My Friend Jennelle

...Nell, Jo or Nell-Jo to me... Though I'm fairly certain she hates all of these nicknames I've given her. But let's fast forward.

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Sitting around the newsroom yesterday, me and another reporter were talking about our busy non-work weekends (weekends where we're busy, but not with work stuff) when I casually mentioned my friend Jennelle's baby shower. I gave him a brief history of our friendship and he said something about us being friends for 15 years. I immediately said "No, that's not right."

But yes, it is. We have been friends for 15 years. It's seems crazy, but its true. Jennelle is one of my oldest friends. We've been through middle school, high school, dances, moving, breakups, you name it. I was even there when she met her future husband. My sister ditched us at the fair with our shared car and sent her (at the time) boyfriend's friend to pick us up. Yep.

I was the maid of honor in her wedding June 7, 2008. Now, Jennelle is getting ready for what I'm sure is to be the most amazing experience of her life, becoming a mom. Her shower, hosted by her mom and a college friend, was today.

Everything looked beautiful, including my friend Jennelle. Her friend and mama did an awesome job planning the shower. Unfortunately, I had a few contrast issues with my camera, so I don't have a ton of photos But here are a few.

Here is Jennelle's gift from my mom and me.

A closeup of the blanket I made for "Frank." No, the baby's name will not really be Frank. She doesn't know the sex, so she and her husband have been having fun calling the baby Frank.

Vincent modeled the blanket with Pooky bunny.

Table decoration:

Place settings. Cute, no?

A whole table:

So I told you about the exposure problem I had, but you can get an idea of the cake with this. It was so cute!

The food was delicious too!

There were a lot of other delicious dishes too. The salad was to die for! There were sausage bites, spinach dip, chips and salsa, cucumber sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (both mini) and Starbucks coffee blends. Mmm-mm! I'm still full!

Jennelle and I

Jennelle, her mama and I

Jennelle with Annie, who helped host the party with Jennelle's mom.

The last present!

She showed everyone the blanket. I originally made her a different blanket, but we went to the craft fair in November I saw Jennelle buy a pillow for the baby's room that was gray and white zigzag. So I decided to try to match the pillow and make a different one. It's the first "ripple" blanket I've made. I tried once before but it ended up being a scarf because I kept messing it up. Overall, I think it turned out cute and it really does match the pillow she bought. It's not as big as I wanted it to be, but as Jennelle pointed out, babies are little.

This is absolutely not the most flattering photo of me, but here is a cute photo of the Union High girls Jodi, Jennelle, Lindsay and I.

The shower was a blast. Jennelle and Matthew (her husband) got a lot of nice gifts and of course, it's always nice to see old friends. I can't wait to meet baby Frank and watch Jennelle and Matt take the ride of their lives.