Surprise Baby Shower!

Every year, my husband's aunt has a Christmas party, the week after Christmas.  We've only been able to make it to one of these parties because our travel plans usually have us back west before the party happened.  This year we promised we would arrange our travel so that we could make it to the party.  It meant a lot to her and gave us an excuse to hang with the fam longer.  Plus, it just worked out well.  Christmas being on a Tuesday meant we could fly in the weekend before, leave the weekend after and get a nice visit in.  Meanwhile, my sister, who was visiting our family in Florida for the holiday, decided she would come up to my in-laws for the weekend and just hop on a train back to Manhattan, where she lives now.  I was so excited!  I hadn't seen her since July and getting to spend a little time with her in my truly pregnant state (I told her I was pregnant in July but the outside world couldn't tell yet) was exciting for us both.  Plans were made, I told her there was a Christmas party to go to on Saturday and she'd get to see all of the people she hadn't seen in the nearly six years since our wedding.  Then we found out that Dan's aunt has a cat.  And my sister is severely allergic to cats.  Like, throat-closing allergic.  This threw a wrench into plans.  We said we might not be able to go.  My mom-in-law was like, "It'll break Mary's heart if you don't come!  We'll just take two cars.  It'll be fine!"  And after talking to my sister, we decided it would be.  Little did I know that there was another reason she really wanted us at the party besides hurting the feelings of Dan's aunt...

We arrived, said our hellos and were ushered downstairs.  That's where the food was and we were told to get comfy and have some snacks.  Don't have to tell this pregnant lady twice!  We went downstairs and since no one else was there yet, we thought it would be a good time for my sister to give us some photography lessons.  She's a professional photographer and we just got a Canon Rebel, per her suggestion, so we can take nice photos when the little one arrives.  She was giving us the run down when our nieces arrived and came downstairs to hang out.  We took some pictures of them and then were getting more lessons when my dad-in-law started acting a little strange.  He wanted to borrow our camera and take it upstairs...when we were in the middle of learning all about light and aperture!  We were like, "In a minute..." as we exchanged confused looks.  And then we heard Dan's mom and aunt telling us we had to come upstairs right away.  I was thinking, "I thought dinner was being served at 2:00.  It's only 1:30..."  We again exchanged confused looks, shrugged our shoulders and headed up.

Surprise!

The living room had been transformed into a Christmas-y baby shower land!  Banners and presents greeted us, along with shouts of "Surprise!".  I was taken aback and the pregnancy hormones kicked in, so the tears started.  I'd never had a proper surprise party before!  I always wanted one but how do you tell people, "I've always wanted a surprise party" and then it actually be a surprise?  Doesn't usually work out.

Caution: Pregnant Lady Crying

It was an intimate affair with only the family members there who could make it in the snow. Yes, it was snowing this day.  Dan and I opened the presents together and felt very touched by the effort everyone made to make this day special.

Later we played a few baby shower games including the classic "Guess How Big Meagan's Belly Is" with yarn.  Here's my sister's guess:

Thanks a lot.

And I can't resist including one more picture from the day.  This is my sister getting freaked out as she feels the baby move.  I've talked before about the force of his kicks and it was so funny seeing her reactions when she felt it from the outside.

There's a whole series of these pictures with her in disbelief or covering her face in shock.  She couldn't get over it the whole visit.  It made me laugh a lot.

Overall it was a lovely afternoon full of fun surprises, gifts and laughter.  We're pretty lucky.

(And if you were wondering about that aforementioned cat allergy...  As we were leaving, my sister said calmly, "Could we maybe stop at a CVS?  I think my throat is closing." And then she started to wheeze a bit.  The cat dander had gotten to her!  Luckily, I have some freaky allergies of my own and carry Benadryl and an EpiPen at all times.  And there was a CVS across the street, so she was fine.  But later when we were talking to Dan's mom about the party she said that when we suggested we might not go because of my sister's allergies, she said she was thinking about the surprise shower and thought, "Over my dead body!" To which my sister responded, "Nope. Over mine."  Oh, near-death allergy humor.  Funny to us with severe allergies.  Not funny to our mother.)