Baby Shower!

Last weekend we had a baby shower here in Madison. It was a lovely shower hosted by Matt's Aunt Jayne, cousin Claire, and a good family friend Mary Curran. My Mom and sisters were able to make it here for the shower, too. It was wonderful to see them!

Mom's condition improved drastically over the weekend. It's good to see her on the mend; however, she is definitely still working back to full strength. I would add some pictures of the shower, but I didn't take many good ones. Also, I seem to have misplaced the cord to upload pictures. I'm hoping that this is just a temporary brain fart, and I'll be corded again soon.

We received so many special gifts, but I think the most surprising thing about the shower was the amount of art we received. The baby now has more art than I do! We were blessed with three extremely thoughtful pieces.

The first was a painting from Carol and Tom Lowes who are good friends of the Lee's inscribed to "The Wee Baby Lee." I'm not very good at describing things like this, but I'll give it my best shot. The painting is on a long horizontal piece of canvas. To one side there is cute cow standing on a hill and floating away from the cow to the right is a stream of pink balloons with udders! There is a bonus painting of one of the udder balloons which is the balloon that got away through the break in the border. The balloon that got away gets to travel around the baby's room until Baby Lee notices that its been moving.

The second piece is from Matt Lee's marker on butcher paper collection from his five-year-old era that his Aunt Mimi had framed for us. Now, I have not had a chance to really study the piece because it had to make a return trip to the framing shop, but from my inspection at the shower the piece is a scene from the Nutcracker. Matt drew out all the characters and labeled them. The main characters from left to right (best I can remember) are - Ballerina, Another Toy Soldier, Toy Soldier, Nutcracker, The Polished Table. Don't worry, I'll have pictures soon enough.

The third piece of art was a painting done by my Aunt Tammy given to us by my Mom. It's a picture of a mother and child titled, "Efflorescence." You can see the painting on her website. I would encourage you to look at all of the pieces. Everytime I look, I'm amazed by the beauty and thoughtfulness in her work. The painting looks fantastic in the room. The colors could not be better.

Lastly, my sister Katie knitted a blanket for AK. Her note brought tears to my eyes. It read:

"Be assured that love went into every stitch. It has flaws, but is beautiful, nonetheless. Looks delicate, but is meant to be drug through the dirt, spit up on and generally loved. It will take a good washing and full-on drying when the world has had its way. And then it will get a fresh, clean start. Life as a blankie."

We all grew up with a special blanket. Mine was so worn out at one point, my Mom used it as filling for another blanket. The flood of memories that came back with that gift was somewhat overwhelming.

All I know is that AK is going to be one lucky baby to have so many people in his or her life that have so much love to give.