Weekending - June 23, 2017

Oh my goodness -- we had the most fabulous weather the last few days in St. Louis!  It made for a wonderful weekend.  Here's how ours went down ~

Friday night I finished up a few decorations for the baby shower I was helping with.  Let me just say that my husband, Eric, is a rock star.  He was my assistant for the evening and we got done in half the time it would have taken me to do it by myself.  We worked on the wreath to welcome the guests, a raffle basket and gift banner and also food signs.

We did take a small break to watch the sunset.  Guys - my pictures just doesn't do it justice.  The sky was absolutely beautiful.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early to head to my hometown to do a little babysitting with my niece and nephew.  It was a fun way to spend the morning!  Their big brother had surgery last week and is still in the hospital.  Please say a little prayer that his recovery is speedy and he's back home soon.

The weather was perfect for playing outside, so I put down the camera and we headed to the park.  I swear these little guys change so much week to week.  Love spending time with them!

In the afternoon we drove home and got a few house chores checked off the list.  The garden was in desperate need of weeding (I might have took a little nap in the lounge chair while Eric did the weeding).  Our neighbor popped over and mentioned there was going to be fireworks at the park and we just couldn't let that pass us by without checking it out.  They were great!  Forty minutes of bombs bursting in air all choreographed to music.    Gotta love a good fireworks show!

Sunday morning I headed over to the shower venue to help set up.  Little Baby Cora is going to be welcomed with so much love!!  Check out some of the pics from the venue ~

The baby shower guests were treated to a sundae bar and many decedent dessert kabobs.

The tables were adorned with succulents for each guest to take home as a favor.  They added just the right touch sitting around the centerpieces.

 As soon as the decorating was finished, I rushed to a cooking demonstration class Tracy, Carol and Sherri and I had signed up for at Fezziwig's.  The class was held in the carriage house behind their store front and I truly felt like we could have been on some Food Network show.

The chef created three different kinds of flat breads as we looked on with our mouths watering.  For good measure, she also whipped up a couple different vinaigrette salad dressings.  So hoping I can replicate this at home!

When the class was complete and our wine glasses were empty, we headed over to Tracy's back porch to do a little catching up.  Tracy's FAVORITE holiday is summer solstice and she presented us with some pretty exciting gifts to celebrate it.  The wrapped package is going to be one of my five this Friday so you'll have to check back in to see what it is.

Sunday evening brought us another fantastic sunset.  It was the perfect way to end the weekend!

Thinking Out Loud Thursday - January 28, 2016

I'm so excited to share with you what I'm thinking out loud about today and let me apologize in advance for the enormous amount of pictures I'm about to pop on this post.  I have a great nephew on the way and he's due the first part of February.  In December (yes, it's been a while back), I helped host a baby shower to get ready for this little guy's arrival.

The mother-to-be, Kristian, had chosen an adorable woodland critters theme for the nursery so we used that as the platform for the shower.  I knew I wanted to pull in some wood things and thank goodness my dad, brother and nephew helped me accomplish that.  Love, love, love the way the centerpieces turned out!!  Take a look ~

We also used wood stumps to hold platters of treats on the dessert table.  Again, so glad my family had access and the talents to pull off getting me the wood!

With the shower being held in the middle of December, my mind was thinking it would be a perfect opportunity to have a hot chocolate bar.  Well, as luck would have it, December 12 turned out to be a balmy 70 degree day in mid Missouri.  Thankfully the guests played along and at least acted like they were loving the hot chocolate.  The signage for the hot chocolate bar came from The Pretty Paper Studio shop on Etsy.

World Market has the perfect cookie jars this year that played right into our theme.  How adorable is the owl, fox and raccoon?!?  If you want one of your own, you can purchase them by clicking on the critter of your choice:  OWL, FOX, RACCOON

The local bakery in Montgomery City, Sugar and Spice Laura's Delights, created the fox cookies.  They were as tasty as they were adorable!  Laura did a remarkable job on them.

No shower is complete without playing games.  The game sheets were placed at each place setting on the mini clipboards adorned with ribbon.  Mud Pie Soup had the perfect little printable fox game sheets.  These clipboards have been used at several showers and I absolutely love putting all the games on them.  Check out the twig pencils -- they added just the right touch!

We sent the guests home with a little token of our appreciation - bird feeder.  They were easy to make and were very cost effective.  

Now we're just waiting for the newest member of our family to arrive.  We all had our fingers crossed he would arrive on January 27 because he would be born on his grandpa's birthday.  Looks like he wants to have his own birthday so we'll try to be patient until he decides it's time to meet us.  

Now it's your turn -- what are you thinking out loud about today?  Vanessa from X-tremely V and I would love to hear from you.  Feel free to link your favorite post(s) and share what you're up to.

 

Enjoy more Thoughts for Thursday at

Home of Malones

East Coast Chic

Hodges Podges

Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop

While I'm Waiting

The Deliberate Mom

This is How We Roll

Love the Everyday

This post contained affiliate links.  I may receive a small commission if you click on the link and purchase.  Thanks!

Let's Have a Little Baby Shower

If you read my weekending blog (HERE), you know I hosted a baby shower this past Sunday.  The shower was in honor of my upcoming nephew that I can not wait to meet!  Little Liam should be making his arrival in mid September, but if he decided to show up a little early we won't be disappointed.

Carina, the beautiful mommy-to-be, chose a nautical theme for the baby so I decided to carry that into the shower decorations.  There were so many adorable things out there!  Deciding on using an anchor as the focal point, I went to town pulling together the decorations I wanted to make.

I have to say, without my Silhouette Cameo things would not be as easy to whip up.  I made the banners, cupcake toppers and garland all by cutting designs and gluing the cut paper together.  It amazes me what a little paper will do for a party!  If you're a crafter and don't have a Silhouette, I would HIGHLY recommend you think about getting one.  Such a wonderful tool to have!!

A specific place for guests who bring a card is always a great idea.  You don't want those cards getting misplaced among the other bags and gifts.  It's super simple to grab a glass container and designate it for cards.

Paper placements were purchased from HERE and a die cut anchor was glued on the corner.  How cute are these?!?  Seriously, this entire project for 30 place mats was under $10.  Again, thank you Silhouette.

Another little touch that I love to do is put stickers on the bottom of Hershey Kisses.  People always think they are so cute and they make great treats to have for the guests to munch on.  I purchase the printable stickers from Etsy, printed them on sticker paper and cut them with a circle punch.  Again, super simple and not very expensive to pull off.

See that blue anchor backdrop behind the food table?  Guess what that is.  It's a roll of wrapping paper attached to the wall with double stick masking tape.  Such an easy, inexpensive thing to do.

Games can be so fun at showers!  I purchased some printable ones from Etsy with cute little anchors on them and placed them on decorated clip boards.  We were lucky at this shower to have tables for everyone to sit at, but that's not always the case.  The clip boards are wonderful to use if you're having a shower where people are sitting around without anything to write on.  It can be a little difficult to fill out the game cards on your lap.  If you need some of these cute little clip boards, they can be purchased HERE.

Don't you love getting a little favor when you go to a party?  Well, of course you do.  Who doesn't?  For Carina's shower I purchased printable personal stickers that fit on Bath & Body's small hand sanitizers.  They turned out so adorable.

It was a fun Sunday afternoon and I want to say a special thank you to my daughter-in-law, Kayla, for helping me.  Also my brother, mom and nephews, Mason and Landon, for helping set up.  Okay Liam -- the party is over.  It's time for you to get here so we can meet you!

Let's see what others are up to this Wednesday.

Crafty Wife
Moonlight & Mason Jars Link Party
Creative Spark Link Party
What's Up Wednesday
Home of Malones
Pennies Into Pearls
Simply Sweet Home
This post contained affiliate links.  I may receive a small commission if you click on the link and purchase.  Thanks!

Weekending - First One in August

Welcome to August!  And to Monday.  I'm a little lot late coming to you today because I was just too worn out last night to put a post together.  It was a fabulous weekend!

I decided late Thursday night that I was going to take a vacation day on Friday.  A day for my brain to rest was much needed.  I knew I still had tons to do for the baby shower on Sunday and Saturday was going to be nonstop, so Friday was going to be a fun day for me.  Fun it was!

Friday started with me laying in bed reading and commenting on some of my favorite blogs.  I love reading blogs and rarely comment on them.  My bad because I know how much I LOVE getting comments from my readers.  A better job at commenting by me needs to happen!

After enjoying a slow start to the day, a walk was in order.  Trekked around the neighborhood and enjoyed breathing in the fresh air.  When the walk was done, I decided a little reading outside was the thing I should do next.  I'm reading All The Light We Cannot See.  This book has been mentioned all over blogland.  Sadly, I'm having a bit of trouble getting into it.  Am I the only one feeling this way?  So many people have talked about loving it.

While basking in the sun I decided what I really needed to do was get a pedicure.  I mean, I really needed pretty toes for the shower on Sunday, so off to the spa I went.  Just the thing to finish off the day and move into the evening feeling relaxed!

Friday night was Beauty and the Beast at the Muny.  It was a beautiful, but bit warm, evening.  I busted out my mini air conditioner and stayed cool as a cucumber.  Blogged about it HERE.  Seriously guys, these little babies are great.  The show was great too.

Then Saturday happened.  I had done an enormous amount of thinking about the decorations I wanted to do for the shower on Sunday, but not a lot of doing.  It was crunch time.  Thank heavens for my Silhouette!  I worked nonstop from early to late, but in the end it came together just as I had pictured it.  My daughter-in-law stopped by and helped for a while.  I really love working with her on projects like this.  I'm so lucky my son married such a wonderful lady!  Love her so much!

Early in the day I thought I was actually going to get to meet up with some friends for dinner.  Who was I kidding?!?  That didn't happen.  Why am I such a procrastinator???   I'm just going to embrace the fact that procrastinating is just part of me and not beat myself up over it.

Word to the wise:  Always keep an extra set of printer ink cartridges on hand.  I may have had to run to Walmart at midnight to get more ink for the printer!

The mother-to-be we would be celebrating on Sunday had a sneak peak of her maternity pictures hit Facebook on Friday.  Isn't she gorgeous!!  She's as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside.  Sabrina Renee Photography earns kudos for this shot.  Can't wait to see the rest of them.

Sunday morning I loaded up bright and early and drove almost two hours to the baby shower venue.  The set up turned into a family affair as my parents, brother, nephews and daughter-in-law helped put anything in its place for the shower.  I have to say, I was very pleased with the outcome.  Here's a few highlights.

  I'll be blogging more about the shower details on Wednesday.  Lots of fun stuff to show you!

This is Downtown Restaurant Week in St. Louis and right now we have reservations for two nights.  Still trying to decide on the third location.  Wait -- am I procrastinating again?

Check out what others were up to this weekend.

Champagne and Suburbs

B Loved Boston

I Should Be Mopping the Floor

Life of Meg

More Pieces of Me
Bella and the City
Oak and Oats
A Cute Angle
The Quinntessential Mommy
How To Get Organized At Home