30 Week Bumpdate & Baby Shower!

So this week's bumpdate is a little different than usual. I am so worn out and incredibly exhausted after the past week.
We were blessed enough to be able to go to Chicago to see all of our family for our baby shower. It was so much fun, but it really took a lot out of me and I feel like I could sleep for days.
Yesterday was SUCH a long day of travel and we didn't get home until 1am this morning. So I am just writing up my bumpdate without the usual template since I have plenty of other pictures I can share instead.
A quick update on the little bean: She is just over 16 inches long and now weighs almost 3.5 pounds. She is moving more and more every day and even seems like she has a personality. If someone touches my stomach in a way she "doesn't like", she tends to kick or shove back. She about the length of a large cucumber and is strong enough to grasp my finger if I met her today.
This past week was full of a lot of changes for me. This may be TMI, so I apologize, but I want to make sure I remember this all the next time around. I have a ton of pressure and rarely any comfort in my groin area. It is really hard to walk and it hurts at times. I was spotting again this week and I also had some bad cramps a few times. On top of that, my feet have been swelling pretty badly over the last week. My right one is always worse than my left. Sleeping through the night doesn't always make it go away, so I am going to bring up all these symptoms tomorrow at my appointment. Anddddd I produced my first breastmilk...I was weirded out because it was more yellow than white so I didn't know if something was wrong, but a quick google of "colostrum" proved that it was perfectly normal. I didn't know it was possible to have anything this early, but it showed up on exactly 30 weeks. Now on to the vacation...
I got to see my sister, which is always a highlight to a trip. We are so close, so I miss her a lot when we are apart for so long.

And the big reason we went to Illinois was for our baby shower! Once I get ahold of pictures from my parent's camera, I will post better quality ones, but these are all ones we had taken on our phones. The theme was "Owl Be Arriving Soon". It was so perfect because I hadn't even told anyone about my obsession with owls!

My aunt and grandma planned and hosted the shower for me. I was so incredibly grateful for them doing this. I know it was a ton of work and I felt so blessed that they took it upon themselves to create such a special day for me and the baby. On a side note, my aunt crocheted all of those little owls in the tree and the big one on the table. She gave them to me as a gift and I love them! I think I am going to use the little ones to create a mobile for above the crib.


We were able to celebrate with my entire family...

...and all of Ryan's except for his brother.

We were so happy to see everyone and it was the first time we had all gotten together since our wedding. After we took a bunch of pictures, the men headed over to a friends house to barbecue for the afternoon.
We received so many thoughtful gifts and a ton of useful baby gear! I'm planning to write up some posts to cover what we got and why we chose the items we did on our registry. After the shower, the women all met back up with the men to hang out and Ryan got to open a few gifts for the baby as well.

We spent the rest of our time on the trip, hanging out with family and visiting friends. Yesterday we drove into the city to spend the last day with Ryan's mom and sister. It was beautiful weather and we were able to eat lunch in Millennium Park and go to the bean.

We flew out late last night and I arrived to a week's worth of mail and packages. Among them were my Cara Box (reveal coming tomorrow!!) and a sweet package from a blogging friend.
Kristyn sent me the sweetest gifts for little Rilynn. These were the first monogrammed items I have received and I could not believe she put so much time and love into everything. Every day I am more and more amazed at what a wonderful community of friends blogging has created for me.

So that's about it for this week! Only 10 weeks or less to go. I am so excited, but know that I have a ton of stuff I need to start working on so that everything is ready for our little girl when she arrives (:

Check out one of the sweetest ladies I know: