Baby Shower!

I always get excited when I get to give a Baby Shower!  My friend, Courtney, is pregnant with a sweet baby BOY!  This really works out well for me, since I have a lot of white and baby blue in my house right now!  And I'm so excited for her!

My friends, Tiffany and Veronica, are also hosting, so we are making p-l-a-n-s.  Courtney wanted NO games (haha!  I kinda want to have at least one game as a joke-'cause I'm like that-but we hostesses without the mostess agreed on no games in her highest honor!).  So.. Tiffany listened to her words "if we just get together and have cookies, that's fine!" so we are having a cookie party/exchange!

We are having some soups, cheese, crackers, cake (too many c words?  Her baby's name will begin with C too!!), and CooKiES!  We meant to put on the invitation for everyone to bring a batch to exchange and totally forgot.  Oops.  So now we are having the best baking marathon EV-AH!  Seriously, I've made dough, frozen it, prayed it wouldn't lose it's rise ('cause I don't even know..is that ok?), and kept going!  I'm pulling old favorite recipes she's had (like the time she was teaching my little Ethan at the church preschool) like the Chunky Chocolate Gobs with Mounds and Oreos inside and my choc-oat-chip cookies (kinda like this, but one tablespoon of REAL vanilla extract!).  And new ones, like these lemon-frosted shortbread cookies and THE chocolate chip cookie!

I do love a good party centered around food a baby!  haha!  I picked up balloons early (since they last over two weeks with hi-float!), and I made a cutesy chalkboard and mantle for her, and I've gathered all kinds of white dishes and cake plates to elevate our food.  No pun intended, ha!

She's not expecting fancy, so we'll do fine.  We've been saving Starbucks Frappucino Jars (think like this) to add milk, iced tea or punch and blue striped straws.  Tiffany got some little Chinese take-out boxes for everyone to take home some cookies.  Cute stuff.  You should just have a baby already so we can celebrate! : )  Of just come join us Friday night, I'm sure she wouldn't care, haha!  But no games.

I'll try to take a few pictures of the shower to share.  It should be a lot of fun! (and sugar!)

Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”  Mark 9: 36-37 

Flags and Tippy Toes

Oh goodness gracious!  I'm so behind...I think I'm trailing myself.  Oh well, new baby reigns! ; )
Let's see..I've had a baby lose his first tooth, made a long flag bunting, worked on a sweet baby shower for a wonderful friend (with lots of flag-inspiration!), painted Mary Claire's room, trying to work on new bedding and drapes for her, made her a slipcovered headboard (still working on the slipcover..), had an ER trip with Carter on July Fourth, working on planning surgery for him-whew!  No, we don't slow down. : )

Ok, so first things first.  Carter was screaming when I was changing his diaper while out to eat on July fourth (no new thing here).  But..I saw that his groin area was rather large on one side, and I pressed the bulge.  It didn't go down.  Ewww!!  (and Scary!)  I called the pediatric clinic after-hours number, and when the nurse called back and found out "it" didn't go back in, she told me to go immediately to the emergency room, to stay with him, and to have someone else drive us. (!!!)  Well, that'll scare a mom, thankyouverymuch.

I sent a text asking for prayers, and when we got there-I thought, Miracle!  The thing had gone down.  We still had to see the doctor though.  When we were back there (you know..an HOUR later), the doctor squeezed on his tummy, pressed on things, and generally made him scream again...and the thing popped back out!  It was kinda like a small egg-yep, that big.  Come to find out, it was his INTESTINE.  He has an inguinal hernia.  It does require surgery, since they do not heal on their own.  It didn't require immediate surgery as they'd first thougt (if it doesn't push back, it's stuck, and needs surgery right away to remove the stuck/dying bowel, and they resect the remaining bowel).

So, I can tell you all this calmly now that we are a few days out.  At first, I was panicked.  We've also been keeping him as absolutely happy as possible (requiring holding at ALL times).  When he gets mad/cries/stresses, he screams, and the hernia pops out, and it hurts, so he cries more.  Etc.  Our house is FUN!  It's a circus to get someone to hold him so we can go to the bathroom. : )

His crying/colic is starting to get better (and maybe the hernia was part of the colic/crying?).  We are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. : )  Sleep helps a great deal!  He now goes to bed about 10:30 at night, and doesn't wake up till about 4am, so a big sleep stretch helps me keep my sanity and does wonders for my personality. ; ) haha!  I think a rested momma is a happy momma.

He also turned over for the first time in his bed today!  Ches found him while I was at my friend's baby shower today (so I didn't get to see him), but WoW-it's early!  He's not even quite three months...well, tomorrow he will be. ; )  Will he do everything early?

Ok...so some crafts!  I'll have to show you how I made these, but here are some pictures!  The bunting (over there > ) was fun, and really easy.  I just made double sets of triangles (front/back), sewed them together inside out, reversed them, sewed the edges neatly, then put them in order into some seam binding with hanging loops at each end.   After I made it, I made some easy ones with leftover muslin and jute string that I liked just as well (if not better!) just running the jute through some small holes in the tops of the triangles I cut with scissors.  (over there > )  The flags didn't even slip around since the jute is really rough.  I used the extras on the gift tables at the shower!  And just for fun, here are the invitations and a little book I made for putting in those cards (my friend had the greatest idea!  We each wrote a word on a card to pray over the baby and family through birth..and who can't use more prayer?!):

Invitations!  (yes, they were all kinda different..it took some practice to perfect them. ; )

Little photo album with colored pages for the prayer cards (with teensy flags!)

Mary Claire's headboard is a work-in-progress, and I had to quit on it to focus on the baby shower I was helping to plan.  I'll get back to it this week.  She picked out her extra fabrics, and they are all silver.  Never would have guessed.  I'm praying her room turns out the way she likes, it's become her room, and I'm not so much in control right now.  I think it's called the Tween years.  They've come a-callin'.

It'll look so much cooler with a slipcover on it!  This is just a 2x4 frame with wood on both sides of the "sandwich", then some ball feet screwed in, covered in extra loft batting, then muslin..followed by the yet-to-be-finished slipcover.  (but the white linen is already prewashed and cut..waiting to meet my sewing machine!)

K, gotta go! ..fussy baby (hungry?)  Gotta prevent the hernia pop-out! ; )  Hugs, and pray for my baby please! : ) 

Need to giggle?  Some of us at the end of Tiffany's shower...guess who's on their tippy-toes trying to be as tall as everyone else? ; )  You guessed it!!