it’s raining showers!

a few of my wonderful friends threw me not one, but TWO showers this weekend.  The first was on Friday night and was an everyone-is-invited sort of shower featuring homemade sushi.  YUM!

J and I got to open presents together (it’s so much more comfortable when someone else shares the spotlight!) and we got some very lovely gifts.  a few etsy treasures:

a few things off of our registry (thank you!!) and the group gift–diapers!  since the cloth diapers that we are planning to use weren’t currently in stock yet (it’s a brand new brand called “best bottoms” and they’re made as locally as possible and seem to be really well designed), I asked my friends to just get us a gift certificate and we’ll purchase them when they become available.  apparently, they felt the need to give us a stop-gap solution, so they crafted these beauties:

i’m not really sure about the logistics of using that roll of t.p. or where the handle on the milk jug is supposed to go, but hopefully we won’t have to use these very long.  🙂

the second shower took place on Sunday morning and was more of a “girl’s day out” type of shower.  Since all of the women that morning had also attended the Friday night shower, I asked that this one be “no gifts,” so instead, we all ate enormous and delicious breakfasts at the original pancake house (mmmm… potato pancakes and cherry crepes), then went and got pedicures.

i decided to go a little wild and get banana yellow toes!  (sorry about the blurry picture.  i’m still getting used to my new toy from j.)

then, three of us went back to the party organizer’s house to carve stamps.  when the kids came back from their outing, they wanted in on the stamp carving action, so i carved one drawing from each of the older kids.  (the octopus below was a kid design–i seem to have missed photographing the kitty head that the other kid drew.  the other stamps below are my own design.)

all told, it was a fantastic weekend.  thanks, dear friends, for your generosity and sense of fun.  this was a great distraction!