Happy Thanksgiving!

Check this out!

Nikki did a maternity photo shoot with Jason and Janine over the weekend and the pictures turned out soooo good! I'm amazed every time I look at her work - she is so very talented! You can see the sneak peek on her blog - http://nicolewelch.wordpress.com/ . I cannot wait to see the rest of them.

Yes I'm still alive....

...I've just been slackin for the last 3 weeks!

You haven't missed too much though. The most exciting thing that has happened in the past few weeks was that I interviewed for a new job! I'd still be with Express Scripts, just in a different department. I applied for an Associate Proposal Writer position in the Sales & Strategic Support department. If I get the job, I would be putting materials together and answering questions for RFP's from prospective clients. It sounds like a really interesting job, and I would learn a lot about our company by working on the RFP's. I didn't feel like I did all that great during the interview, but the director of the department said he was going to get in contact with HR to schedule a second interview, so I guess that's a good sign! I'll keep you posted. Wish me luck!

Lenny and I both took Monday and Tuesday off last week to celebrate his birthday and to spend some extra time with Bella . We woke up Tuesday and went to one of his favorite restaurants, First Watch, for breakfast. I ordered a chocolate chip pancake for Bella, but she didn't want anything to do with it and instead just ate Lenny's French Toast, which amused him b/c he said we should order the French Toast for her from the very beginning but I insisted she'd like the chocolate chip pancake better. Well what do I know??? lol After breakfast, we went to the Science Center for the afternoon. We had so much fun! Bella showed us a bit of her daredevil side that day. If you've ever been to the Science Center, you know they have the covered bridge that goes from one side of Hwy 40 to the other. In this bridge, there are 3 "windows" in the floor where you can see the cars whizzing by underneath you. Most people walk AROUND these windows for fear the windows will cave in if they step on them (which you know would never happen), but lil Bella went right up to the windows, stood on top of them, and started jumping up and down as hard as she could as if she was TRYING to fall through to the highway. Seriously? Next thing we know, she'll be asking to go skydiving.

Pere Marquette

Here are some pics of our boat trip the other day.

Feeling...cough cough...so...cough...sick!

I played hookey this week and it felt SOOOO good! :)

Tuesday night I went over to mom and dad's for dinner and then we sat out by the fire pit to enjoy the crisp cool evening. As we were sitting there, we were talking about the weather and knew that Wednesday would be the last nice day we had for a while, because a cold front was coming thru and they were predicting the temp to drop drastically on Thurs, not to mention the fact that it was supposed to rain as well. We started talking about how neat it would be to take one last boat ride up the river to look at all the pretty fall leaves, and then decided to make it happen. I woke up bright and early on Wednesday to be sure that I called before my boss got there (sneaky I know) and left her a message saying I would not be in that day, then I headed over to mom and dad's. We had such an awesome day! We went up the river to Pere Marquette Lodge, sat out on the patio overlooking the river, then had lunch. After lunch we hiked through the woods up the big hill to the scenic overlook. This was probably my favorite part of the day. I can't describe how beautiful it was walking through the woods with such pretty colors all around us! I'm so thankful that my parents are still healthy and able to do things like that. I really enjoyed spending the day with them. Love you guys :)

I will try to post some pics later - for some reason the pics are not working right now.

Cake and....quiche?

This past weekend was the big shower! And although I did have my moments of stress over the past few weeks, I wouldn't change it for anything. I mean it's not every day that you get to throw a baby shower for your best friend - it's kind of a one-time deal - and I was happy to do it for my Nee Nee :) I could not have done it alone, so I have to throw a shout out to my mom, Corinne, Kirsten, and Debbie for all their help with everything. Also, thank you to Janet for making the fruit salad and your famous cole slaw, and thanks to Nikki for the chocolate dipped strawberries and the delicious quiche! Funny story about that quiche... Nikki arrived at the shower a bit late because she got held up at a meet and greet with Barney at the Galleria (yes, the "I love you, you love me" Barney). Well anywho, we all were done eating at the shower and Janine had already started opening her gifts when in comes Nikki with these two trays of quiche she had made. We of COURSE couldn't let them go to waste, so we warmed up the oven and threw them in to heat them up for a few min, and then when we served cake, we made everyone take a mini quiche along with their cake. What a combo!!! They were awesome though. A perfect compliment to the sweet sugary cake! :) Here are a few pics from the shower. Hope you had a good time Janine!

A pic of the "Welcome" onsies we hung up outside the clubhouse

The CAKE! (we did a sweet pea theme if you can't tell)

Before Janine started opening her gifts, Kirstie stood up and read a poem she had written about how much she looks up to Janine as a sister. SO sweet!

Gifts galore!!!

We surprised Janine by having Amy fly in from Cleveland for the shower. Here's Amy, Janine, Nikki, and me

Gretchie and the mama to be