Monday, January 30, 2012

Lindsay's Baby Shower

The "Melib" of Melibindsay got together to throw a baby shower for the "indsay", as she is now less than 6 weeks from her due date!  (which is Leap Day.  Wouldn't that be awesome?!)  We had tons of fun planning it!  The theme?  Alphabet.  

Here are the invites I designed just using Pages (one day I'll learn Photoshop... not today) and I printed them on the back side of different cute papers.  We went for the obvious color- pink (with gray accents).
 We put balloons on Mel's balcony to help people figure out which apartment to go to.  (I also included a map which I drew in Pages as well, but you don't get to see that.  It was cute though :D) Thanks, Mel, for hosting!  It was so nice not to have to clean my whole house AND make tons of food (because a clean house and tons of cooking never go hand-in-hand for me) :)
 We labeled the food "Ww is for Water" etc.
 The mini pies were actually really easy.  I used my favorite pie crust recipe, and this filling recipe, using the frozen berry medley from Costco.  The cupcakes were ones I had been wanting to try since I saw them here.  I admit, though, I used a boxed cake mix- I was doing so much from scratch, I scrimped there, but everyone still raved about them.
 I used this recipe for the Chicken Salad, which doesn't it look so pretty with those red grapes, green celery and brown cashews?  I made the shredded chicken ahead of time with this easy crock-pot recipe- which I love to use and then take the leftover juices and blend them with the veggies and use it for stock in other recipes.  The croissants were from Costco, although I would love to someday try and make croissants.  If they're that good from Costco, imagine how amazing they would be fresh!!  Anyone have a good recipe?
 Costco roses- one day I'll take flower arranging at BYU, but for now, I just have to rely on the flowers to speak for themselves :)
Mixed, fresh berries, veggie platter,
 Mel threw together a spinach, crasin, feta salad with walnuts on the side (since Lindsay's mom is allergic to nuts) and two dressings to choose from.
 I used my silhouette to cut out letters from the alphabet and then I sewed them together.  The sewed doily garland was reused from this shower.  The "table cloth" is a queen, fitted gray sheet :)
 To go with the alphabet theme, our prizes were little notebooks with a pen.
 And our party favor was 3 sugar cookies with "A", "B", and "C" piped on.  If we had to do it again, we would have put A on a small cookie, B on a medium and C on a large round one since we had to stack them to get them to fit in the cellophane bag. We originally wanted to have cookies cut out to be like the letters "A", "B", and "C", but it was really hard to find the letters we want.  Walmart and every chain craft store sells the same 101 cookie cutter set with the alphabet in it, but the letters are puny, so we had to improvise.
 We played 3 games: This one is called "My water broke"! (every baby shower needs at least one gross game, right?)  Everyone had to keep an eye on their cup throughout the shower and whoever's creepy baby emerges from the ice cube first had to yell "My water broke!"
 Yay Kellie!
 Our next game, was like baby/pregnancy/labor-terms scattergories, except we had Lindsay come up with a list of terms for each letter of the alphabet previously, and people would get a point if they chose the same term she did.  We ended up with a 5-way tie at 5 points and so gave the prize to whomever had filled in the most answers.
 Yay, Kelsey!
 Our last game was called "Makin' a baby" and everyone had to mold a baby from play dough.  Lindsay got to choose her favorite.
 Linds wanted to make one, even though she wasn't allowed to choose her own :)
Kate won, though accidentally knocked the head off right before the picture so she's holding it on here :)  (did anyone else notice the name of everyone who won started with "K"?)
 The haul.
 I felt like people were very generous.  Linds got some great loot!

 Here she is trying on the nursing cover I made her :)  I also made a carseat cover, which I'll post separately.
 Here's a pic of some of the old ballet girls.
And here's Melibindsay.
And finally, I want to make a shout out to an amazingly supportive husband who came home after work last Friday to a hurricane house, full of piles of clean laundry needing folding, migrant toys, a nice pile of dirty dishes, and a lame-o dinner to greet him (since I was in the kitchen all day doing shower prep).  I then ran off to Melissa's to put food together (with all said things still in place) and when I returned after midnight, he not only waited up for me, but had folded all the laundry and put it away, emptied the dishwasher, loaded it up and washed it all and put all the toys away.  (aaaand put the kids to bed by himself)  If that's not enough, I ran off Saturday morning, leaving him in a similar situation, and he watched the kids all day while I was at the shower, cleaned up the cupcake mess I left in the morning and didn't complain that I was too tired to make dinner when I got home.  (thank you Chinese take-out).

My man is THE. BEST.  I love you, Jay.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Kid Conversation

The bulk of the craziness should subside after Saturday, but I can't keep all this cute convos in my head for long...

First I just wanted to mention how amazed I am by Peach's vocabulary expansion!  She already uses sentences!  (although, you have to be a mom to understand them...)  A couple of the most common are:
"ahwango" = I want to go
"wanmo" = I want more
"wight heeyew" (usually with pointing) = right here

she's also figured out that you don't typically say "thank you" when you give something to someone, you say "here".  Or in her case, "heeyew".

Right now "dog", "duck", and her brother's name all sound very similar, and it can be hard to differentiate.  If it's one of the first two, and I'm confused, she'll often accompany it with an animal noise.

She also is very aware of what belongs to The Frog and what belongs to her.  She often picks up The Frog's sippy cup and says,
Peach: [Frog]?  Moke?  (milk)
Me: Yes, that is The Frog's milk.
Peach, obviously pleased with her correct assessment, then drinks his milk.

The other day, I was dropping something off for Jay at work, and we were kind of in a hurry because we wanted to make it to story-time at the library, so I said to The Frog before we got out of the car...
Me:  [Frog], we have to go in and out really quickly, or we'll be late for story-time at the library, so you have to stick right with me, ok?
The Frog: okay, mom!
So we go inside, he does a great job non lolly-gagging, he went through his usual ritual of pushing all the disability buttons to open the two sets of doors to get inside, and pushing all the elevator buttons.  We made it all they way to the faculty fridge and back down stairs through the elevator.  I couldn't believe what a great job he was doing- he usually has to stop and look at EVERYTHING and ask questions about it.  The doors our were just in sight, and The Frog takes off down a hall lined with classrooms and people studying.
Me: [Frog]!  Come back, bud!  We're going to be late for story-time!  We've got to go!
The Frog: Mom!!  (yelling,  while running past the students, away from me) You've got to stick right with me, okay?!!

Earlier that morning, I realized I had forgot something and, as usual, said something about it as I thought out-loud.  (ha.  I now can't remember what it was that I forgot...)
The Frog:  Mom, you're so funny.  That's so funny that you forgot about that.
Me:  It is?
The Frog:  You're so cute, mom.  You're so cute.

And finally today, we were on our way to drop Jay off at work/go to the Bean Museum (every Wednesday they have story time and they bring in a live animal for the kids to pet.  It's soo stinkin' cool!  We've touched a blue-tongued skink, a turtle, and today it was a bearded dragon.)

I wasn't really paying attention to the other side of the car, as I was buckling in Peach and Jay was helping The Frog.  The Frog climbs into the car, jumps, and then bonks his head on the ceiling and starts crying and blaming Jay for hitting his head.
Jay: [Frog], I didn't touch you!  You jumped and bonked your own head!
Me:  (I'm embarrassed to say, but lectures like this are very common from my mouth)  I know your upset about getting hurt, [Frog], but you're the one who was acting crazy in the car.   If you'd just calm down and get in your seat, you wouldn't get hurt.
The Frog:  But Daaad.  (sobbing)  You shouldn't have told me to jump in the car!  Why did you say that!!


Monday, January 16, 2012

Hectic!

Last week was sooo hectic!  Between waking up at 5:40am to work out every day, and staying up late pulling things together for my 10 year high school reunion so we can start selling tickets, I'm completely exhausted.  Then there was all the little things that crept in- watching kids for a friend, accompanying on piano for a friend in church on Sunday, a meeting about this years' Relief Society Weeknight Meetings, my monthly book club meeting and having my 2 best buds for dinner for our monthly "Dine-O-Round", I am officially taking a hiatus, until I feel like it.

I just need a couple of weeks to pull together some of my organizational projects I've decided to do to help streamline my life, but I need some start-up time to get them going.  I'll hopefully share about those once they're in motion and working.  (i hope...)

Don't worry, my kids will still be cute when I get back.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Kid Conversations

I have been storing up a few of these.

The Frog comes up to me out of nowhere.
The Frog:  Oh no! Moooooom.  Uh-oh, you forgot something!
Me: What?
The Frog: You forgot to get me a puppy!

One time at dinner when Peach was coughing after a drink The Frog comments:
"It went down the wrong pipe.  It was supposed to go into her tummy, but it went down to her legs."

Iris, The Frog and I are all sitting at the table.  The Frog is talking to Iris.
The Frog: How old is your mom?
Iris: 46
The Frog: How old is your dad?
Iris: 45
The Frog: How old are you?
Iris: 17
The Frog: How old is your baby?
Iris: (laughing) I don't have a baby!
The Frog: (pointing at her breasts) But you have those!
Me: She's not married yet, Frog, she can't have a baby.
Iris: I don't even have a boyfriend.  Can you help me find one, Frog?
The Frog:  You mean like me... or daddy?
(we're lauging)
Me: Daddy is already married to me, Frog.
The Frog: Well, I'm not big yet.

Iris told me about this conversation when she put the kids to bed for Jay and I one night.
They're reading bedtime stories.
The Frog: (turns to Iris) Can you forgive me, Iris?
Iris:  For what?
The Frog:  I pooped.

and then this morning, I was getting the kids dressed and Peach was trying to open a dresser drawer.  I asked The Frog to help her.

The Frog:  Do you need help, Peach?  Here.  (opens the drawer)  Look! What's in there?  Just underpants and pajamas.  (to me)  I think she wants to look at my underpants.  (to Peach) Do you want to look at my underpants, Peach?
Peach: (nodding) yeah.
The Frog: (dumping them all on the floor) Of course you can look at my underpants!  Of course you can!