A little parent care

Lots of adult time and change of scenery is what the doctor prescribes for staving off the baby blues, and that is exactly what Jon and friends pushed Cortney to get.  So, armed with antibacterial wipes and gel, and a blanket to hide the baby, a nervous Cortney, and a less than nervous Calvin, had a lunch date.  The date included Cortney's friends Amy, Becky, and Liesl (you may remember Liesl as the baby tester for our dogs and our baby equipment a few months ago).  A good time was had by all, including Calvin who slept through the majority of the visit and lunch out.  It was fun to see him in comparison to Liesl, who is nearly 6 months old.  The difference is immense, on all developmental scales at this point, and yet the two will be in the same class in school.  Who knows... some day they might even date, though both mothers say it will be at least 30 years, right?

And parent care continued into the evening with a little couple time for the two of us.  Though our attempt to indoctrinate Calvin in Trivial Pursuit went largely unnoticed by the pupil, we certainly enjoyed ourselves.  Cortney would like to point out that Jon won by a landslide mostly because her brain hasn't returned from the pregnancy abyss.  We'll go ahead and let her hold onto that belief a little while longer...

Building a library

We have been blessed to have the support of so many different groups in our lives, and we have been showered with so many wonderful gifts. But the one category of baby gear in which we have so far been deficient is books. Well, not after tonight! Jon's work threw us a fabulous shower. The Fabers passed on a veritable library of books that were Vivian's favorites when she was younger. The collection took all of us on a trip down memory lane. And yes, it is worth it to have three copies of Goodnight Moon in board book form so that when Calvin chews his way through them, we have backups.

The plans included a slew of relatively innocuous games. Guess how many squares of toilet paper it takes to encircle Cortney's belly (Jon was kind enough to severely underestimate, while Rick nailed it exactly)! Who can blow up the biggest balloon (rumors of popping balloons causing pregnant women to go into labor surfaced here)? How many words can you make out of the name Calvin Curtis Ophoff (Cortney blew away the competition with 38, but since you got bonus points for baby-themed words, some people had some very inventive, er, stretches. Phallus? Coitus? Poo? And these were coming from Jon's bosses and co-workers!)

The Fabers served a wonderful meal (grilled chicken, potato salad with bacon, tomatoes with bleu cheese, and more), prefaced by baby food hors d'oeuvres, and the pregnant women's standby, pickles. While Cortney had to miss out on the wine, there was also excellent home-brewed iced tea.

An outpouring of love.

Our friends and family have been nothing but loving and supportive since we announced Raspberry's existence back in December.  We have received multitudes of hugs, cards, gifts, and tidbits of advice from everyone and it is clearer now than ever to us that we are well loved and that Raspberry will enjoy the same.  Last night was no different.  Cortney is a deacon at our church and last night we were overwhelmed by the outpouring of love for Raspberry, and the two of us, in a surprise shower event organized by Cortney's Quad leader and friend, Michelle, at the deacons' monthly meeting.  Before the meeting several of the deacons surprised Cortney with gift bags, including two wonderful lullaby CDs from the family of Jon's confirmand, and a wonderful hand stitched bib and amazingly beautiful, hand carved rattle from Sandy and her husband.  As if that wasn't surprising enough, at the end of the standard meeting a very unsuspecting, and somewhat embarrassed, Cortney was called to the front of the room and presented with a gift certificate and two very personal gifts:  the first was a quilt pieced together from squares signed by the other deacons in Cortney's quad and hand sewn by Michelle;  the second was a beautiful scrapbook, every page containing the advice, stories, prayers, etc., hand written by each of the 54 other deacons and put together by Michelle.  The amount of work put into making those two gifts is incredibly touching, as is their personal nature.  We will cherish them always, and they will forever remind us of how loved we really are.  We cannot wait for Raspberry to meet all the wonderful people who already care so much about him before he has even entered the world.

May showers bring June babies!

We promise this will be the last time we use that cheesy title for any month!  It's an easy promise, since raspberry should be here next month.  But we were showered with love again today, this time by many of the staff and volunteers of our church.  This was a women only shower, so Jon stayed home and watched a movie and played video games while Cortney did all the work!  It was a wonderful brunch party hosted by Annemarie, one of our ministers and friends, and organized by Cortney's friend Mary, with game suggestions by lots of others.  They played the memory game - after a short peek how many of the diaper bag items can you remember?  Cortney won that one with 19/20 items!  After a couple of other games they opened gifts - there were lots of giggles and oohs and ahhs.  Everyone was very generous and we feel very loved and, thanks to all of our family and friends, we can also now say that if we had to bring a baby home next week we would be ready!  Well, at least physically. 

Not much...

We don't have a whole lot to say, but Judi sent us some great pictures that she took at the shower last week and we added them to the photo album and just wanted to give everyone a heads up.  While we're at it... our 33 week check up went well!  Cortney's weight is right on and she has been cleared to continue her daily 1-2 mile walks.  Raspberry has turned and is, for the most part, head down, leaving Cortney with a slightly smaller circumference (which she is glad about) and a little rib relief (which she is ecstatic about). 
So, everything looks good!