Julia went to my parents for the night so that Jeff and I could get away for a short last-chance-before-the-baby-comes overnight getaway. Here is a picture Jeff took near Point Lobos.
Julia had a great time with her grandparents. They went to the San Francisco Zoo where Julia tells me they saw a blue gorilla! Thank you to Mom & Dad for taking care of Julia, showing her such a good time, and giving Jeff and I a chance to take a little break! 
Andrea and Craig threw Jeff and me a family baby shower yesterday. She did such a beautiful job with the decorations and dinner. Grammy and Grandpa were there, and GG, and Jocelyn and Valerie too. It was so much fun. I think the best part was watching Julia and Nathan play together, which they did with much more awareness and deliberateness than I've ever seen before. They just had a BLAST with each other, getting each other completely wired. Jeff took tons of great pictures of the shower, but I had to narrow it down somehow, so I decided to go with these three of the two of them having fun together. I will post some additional pictures to shutterfly. Thank you Andrea for the wonderful shower!
My sweet friend Beth at work organized a shower to celebrate the coming birth of our baby, and the cake she got was just the cutest thing I've ever seen. Here is a picture:
It was so nice to be celebrated by my work friends who have seen me grow bigger and bigger over the past months. Despite my strict guidance of "no gifts" a few people brought gifts anyway. Thanks to my generous friends, Baby Brother now has two blankets (not in pink like the stack I have at home!), three adorable outfits, a hat, and a special brag book photo album.
And I think my favorite gift was for me, not for Baby... A few days ago I had remarked to a friend that I was starting to look like the "before" picture in one of those glamour makeover magazines. She gave me a gift certificate to a nearby day spa/salon, to help me feel more like an "after" picture. So sweet!! What a nice treat today. My work friends don't read this blog, but pretending that they do for a moment, HUGS to you all!
I have been experimenting with digital scrapbooking, where you create a layout on the computer rather than with paper and actual photos. I attempted a layout of the photos from our Milagra Ridge family outing. What do you think?
This afternoon we drove up to a pretty open space preserve near South San Francisco called Milagra Ridge. It was a pretty site, although it turned out to be more challenging than we anticipated to make our way up and down the hill with a toddler and my 8 month pregnant body... in the mud no less! But nevertheless, we got a few cute shots of our afternoon:
We live just down the street from the Sunset headquarters, and they have a beautiful display of tulips out front. Jeff swung by there this morning and came back with some spectacular shots of the tulips. Here is one of my favorites. There are several more posted on his photography blog at: www.fleeting-glimpse-photography.com.
Last step of my Phase One remodel is complete! The carpeting went in today. Here is the new view into our hallway:
