Friday, May 21st: The Most Awesome Girlfriends Baby Shower EVER!

So right when we found out about Cooper my AWESOME girlfriends went into over drive starting to plan a shower. They waited till the birth mother handed Cooper over to the agency and signed the paperwork... then they were off planning away! They planned the shower for Friday night.. at the time it all sounded so perfect! The shower would be the night before we got Coop and we would be ready... HAHAHAHAHA... as you know we got Coop a little early... But I was still VERY excited!
Since all the guys had also planned to take Michael to Buffalo Wild Wings, it was a matter of who was gonna keep Cooper. My wonderful mother in law offered to stay and keep him so my mother could go with me.
Mr.Daffin (Michael's Step-Dad) also came and got to meet Cooper for the first time.

Here is Mr and Mrs Daffin with Michael and Cooper!

Mrs. Daffin with Michael and Cooper

I love this picture!
PaPa, Dar-Dar, Dee-Dee, and Granddaddy JB!

I knew I was in for a wonderful time, but it was hard leaving Cooper. This was the first time I left him at night. I showered him with many kisses and gave him much love before I left.

Mom and I finally said our many goodbyes and headed the few miles over to Whitney's house. I was very excited when I got there and my Olexa's Dar went crazy when I walked in the door.. In my head I heard....ninininininininin... and then it got faster and faster until I walked in the dining room and saw a beautiful site..... An Olexa's Cake with Coop's monogram... This is my favorite cake and my girlfriends knew that... Way to Go Girls!

The wonderful girls who threw together this awesome shower in a matter of days..
My Hostesses:
L to R: Whitney Hardy, Sarah Hearn, Maghan Craig (with Addison), Cortney McKinney, Me, and Mandy Iffland. Ashley Cosby was also a hostess, but was not able to be there (tell me that is not love!)
I can NEVER thank these girls enough! They are all so dear to me!

Group Shot (with the cake of course).. We had some friends who did not make the shot and my mother was taking the photo!

The food was wonderful.. There was homemade casseroles, salad, bread.. all the good southern food we all love!

Like I said the food was wonderful, but the best part was yet to come! I stood over Whitney as she was cutting the cake.. I blamed it on taking the picture, but really I just wanted a piece...quickly!Katie, Mandy (with Baby Tate in Tummy), Kristin, Kinnery, and Maghan.. All enjoying the yum, yum, yum, yum... did I say YUM Cake!

Sitting around finishing our food and talking! Everyone is looking at me.....I am sure I was talking about Cooper!

Brooke and Mary Jane playing with Addison

Momma and I

Valerie and I
Valerie is a very dear friend of mine from Montgomery. She has been there for me through everything and has been a wonderful friend. I was so very thrilled she drove all the way from Montgomery for my shower!Playing Games!
Our first game was passing the baby food jars around and seeing if you can guess what it is.. From the look on Brooke's face I would say this one stunk! Our next game was to "finish the nursery rhythm". We were given a sheet with a bunch of partial nursery rhythms and asked to finish them.. How did me.. the new mommy.. do? Welllllllll.. lets just say I need to brush up on my rhythms a little!
I love this picture of Amy and I!

Next it was time to open gifts! I was OVERWHELMED with the amount of gifts.. they just kept coming and coming... Cooper got some beautiful and wonderful things! I am so blessed to have wonderful friends who were so happy for us and showered us with so many wonderful things.. but most of all.. with so much LOVE!
Cooper's first bathing suit! From My Momma

Wendy knows me well and knew I needed monogrammed stuff for Coop

In Valerie's bag of stuff there was a tiger... An Auburn Tiger of Course!

Mary Jane and Brooke knew Cooper needed Auburn stuff. Among all the orange and blue baby stuff was also an Auburn Shirt!

I was super excited to see the diaper bag my mother in law had given me.....

Then I saw it was monogrammed.. EVEN BETTER!

Love it!

Only I would get monogrammed diapers! (Amy's face in this picture CRACKS me up)

The hostesses got us a baby bath FULL of stuff... Much Needed!

Momma got Cooper the most beautiful baby blue outfit. It is one of my favorites and he wears for all special occasions! (I had looked at this at Sew Precious, but was not sure if it was a good size. I had gone in Friday morning and mother went in Friday afternoon right before the shower. The lady in Sew Precious remembered me and showed Mother this outfit.)

These pictures make me smile! I had waited so long to have a baby shower.. I felt like it was a dream. I was so very happy that night and you can tell in these pictures! I can not say enough how much that night meant to me! It was wonderful! I call it my "crazy, last minute, girlfriend shower"... but you would have never known it was last minute by the amount of people that came and how great the shower was! My friends love me very much and I felt that at this shower!
ohhhh and did I mention the loot that I went home with...WOW! Coop got some great stuff.....
Everyone made me feel so special that night!
The wait was well worth it....

Friday, May 21, 2010

Because everything happened so quickly I had a little work that I needed to get in order before taking some time off.. Soooo against what I wanted, I went to work for a few hours on Friday morning. I left Cooper with Momma! I was wanting to put it off, but I went ahead and went early in the morning so I could get back as soon as possible. It ended up starting to pour down and was a very yucky morning. Once I got home I put my PJ pants back on...hey momma and Coop were still in theirs!

We were expecting very special visitors late in the morning. Grandaddy JB (my daddy) and Uncle Mac were on their way!
Please look right over me in ALL these pictures....I was looking a little rough!
Here is Granddaddy and Uncle Mac seeing Coop for the first time!

Granddaddy holding Coop for the first time!

Mac had a special surprise for Michael! And of course there is a story behind this gift!
So the story goes:
At my wedding my Daddy made a toast and pulled out a box of cigars. There were 4 cigars in the box. They were "It's a Girl" Cigars left from when I was born. Daddy had my Granddaddy McCabe (My Momma's Daddy) and Michael there with him. He gave one cigar to each. He lit Granddaddy's cigar and then lit his from Granddaddy's and then Michael's from his. They left one in the box!
Mac remembered this and has always thought it was a great thing to do! So as a surprise, he got Michael "It's a Boy" cigars! Here is Mac showing them to me.

Granddaddy holding Cooper!My Daddy's face cracks me up in this picture!
The proud, first time Grandparents!

Uncle Mac waiting his turn!Uncle Mac holding Coop for the first time. I do not think Mac thought Cooper was gonna be this small. He was a little nervous holding him! I think he even referred to him as a blob! Now that is not nice!

Maybe this is when he was calling my beautiful baby a "blob"!
In reality I have no clue why Mac was making this face... But I KNOW he was not making it at MY baby!

Mother said she has had this for some time... It is a Christmas Santa holding a baby! Perfect Christmas decoration for Coop's room! Oh and y'all know how I love to decorate for Christmas.. My Momma knows me so well!

Before coming to Birmingham, Mom went to this precious children's store in Destin called Hugs and Hissyfits. When she walked in Mac was already in there with a gift for Cooper on the counter! He had picked it out himself!

It was a blonde Cocker Spaniel Puppy (a Kenzie).....

He had also given Cooper a sweet Auburn Shirt with navy gingham bubble shorts!

Mac giving Michael his surprise.. Of course he was telling him why he bought them!

And Of course, Michael LOVED them!

It had been a fun day and more fun was to come! My baby shower that my girlfriends had planned was that night and the guys were taking Michael to Buffalo Wild Wings!

Thursday, May 20, 2010: To Over the Mountain Peds We Go!

On Thursday I woke up and had survived our first night with Coop. We had tried to put him down in the bassinet, but he wanted no part of it... plus Shug kept on trying to jump in with him. We both finally ended up downstairs....Cooper in his swing and me curled up in the chair next to him. And that is how we slept.... when we slept..Sometime in the middle of the night I went upstairs to ask mother something and she ended up coming downstairs with us. She spent the rest of the night on the couch! Oh a mothers love!
On the chair, on the floor, on a bed of nails.. I would have slept anywhere to be next to him!
Thursday we all got ready. We had a doctors appointment to get to! Everything happened so quickly we had not officially picked our pediatrician yet. Although we had one that had come highly recommended by Whitney. But they did not except MediCaid and since Coop was not on our insurance yet we could not go there. We knew we wanted Coop checked out as soon as possible so we made an appointment with Over The Mountain Pediatrics. Which is where our agency highly recommended. To say the least I fell in love with them there!
Everyone was so nice! Here is the nurse about to weight Cooper!
On 5/20/2010 he weighed: 8 pounds 13 ounces

We saw Dr. Jeanne Favrot and she was wonderful. Before this appointment I had had thought I would just let Over the Mtn Peds do the first check up and then switch after we got Coop on our insurance.....But...that all changed once I met Dr. Favrot! She stayed and answered ALL Mother's and my questions! Trust me.. We had a list! She took her time with us! We are blessed enough to have all of Cooper's medical records, so she read over those and checked him good! She also realized that Cooper was behind on his shots and we needed to get him caught up.. I think I teared up when I realized she meant THEN! Thankful she saw the fear in my eyes... I just knew he had been through so much in the last few days, all he needed was to get a bunch of shots too! So she said that when we came back next week, we could do them then..
Sigh of Relief!
Throughout the visit she had heard our story and knew we had only had our little guy around 24 hours! She gave me a hug and when I pulled away I saw tears in her eyes! At that moment I knew I had just met our pediatrician. I knew she would take good care of us!

One of the things we had asked Dr. Favrot was about taking Cooper on a few errands. She said that as long as it was just a few a day and they were quick, it was OK! Which was good news since I had a nursery to get ready! Our first stop was to pick up O'Carrs chicken salad plate to go! Then we stopped by Storkland to look! I had a lady who was suppose to make our bedding, but she had not gotten back to me..... So I was a little worried that would not work out. While at Storkland I found bedding that was very similar to what I had in mind.. We went with it! We walked out with our bedding ordered, a few sweet things to hang on the wall, and of course our first lovey (a baby blue bear)!
Here is a picture of our bedding! I think it looks great with our dark crib! More pictures of the nursery to come!

On the way home I just snapped away! I can't get enough pictures!

He looked so sweet I hated to bother him!

Mother and I had so much fun with Cooper and the camera. We had multiple photo shoots a day!

That night Cortney brought us dinner and let me tell you it was yum yum good!

It was so much fun having her there! Knowing she will be giving Cooper a little friend soon... It will be so much fun having our babies so close in age!

Day 2 with Cooper was wonderful.
We got so much done! And I loved every minute of it...
Living My Dream!