said I'm dilated to a 4 1/2 so he said the baby could come any time, whenever she decides to "push the button." It could be today or it could be 2 or 3 weeks from now. We're hoping it's sooner than later because waiting is just really difficult...lol. I was all worried about her coming before I finished my last day of work and now I'm begging for her to come. So I guess we'll see! We know it's gotta happen some time so the waiting won't go on forever, even though it feels like that sometimes. :) In the mean time, I'm going to have to come up with projects to keep myself busy because long days not being at work, with Nate being gone, and with no car to use tend to get boring kind of fast. Hopefully our baby girl with come soon!

Pictures!

Here are the pictures I meant to post on the last post. We haven't taken many since these ones, but we've been having fun testing out our new video camera! We're so excited that we've got one to record our precious baby girl when she comes. The camera came with a USB cable so that's how I'm putting these ones on here.





Ken Griffey, Jr. - Cool, but no great hits came out of him this game.


The foul ball we caught.



Mariners win! Yay! These next ones were just some random ones we had Valerie take for us a couple of Sundays ago. Had to get some good family and belly shots!





Also, since the last post, we've had some 4th of July fun with the family. In the morning we got up and went to the flag ceremony at Gram's stake center. She was being honored by the mayor of the city for her help in establishing this flag ceremony 50 years ago. It was pretty neat!


She got a certificate signed by Sam Reed, the Washington Secretary of State, and a flag that flew over the state capitol! What a great honor for her! Then we went home and bought our crib and things online so we're really excited to get that this week! Then Nate made homemade ice cream, homemade root beer, and a couple of dutch oven desserts (I helped a little with the desserts...lol) and we had a BBQ with the neighbors out in the coldesac. It was lots of fun and the food was great! That night Nate and I went over to a lake nearby and watched the fireworks display there. It was actually pretty good considering it was only put on by the city. It was really fun to get out, ride the shuttle bus, be with the crowds and enjoy the summer night! Hope everyone had a happy 4th!!