Today's an Exciting Day!

I am headed to the hospital to help my bestie welcome her new baby boy - horray!  This little bubby has been a long time coming and I can hardly believe that the day is here.

On a day like today, I am keeping in mind all of my bloggy friends that have/had sick babies, babies who are no longer here on Earth, those who are unable to have babies and those that have struggled to do so.  I'm lifting each one of you up in special prayer today!

I also wanted to share these pictures I snapped yesterday.  We had the most gorgeously perfect double rainbow yesterday.  

 

Even after it faded, the sky continued to give us a beautiful show and a glimpse into the heavens...

I hope everyone has a great day!

Bestie's Baby Shower!

I am finally getting around to posting bestie's shower pics.  The shower was really cute and Erin got so many of the big basics - car seat, video monitor, etc.  It was a big success!  It was also the most non-stressful party planning experiences.  I did all of the decor while the other hostesses did the food and invitations.  We were going for the divide and conquer method, which worked perfectly.  We also kept track of everything on a spreadsheet (call us dorky, but nothing fell through the cracks) and all paid equal share at the end.  I've heard horror stories where one hostess ends up pitching in $10 and others are doing $100 or more.  We established from the beginning that everyone would pay the same, no matter who was buying what.  I think it worked really well, and kept one person from feeling like they were buying everything.   

 Invitations from tinyprints.com

The hostesses - me, Randi (Erin's sister), and Cerissa.  We were also Erin's bridesmaids 7 years ago!

The food - we had a mid-afternoon shower, so we did heavy hors d'oeuvres, punch and champagne.  The cupcake & cookie stand was a 3-tier cake stand with edges wrapped in ribbon.  I used masking tape to hot glue the ribbon to so that the hot glue would pop off easily. 

  The flowers - daisies and spider mum's.  Clearly my glue gun became my best friend when creating the shower decor!  The vases were wrapped with ribbon.  Wooden craft stars were painted (and glittered) to match.  For the stars in the flowers, I attached them to floral wire.

The onesie & bib decorating station & diaper cake.

Decorating onesies & bibs

Some of the finished products!  We gave everyone a guideline of trying to create a onesie or bib that tied in with their relationship with Erin and/or Trip.  Mine was the frog prince since Erin was my roomate at TCU.  

The candy station - Erin has been craving all things sour, so we picked different candies and had bags and ribbons for guests to make candy bags as favors.

Erin opening a gianormous box of diapers - always handy!  :)  For the gifts, we asked that people bring them unwrapped and we made placecards for each guest.  We displayed them around the house as decorations and it was fun to not have to sit there and do the obligatory 'Aww, that's SO cute' for each gift, plus it was environmentally-friendly to save all the wasted bags and paper.  I still have shower gift bags from Ava's!  The verse we used was cute, "Save the wrapping this time around, bring your gift as it was found."  Some of the guests wrapped anyway, which we had planned for.

Guests - there were SO many babies and little people.  Ava was happy as a little clam - she is slightly obsessed with babies.

Hostesses with Erin (and Trip)

Ava & 'Ebie'

The gorgeous family tree painting that Erin did.  She totally needs to open an Etsy store.  So pretty!  She already had several requests from girls at the shower.

Jay & Erin

I hope everyone had a great weekend!  I'll be posting a weekend wrap-up later today.  I'm also going to be on a commenting rampage, as I haven't read anyone's blogs since the middle of last week.  Be prepared!  ;)

Weekend Wrap Up

Finally we got to see some sun yesterday!  It seems like it has rained for weeks in Dallas, and it basically has.  Friday I really wanted to take the girls to the pool but it was...raining!  So, we went to open bounce at Pump It Up instead.  Wow.  There were probably 50 kids and 30 moms crammed into the bouncy house room.  It was tight and there were definitely 'traffic' problems, but the girls had a great time and wound up exhausted.  Afterward, we headed over to one of my favs, Hobby Lobby, to get stuff to make crafty wall art for the girls' playroom.  I had already picked up all of my crafty wall art supplies when we cut down an aisle and saw the cutest hot pink and lime green wall art - all 50% off!  So, I ditched my crafty wall art project and grabbed pink and lime pieces instead.  Here are a few of the ones we got:

Haley and I got everything hung up while Ava was napping and I proceeded to clean the entire house (to promote forgiveness of my Hobby Lobby spending from husbie).  We had to meet him at Hertz after he dropped off his rental car late Friday afternoon.  He came home to sparkling clean house and his favorite dinner ready-to-go.  (I'll have to post the recipe for my quick and easy chicken enchillada soup later, it is yummy!)  He did forgive the Hobby Lobby spending and thought the playroom turned out really cute.  Right before dinner we gave him his early birthday surprise.  He LOVED it and was totally surprised.  We relaxed the rest of the evening, which was really nice.

Saturday bestie came over while Austin went to play golf and we went to go check out baby things.  We had a funny moment that I completely forgot she was preggo until she turned around and whoa!  There was the belly!  ;)  We had fun hanging out and gabbing.  She brought me my birthday present, a super cute Vera Bradley towel and cosmetics bag.  I love VB!

Later that night, my brother and SIL, a nephew and my sis came over for dinner and games.  I found a really great roasted chicken recipe to make since our grill decided to go out on Saturday.  Grr.  I'll have to post that one, too!  

Sunday we saw the sun!  It was amazing.  We went to the pool for a few hours.  I love our neighborhood pool - they have a really nice set up that allows husbie and I to lay out right next to the kid pool so we are super close to Ava but can still have some relaxation time.  Haley is a super swimmer and had 5-6 of her friends there to play with in the big pool.  I wore this Victoria's Secret swimsuit.  I did have to exchange the bottoms.  I was right between sizes, so I decided on these.  I like bottoms with ties so there less chance of the 'muffin' effect.  Lol!

As you can tell, Ava really loves her new fishie floatie!

We pretty much hung out and didn't do a lot for the rest of the day, Haley and I watched a couple of my old dance competition tapes that my mom had found.  It was fun to see all of our very 90's costumes!  

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Hot Mom to Be?

So, my best friend is preggers.  I am so super excited for her, and I'm excited for me because now I can get my baby fix without, well, every actually having to have another baby!  Don't get me wrong, I would love to have another one.  If it would be without all of the extra expenses.  And extra pounds.  And night feedings.  Yeah, except for those.

So, BF is adorable - she and her husbie have been married for 6 years and by this point, I had put them in my never-going-to-have-a-baby file.  I've known Erin for almost ten years (hard to believe); we met as roomates our freshman year of college at TCU.  Since then babies for Tiff = 2, babies for Erin = 0.  Not for long!  She's due this fall. 

I must admit, part of my excitement is that now she and husbie will have a baby, too, so I won't feel like I'm dragging them into my boring, child-full life.

I was reading through my Tweets (Twitter is officially where I get all of my news now), and Trista Sutter (otherwise known as the Bachelorette who actually has a successful marriage as the result of the show) tweeted about this new book.  It is perfect for you, if you're a mom to be, or your friends, if they are moms to be.  There are chapters covering the moment you find out you are pregnant to one called 'Keeping it Hot When You're About to Pop' and everything in between.  Part of the reason I thought it was perfect for BF is because 1. I think she will be an adorably hot mom and 2. There's a section on the EcoMom, which I am most certain she'll be.

I ordered it for her today and am excited for her to get it and give me her run-down.  

In the meantime, it's available for sale via the link to the left.  There's also a 'view inside' option so you can get a sneak peek before you buy.

Has anyone read or ordered the book?  What are your thoughts?  Know of any other fun pregnancy books?  I'd love to hear them!