News Flash: A Hollywood Baby Shower!

Well we've been back for almost a week and I wanted to get the photos up from the shower our LA friends threw for us.  It was amazing, and we are so, so lucky to have such an awesome group of friends that worked so hard to help us celebrate the arrival of our daughter.  The theme was a Hollywood Baby Shower, so everyone had celebrity baby name tags on, which corresponded with their bottle aka "adult cocktail"...One of the hosts of the party put together a portrait studio with a "Bill and Doug's Baby Shower" back drop.  It was hilarious and so, so special...these photos will be something we will have for a long, long time.  Thanks Asher!  There were a ton of other classic touches like cupcakes with pacifiers stuck in them, black and white celebrity photos with pacifiers, only one game, thank goodness (but it was a hilarious diaper game where you had to act the clue out that was inside the diaper), pink and silver balloons, good eats, drinks, a red carpet, paparazzi (kind of), the list goes on.  Thank you Asher, Scott, James and Terrance.  Your creativity and hospitality and love for us is overwhelming.

Many, many photos from the special day.

HOLLYWOOD BABY SHOWER @ JAMES AND TERRANCE'S HOME
LOS ANGELES

FEBRUARY 25, 2012

James working hard and sucking on some helium

Scott arranging the yummy cupcakes!

Asher setting up the studio

The arrival...so corny but pretty frickin' hilarious!

One of the first of many portraits (ummm, can you say, "double chin?")

 

I thought this was a cute photo of Bill

Suck 'em up!

Marco and Steve

John and Chris

Asher and Jason (from the Stalking the Stork blog)

Uncle Todd flew in from San Francisco...

My good friend from eons ago, Pam

Pam and her girlfriend, Laura

Iris and Tiffani, Mia, me, Julie

Tiffani and Mia goofing off

Paul (who flew in from Austin) and Marco

My nephew, Lucas, and my grand nephew (?) Ashton with Bill and me

More goofing off

Smiles...(and more double chins)

More smiles and our "Dad" crowns -- such a good idea!

Bill and me with Laura and Pam

Me and Bill with Stalking the Stork's Adrian and Jason

Amie and me -- camera snapped a shot, unbeknownst to us

Jason and Mark with Bill

Asher, Klaus and Darren (who flew in from SF), Todd and Paul

David (who flew in from DC) -- who we will be staying with for baby pick-up in May!

Me, Darren, Bill

Todd's getting frisky

Terrance and James hosted the shower in their beautiful home. They also introduced us to our surrogate (score!)

I love my Mia (who drove down from Montecito)

Sassy!

More goofing off

Such good friends...so lucky!

The hostesses with the mostesses

James and Terrance and their beautiful daughter Flynn

J&T&F with James' brother, Michael

Take the "D" off and it becomes AD for Art Director

Dogs and Babes and lots of grins

James -- nice smile

We think Todd had a love affair with the pacifier cupcakes

I'm not sure what ended up in

Terrance and Flynn aka "Blanket" (MJ's son - WTH?)

Opening a few presents. I once again look like a giant

Someone's got boobies

And one has popped

Love for Flynn

No photographs, please!

mmmmm...bottle cocktails!

Flynn showing off

Klaus & Darren and Todd, and Asher's fingers

Lucas and high-flying Ashton

Catching some air!

Diaper Game Teams

What's in this diaper?

A kiss for Flynn

Scott, drinking on the job

How do you thank the people that have given you SO MUCH. 

We tried to express our appreciation -- but words cannot express how incredibly fortunate we are.  

THANKS TO EVERYONE!!!

Trimester Three, Showers, A Nursery and the State of the Union

Oh golly it's hard to imagine after all the posting over the past several months that we haven't blogged in a while. Sorry, I don't know what it is about the second trimester, but it's time consuming, stressing, exciting, joyful, a relief, and well, just overall an awesome feeling that we are in this somewhat safe place.  And, to boot, this past Sunday marked the first day of our THIRD trimester -- that means less than 90 days to go!  That also means we have our first shower in LA with some close friends, followed by another at the end of March and another the first week of April, both here in Hawaii.  We are so incredibly happy that we have so much support and love for our little girl.  Here's the hilariously funny shower invite our friends Terrance, James, Scott and Asher put together for the LA shower:

The nursery is coming along.  Bill has been working like a crazy man getting things prepared.  Shower gifts have already been arriving...so he's spackling and painting and hustling to ready our former guest room and transform it in to a nursery for our little one.  As a matter of fact, it's after 10 pm and he's still working while I document the journey.  For some reason I think this is an easier job...

Poor guy looks tired. Thanks honey for doing all the hard work!!! xo

I guess the latest and most interesting news is that Bill and I had a civil union here in the State of Hawaii.

It was a bit of a last-minute decision, because it dawned on us just recently that it would be perfect if we performed the ceremony on our 16th year anniversary -- February 17th.  It worked out wonderfully.  It was very low-key, and included one of my brothers and several of our friends. And then a close friend was gracious enough to have a very small, intimate gathering at her home.  It was exactly what we wanted. With all the hoopla around the baby, what was important to us was to be joined together before the arrival of our daughter. And it all worked out super well with our anniversary and all.  And so the State of Hawaii has officially recognized our union.  Albeit not marriage.  There's hope that we could join others such as Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York and the District of Columbia so we can officially say we are married.  But ultimately, for me, marriage is about the commitment that has evolved over the past 16 years since we first met.  Of course we'd love to make it uber official...but when it comes down to it, I really love this man.  And now that we have a daughter to take care of for a good part of the rest of our lives, he's stuck with me and I'm stuck with him.

I couldn't imagine a better place to be stuck!