Grand Finale

We went to Peoria for final shower #3 this past weekend and I regret that it's taken me until now to sort through presents and pictures to be able to post a decent entry.

This time, Timothy was honored with his own "Proud Papa" party that celebrated his contribution to this whole baby thing. After the girls and I left for the hotel, he and the boys hung at the house and watched basketball, ate brats, and played poker for nickels.

Thanks to major hookups courtesy of my Grandma Sally, the girls got the royal treatment and celebrated in style at the Presidential Suite of the Par-a-dice Hotel & Casino. My Great Aunts and cousins were were exceptional hostesses, providing an awesome spread and filling the place with fab decorations in brown, green and blue. Grandma Sally even made a special stop at the M&M factory in Las Vegas to pick up brown, green, and blue M&M's that would match my party colors. I kinda felt like one of those obnoxious spoiled brats from MTV's "My Sweet Sixteen" show - the only things missing were the b-list hip-hop artist and pimped out white Mercedes with 22" rims. Not that I'm complaining...

Family and friends helped celebrate, including surprise guests like my Grandma "Mimi" and Kathi Weltzin, a good family friend and artist extraordinaire who created this amazing copper vessel to house a series of notes contributed by all of the shower guests. In fact, everyone was so generous and brought varied and wonderful gifts. One of my very favorite things was a plush toy from my Aunt Karen's family. His name is Jeero and he is from the Ugly Dolls collection and I LOVE him. My mom also got me a baby book to document Alex's first three years through pictures and descriptions and memorabilia. I am really excited about that and can't wait till I can start to fill it out.

Lucky me, the party didn't end when the shower did. Since my Grandma had rented the room for the whole night, Tim and I got to take advantage and stay there Saturday night. We felt pretty toit - definitely something we could get used to...

Another great shower gone by. Thanks so much to everyone who made this weekend such a hit!

p.s. These cute red wedges are the shoes that I wore to the shower. Despite much scolding from multiple well-intentioned people warning me of the various potential harms of wearing heels at 8 months pregnant, this was one of the only days in the past couple of weeks that I was not completely swollen from the ankles down. The others were the two days following the wearing of said shoes. As such, I am contending that these 3 1/2" heels are in fact a cure for elephant ankles as opposed to the cause of such things.