Like Father Like Son: Our First Glimpse at Charlie

The past few days have been literally jam packed with really fun happenings.  Ok, my nesting projects turned out to not be that fun, but everything else was.  More on that and our first look at Charlie later in this post.

First, two of my really good girlfriends planned a shower with friends from work last Saturday at Emily's house.  It was SO fun!  Stacy, Emily and Mallory (I would be remiss if I didn't include Mallory, Emily's 5 year old daughter) planned a great afternoon !  Emily's mom, Ja, was also a major contributor in making the shower a huge success!  They included some of my favorite prego cravings including mini PB&J sandwiches and doubled down on desserts serving both cookies and giant pieces of cake.  I was in heaven and Charlie was totally spoiled!  We are so blessed to have such great friends!  See below for a couple of pictures:

Stacy, Meighan, Mallory and Emily:

Team RESA was well represented (but we really missed JP)!  

Shawna Lewis made AMAZING sugar cookies!

By Saturday night, I was totally wiped out from the events of the day...and hungry.  Which was nothing short of remarkable given the amount of food I consumed at the shower!  I was craving Kraft Mac & Cheese (shapes and spirals to be exact) and Cy happily obliged after a trip to the grocery store for some staples (the mac and cheese and milk):

Yes, there are four boxes...yes, he made them all... and yes, there were (some) leftovers. 

On Sunday I decided to tackle a project that's been in the works in Charlie's nursery for some time now...a painted chalkboard.  It took forever (think days) and involved significant help from Cy and a laser level, but it is finally done!  The black part is actually chalkboard paint that you can write on!

It's blank.  I know.  But given the amount of time it took to paint the thing, I'm a little gun shy about actually writing on it! 

Monday was a HUGE day.  We went for a 3D/4D ultrasound to see how Charlie is doing and it was AMAZING.  Within the first minute, the ultrasound tech began saying things like, "hmmm...looks like a pretty big kid!" and "whoa, that's a long foot!".  Yep, you guess it.  Charlie is BIG.  His fetal measurements came in nearly two weeks ahead of schedule.  Don't worry, I know this doesn't mean he is coming two weeks earlier.  It means he is going to be BIG.  She estimated his weight as well, and while they can be pretty off on that, the system thought he was nearly 4 pounds.  Our baby books say he should be just over 3 pounds!  Cy was SO HAPPY.  Happy enough that on the way out he said, "good job growing him nice and big!"  And he means it.  Me?  I'm a little nervous...

Here are some of our favorites from the ultrasound:

How cute is he?!?  Ever since we found out Charlie was a boy, I've been hope, hope, hoping that he looks EXACTLY like his Dad.  Looks like he is right on track! 

Here is Charlie's mad face:

Here is Cy's mad face:

The same lips and nose for sure!  I can't wait to meet him!  And if he does look just like his Dad, we are going to have one VERY cute little boy...

Until next week!

Meighan and Charlie

Charlie = Frequent Flier and a Baby Shower!

Hey Family and Friends!

We've got lots of updates to share with everyone, as the past two weeks have been really busy...and really fun.

First: Vill (Cy's little brother), is officially a Ranger! Last Thursday - Sunday, we spent the weekend in Columbus, GA to celebrate Vill's graduation from Ranger school. It is a HUGE accomplishment to complete the Ranger program and an even bigger one to complete the program on your first try, without being "recycled" through a phase. Of course, since it's Vill, he finished the whole program on his first attempt!

The graduation ceremony was VERY cool, complete with a Ranger training demonstration and most importantly, Vill receiving his Ranger tab.

Below are a couple of my favorite parts of the demo. See the four little specs below the Blackhawk? Those are people...DANGLING. And the second picture is the end of a water confidence exercise. Vill's phrase for this stuff is "high speed". Um, yes...high speed. Whoa.



Cy had the honor of pinning Vill's tab:

Villard started some early recruiting with Charlie. Yes, that's a Ranger tab velcroed to my belly.

Vill, we are SO proud of you!

We've also been really busy with Charlie preparations and last night, we had our first baby shower!

Tricia, Lori and Jenna hosted a GORGEOUS shower at Tricia and Shawn's house. It was such a great time and we were honestly humbled at the generosity of our friends! I am probably gushing, but honestly, so many traveled long distances to come! Others worked out all types of other logistics to be there and Cy and I couldn't have felt more blessed by them all! We have the BEST friends!! To top it off, Charlie was totally spoiled. Here are a few pictures from the night...I wish I could post them all, but a) there are too many and b) Cy takes an exorbitant number of pictures...especially covert candids... especially when Shawn gives him beer.

Tricia, Lori and Jenna with Cy and I:



Cy and I:

Charlie got his first pieces of Iowa Hawkeye clothing!

As I said, he (we) were totally spoiled and got tons of great gear for Charlie. Thank you so much to everyone! We are completely overwhelmed and consider ourselves really lucky! Now if only we knew what to do with this stuff... :)

Until next week!

Meighan and Charlie