Stephanie's Shower

I feel like there has been a lot of baby posts on here lately.  I got to thinking about it, and I know 6 different women that are all due within a month of each other!  So it makes sense that there would be lots of baby news.  :)

One of my good friends, Stephanie, from church growing up is expecting her first child in August.  A baby girl named Chloe Renee.

Sweet Treats

Look how adorable the favors were!  (Strawberry malt balls)  Stephanie even designed the cute stickers.

I always love a good diaper cake.

Chocolate and Strawberry cupcakes.  Yum!  Stephanie handmade the cupcakes and designed the toppers!  She is so talented.

One of the shower games we played was to try and guess how big around Steph was with ribbon.

Stephanie even got in on the action and won!

We also played Bingo were you fill out your card with what gifts you think she will receive.  That is always a fun one.

Stephanie definitely got a lot of fabulous gifts.

Who can resist baby socks!?

Me, Stephanie & Ashley

(all friends from church growing up)

The guests from the shower minus one.  It was a fun bunch of girls.

I can't wait to see Stephanie become a mom and meet this sweet baby girl.  She will be the best mom ever!

New Experience

Sorry I've been so quiet on here this week.  It's been a tough week for many reasons.  But moving past that there have been so many things I've been meaning to blog about so I'll start getting to a few of them.  One thing that's been a big part of my life since April has been golf.  I never thought I would ever say that! Ha!  Ryan has had a love for this sport since he was young and was always trying to get me to play with him.  He even went as far as to buy me my own set of clubs off Ebay the first year we were married.  I maybe used them once?  My family is also really into golf and they even have an annual golf tournament that Ryan & I played in last year. 

The women in my family also play on a women's golf league that I've been hearing about for years.  Well, since I've moved home I was invited to join.  I was a little hesitant at first since I'm terrible!!  But they reassured me that I didn't have to be good to join.  Plus, I wanted to spend more time with them so I agreed.  What I didn't realize was that it was going to be every single Tuesday from April to September!!  I was a little overwhelmed at first... but now I love it!!  In fact, I look forward to it every week.  :)

My partner in crime is my cousin (by marriage), Kathy.  She is so naturally talented!  It's been fun playing a different team each week so I can pick up tips from a bunch of different people.

I have started to improve so that's been exciting.  However, one thing will get better and then another thing will get worse.  I guess that's golf for you!

This is my favorite picture from the season by far.  I was teeing off and hit my golf ball about a hundred yards right into a trunk of a tree, and I'm pretty sure that's poison ivy or oak!!  That was a classic Lindsey move that everybody in the league is still laughing about.  Oh well, at least I'm having fun!

Brighton's Video

Here's the video that I couldn't seem to upload for the last post.

I can't handle those cheeks!

Meet Brighton & Violet

Melissa's baby girls were born July 19th, Brighton Eloe at 6:28pm weighing 4lbs 12ozs and Violet Brucks at 6:29pm weight 3lbs 3ozs.  Mom and the baby girls are doing great.  The little ones will be in the NICU for a little bit until they can feed on their own and regulate their own body temperature.  Other then that they did not have any other complications for being just a tad premature.  Just some healthy twin baby girls.

My friend Kara & I went to visit Jeremy & Melissa in the hospital last night.  We got to meet their daughters and even watch Melissa feed Brighton!  This tiny one below is Violet.  She has on the striped hat.

Violet hanging out in her incubator.

This is Brighton in the adorable ducky hat.  Since she's a little bigger she doesn't have to be in an incubator.  Mom is getting ready to try and see if she will take a bottle.

Melissa is such a natural!

They both have feeding tubes until they can eat from a bottle better.

Brighton is waking up a little!

Time to get burped!  I tried to upload a video of this and it didn't work.  I'll try and post that over the weekend.

Melissa taking Violet's temp and changing her diaper in preparation for her feeding.

Kara & I didn't stay to watch Violet's feeding since you can only have 4 people at a time back in the NICU.  We wanted to let Jeremy's parents come back too.

They were so tiny and just absolutely precious.  They are two lucky girls to have Jeremy & Melissa as their parents.  Can't wait until they get to go home with them!

A list & A Birthday

There have been a few things going on this past week that I am just going to bullet point them.

• Melissa had her twin baby girls, Violet Brucks &  Brighton Eloe, last night!!  The middle names are their grandmother's maiden names.  I can't wait to meet them!

•  Brad & Lindsey moved in with us this past weekend.  And you better believe we have already started our Canasta tournament.  They will be with us until their home in Houston sells and they close on another house here in KC.

• Speaking of Lindsey, if you have been watching Expedition Impossible then you know Team Kansas was the last time to finish and was sent home. :(  They did so well and we are all so proud of them.  They made it 4 weeks!  If you missed the last couple of episodes you can still watch them on ABC's website.  You can't miss Lindsey getting thrown off a camel!!

• Finally, it was my mom's birthday on Sunday.  We took her to a movie Saturday night, then went to church together the next day, lunch a Five Guys, stopped by to check out the newly opened, extremely packed Trader Joes, and then made a homemade dinner for her that night!

I think I'm really going to enjoy Brad staying with us because he really likes to cook!  Ryan & Brad made us all homemade pizzas to celebrate my mom.  She got us that pizza stone so we thought it was only appropriate. :)

Yogi was doing his part too.

The birthday girl!

Instead of a cake this year we decided on brownies.  One of my mom's gifts was a brownie pan that ensures that every brownie has edges.  She's been talking about one forever.  So I had her open her gift and then I used it to make these delicious beauties.  They turned out sooooo good!  Highly recommend this pan.

Make a wish!

I was thrilled to be able to celebrate my mom's birthday this year at home in KC.  Looking forward to what this next year has in store for my mom!

At the end of the night, Brad decided this was a "welcome home" dinner for him as well.  So he had me rearrange the fondant letters to spell out his name.  Ha!

Melissa's Baby Shower

A couple of weekends ago, a few girls from church and I had a shower for our friend Melissa at my house.  Melissa is pregnant for the first time and due in August with twin girls!  I thought this shower had to be extra special for her since she is now on bed rest and had to get permission to even come.  I was so worried that she may not even be able to come to her own shower!

Carly came up with this awesome shower invite based off the colors of Melissa's nursery. 

 (I blacked out the address.)

My friend Victoria made most of the adorable decorations that I ordered through her etsy shop.  You have to go check it out!  Seriously the cutest party stuff ever!  Click here to visit.

Victoria made the bags and I made the cookies for favors.

I loved the toppers on the cupcakes I made!

Pictures of the table setup.

The shower colors were yellow and grey like Melissa's nursery.  I decided tissue puffs were a must for any shower.  I used this tutorial to show me how to make them.

Kara came up with this great idea to make a pear tree and have people write encouraging things for Melissa on them.

You can sort of see the handmade bassinets that our friend Carly made for the baby girls in this picture.  Is she not freaking amazing??

Kara also made little yard markers to lead everyone up to the door.

Seriously too cute!

On the shower invitation we asked everyone to bring a baby picture of themselves.  Then at the shower we had a game that people had to figure out who's baby picture was who.  It was a lot of fun even though not everybody remembered to bring a picture.

The other game we played was Bingo.  Everybody filled out their own Bingo card with what they thought was in Melissa's presents and their freebie space was the gift they brought.  Whoever won the two games got to chose one of the flower arrangements around the house.

Then it was time for opening the presents!  We had cute thank you cards made for her and had everyone write down their address on the envelopes so she wouldn't have to look all that information up.

I love diaper cakes!  Kara did such a good job on this one.

Melissa got so many cute gifts.

Melissa's sisters live out of town but where able to come visit her the weekend of the shower.  It was perfect!

All the lovely hostess's (with Melissa) that helped out with food and organizing this whole shindig.

Carly, Kara, Melissa, Kristen, Ashley & Me