What a shower...Thanks Everyone!!

Still in the spirit of catching up somewhat with my documentation, two weeks ago from today Steph had her baby shower. Her shower was thrown with love by her mom Laurel, sister Lyn, and some of her closest girlfriends, and was graciously held at Doug's and Suzanne's (my brother and sister-in-law) house in Centreville, VA. About 40 people were in attendance. It was really a wonderful event and just made us feel so lucky to have so many loving and generous family members and friends that are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our precious daughter. It is a rare but fun occassion when we can gather with both sides of our family and have our friends join us too. We are very grateful for everyone's love and generosity and thankful that we had so many loved ones attend, several who travelled very long distances to be there. Folks travelled from as far as Washington state, Michigan, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina and points from all over Virginia, Maryland, DC, and West Virginia!
We are still trying to figure out where all the presents--toys, clothes, and baby gadgets--are going to fit in our little house, but have actually absorbed all of the "necessary" baby accoutraments rather well. Aside from all the gifts, there was enough food and desserts to feed a crowd three times the size.

As you can see, folks were very generous. Baby-girl is already loved so much from everyone. It's a bit embarrassing how much we got, actually. This picture doesn't even capture it all! We'll definitely put it all to good use though. Thanks everyone.
Here's a shot of Steph opening up some of the many gifts.
My darling, gorgeous Stephanie with her beautiful bridesmaides (Left-to-Right: Meredith, Elizabeth, Steph, Lyn, Maddy), who were all in attendance.
As I mentioned earlier, the food was really, really good! Here is Steph joking around after enjoying some of the omelettes, stuffed freedom toast, chocolate cake, strawberry cake, and, of course, the chocolate fondue fountain (Oh Laurel!)
Here are the Mannings that were still around when we thought to take photos of such groupings. All the boys in the photo (me included) tried to remain scarce during the party, but managed to appear whenever the food was being eaten!
Jack is not quite sure what's going on these days, but he knows something is up. He definitely liked having his house overrun with women for the weekend, but there seems to him like there are a bunch of toys and soft fuzzy things in the house these days that aren't for him! I like this picture. I think he's trying to get assurance from his Momma that he's still her baby.
Apparently the whole weekend was very tiring, even to Ethan and Jack who didn't even make it to the shower!

Something to Blog About

So, I thought I would start blogging about baby-girl Manning's experience coming into the world. Imagine her reading about this experience some day and getting embarrassed about what a silly ole softy her big goofy dad is. It will be a great thing to share with her friends some day...not for her, of course, but for me. Well considering that Steph is in her 35 week of pregnancy, I'm a little bit behind in my documenting. I'll spare everyone the details of the first and second trimesters, but I will go back a few weeks and start with our first glimpse of what our little girl is going to look like.

Steph and I decided that we are too impatient to wait for her birth to see what our daughter is going to look like. So at about "negative 11 weeks" of age, we traveled to Baby Insight to get a 3D sonogram of baby-girl. It was really an incredible experience. The detail of what can be seen in these images is pretty amazing. I suppose "pre-birth" photo albums are the next big thing these days. Everyone who sees the pictures says that baby-girl looks like just like her Daddy. I'll concede that there is definitely a resemblance, however I definitely see her Momma in her face as well.
Here she is resting and growing. Her hand is by her face. This is the shot that I think looks more like her Momma. Most everyone else thinks she looks like me--and I do see the resemblance--but I definitely see Steph as well. Well one thing I can say for sure is that her mother and I were both head over heels in love with her when we saw this picture. Actually, we were in love with her before but it definitely more real when we saw this picture.

Growing and developing must be very tiring! Here she is yawning for us. The picture gets a bit distorted, but you can clearly see her little mouth opening. This is a still image that came out of the sonogram, but it was really something to see this as it happened.

In this last picture we get a nice view of her little foot. This is our baby girl. Look for more posts in the coming days or weeks!