Auntie Em and Uncle Tom are Having a Baby!

Auntie Em and Uncle Tom are due to have a baby in July. "Baby C" will be Alina and Steve's first nephew. We drove to Ohio for Emily's baby shower.

Visits to Ohio usually include time relaxing with family. This time, we gathered in Aunt Lynne and Dale's lovely backyard, surrounded by blooming summer flowers. It was great to see everyone and connect.

While at Aunt Lynne and Dale's, we celebrated all the June birthdays in the group. Who knew we had so many June birthdays in the family?

Gretchen loved having some iPad time with Uncle Brenton. She's just starting to stay interested in the iPad. Her favorite game is "Icky", a game with a little guy that she can brush teeth, take a shower, and goof around with. Before long, she'll be building Minecraft worlds and Dragon lands like the other kids.

Emily's shower was full of friends and family, held at a restaurant. Besides a delicious lunch, Alina hosted a couple of games: 1) guess Emily's girth using streamers and 2) a mad-libs-style worksheet where each guest predicted names for the "Baby C" and had the opportunity to share their best new parent advice to the couple.

The girls loved meeting and chatting with all the guests, including Alina's Aunt Bev.

We did our best to snag a few family photos during the day.

Here's the cake honoring Baby C. Emily and Tom know they are having a boy.

The kids dressed up in their party outfits and were so excited about every aspect of the baby shower, from the food, to the games, to the cake, and the gift-unwrapping.

Everyone is looking at the camera and (pretty much) smiling!

Emily and Tom oohed and aahed over all their gifts. The kids lined up to pass the gifts to Emily and Tom. Gretchen was so cute, trying to push gifts that were bigger than her.

As usual, Aunt Lynne made lovely homemade items to adorn the walls of Baby C's nursery. Emily and Tom are striving for an aqua and orange "beach/surfer" theme.

Alina, Nana and the kids put together beach-themed party favors to decorate the tablets and thank the guests for coming to the baby shower. We actually put these together over Memorial Day weekend during Nana's visit in a fun assembly line: Gretchen put in the lotion and chapstick, Rosemary counted the shells and Elliott was quality control.

Wow, Emily will soon be a Mom.

Later back at Nana's house, we tried for a family photo but the youngest member was not interested in posing.

Nope, no posing for Gretchen! We'll have to try again in the future.

Elliott, on the other hand, was soaking up kissed from Nana.