WHAT is she THINKING?

I have been a terrible blogger lately. I mean, I'm SUPER busy, but everybody is super busy, right? 

We had Ashli's baby shower a few weeks ago, and I think I already blogged about it, but I wanted to go there again. This picture kind of captures the whole emotional experience. He gets it. He's there. I'm so blessed.

 So.. the shower! Ashli and I started talking about her baby shower early this past summer. We said "Let's do it in October" and it seemed SO far away at the time! She wanted a baseball theme and she wanted the men to be there, too. So we tossed around ideas for that. As we talked, we realized that LOTS of people would want to be involved in throwing her this big bash to celebrate little Riken coming into this world. I was still kind of anti-Ashli's dad at that point, and she laid it out for me. She said "If people can't get along, they just need to stay away from the hospital when the baby is born." We were sitting in her backyard, and her meaning couldn't have been more clear. It was time for me to cowboy up and remember what was important. So we wrote out a list of who would want to be involved in Ashli's shower, and we decided that Mack's Mom and myself would do the food. We live the closest and it would be the most costly of the ventures, so the Moms should do that. We asked my sisters to put together some shower games, and asked Kurt's girlfriend, Tracy, to do the invitations and the decorations. She is like a scrapbook store in and of herself. She used to do segments on "Good Things Utah" for scrapbooking stuff, so she was the perfect choice for that. It was important to Ashli that everybody she loves was in the same place at the same time, so I sucked it up and decided to be nice to Kurt and Tracy and just do it for Ashli's sake. They wanted to do their own shower for  Kurt's side of the family, but it's not what Ash wanted, so we all just came together. It was definitely the most unusual shower planning of all time. Tracy would text me questions about colors and tables and stuff, and I texted her back, and it all just came together without any of us actually sitting down in the same room and planning anything. My sisters arrived the night before to help us decorate baseball cookies and binky baby cupcakes, and we all got to the "venue" (the Moroni City park:) several hours early to make sure everything was just the way Ashli wanted it. It was great. The men stayed for the whole thing, we had great food, and people visited with each other. Nobody had to sit in a circle to play games. My sisters just went to each table and passed out the stuff for games, and it was so casual and so comfortable. Exactly how Mack and Ashli like their lives to be. Surrounded by people they love.

And this happened. I NEVER thought it would. We all got together for a family photo, and it was great. We're crazy and dysfunctional and the divorce was ridiculously painful for me. But we're a family and Riken has made us all see what is really important. We can't wait for this baby to get here. He is just what we all need. 

I CANNOT WAIT!!!!!