Tag Archives: baby shower

Currently

Hey y’all! Thanks for bearing with me through a summer of travel, kids out of school, a few changes, and general laziness. School starts for my eldest two kiddos next week, and I fully expect to be back in my writing swing.

In the meantime, there are a few fun things I’ve been involved with that I haven’t had the chance to write about! There have been parties and celebrations, trips and concerts, yummy food and drinks, date nights and play dates. I’ll attempt to recap you a little on what we’ve currently been up to.

Discovering || the gender of our dear friends’ first baby! They hosted a little get-together to share with us whether the sweet babe would be a boy or a girl. We found out that (just like us and most of our close friends, oddly enough) their first baby will be a sweet girl! The mama-to-be Andrea baked cupcakes with pink icing inside, and let our kids all tear into them. It was ADORABLE.

the girls, celebrating adding one to our number!
EK and her buddies dancing

Celebrating || my best gal from college Lauren, as she prepares to welcome her first baby: a girl! Three other friends and I got together to put together a baby shower this past weekend, and it was SO fun. We held it in the same place on our college campus that they held my first baby shower, and one for another friend in our college roommate group. It’s a beautiful space to begin with, so we spend more of our efforts on food, games, etc. than we do on decorations. The crowning achievement for me of this particular shower was the favor. I had seen an Instagram post a while back about a favor that was a splitter of champagne. It had a homemade label with instructions to save the splitter till the baby arrived, then post a photo of a toast on Instagram with a specific hashtag. Since Lauren is a Prosecco lover (as am I), we bought Prosecco splitters, and my friend Andrea (yes, the other one having a baby girl!) made cute tags for them. EK helped me tie the tags on, and I was VERY pleased with the result! They were definitely a crowd pleaser.

i got macarons, but when the mama-to-be is a baker, she wants to contribute, too!
the Salem girls! (and Callie, class of 2038!)
 

Listening || to the Dixie Chicks! I listened to them during their height of popularity, and have tapered off listening to them recently. But when I saw that they were coming close by on their next tour, and on my friend Mary Katherine’s 30th birthday no less, I decided to go. I got together with some girlfriends, tailgated, and went to their concert. I was a little sad that I didn’t know more songs (they were mostly songs off their new album, which I didn’t know very well), and a little aghast at the blunt political statement they were making (I know, I shouldn’t have been surprised) since I just wanted to hear them play music. But all in all, I enjoyed myself! The tickets weren’t that expensive, so I won’t complain anymore.

i stayed that night with my gal pal from high school. love her!
the birthday girl and our photobomber. it was SO HOT that night. those hats were freebies at the venue, and they say, “No hate in our state.” oh dear.

Enjoying || the last few days of no routine. The kids and I went downtown for breakfast treats and to the park this morning. It won’t be long until we don’t have many morning dates, so I’m relishing that time with them.   

Eating || summer salsa and quesadillas! Between tomatoes and peppers from the garden, and local tomatillos, we have been tearing through salsa. Fresh salsa, cooked salsa, mild or hot… It’s one of our summer favorites, and I’ll be sad when the season is over. 

you know it’s good when it’s all gone!

Shopping || for Christmas! I know y’all think I’m crazy, but I love being the early bird and getting sales before other people are even thinking about Christmas. When I sat down to order our Halloween stuff (I am so excited!) I also got a few things for Christmas presents for the kiddos. Online shopping is the actual best!

Well, that’s a big update on my life- what have you been up to? Are you happy to have school back in session and slip into a routine?

Currently

How is it possible that summer is almost over? I can hardly believe that it’s halfway through August, and we are gearing up to get back in the schoolyear routine. I won’t lie – I love it. I love the routine, the schedule, the way my kids love school and the way it improves them to have it in their week. But before we get back into the swing of things, we’ve got a couple more weeks of being lazy, sweating, and relaxing. Here are a few things I’m currently up to…

Planning || my best friend’s baby shower! She’s due at the end of October, so I’m planning things with a few of our friends to celebrate her baby girl! I’m so excited! I’ll post about the shower after it happens – don’t want to ruin your surprise, Lauren!

Anticipating || Another friend’s gender reveal this weekend! I’ve never actually been to a gender reveal party, and the only “gender reveal” I did with any of my kids was let EK devour a cupcake with blue icing and post a photo on Facebook. So, needless to say, I’m excited to see what they choose to do! AND I can’t wait to start getting a few things for the baby, once I know the gender!

Stressing || about toddler life. J has proven more difficult (in some ways, at least) than EK was in regards to toddlerisms. For instance, he’s been doing this (disgusting) thing where he takes a bite of something, decides he doesn’t like it or want it, and just holds it in his mouth for a super long time. Like, up to half an hour. And it’s been different things… a bite of squash, a BBQ flavored potato chip, a spoonful of yogurt, a bite of okra. It’s not like it’s been spinach every single time or something. But it is GROSS and I’m over it. He also tantrums more often and more intensely than EK did. I’m certainly not giving in to it (like bribing him out of them), but it’s uncharted territory to figure out whether to just leave him in the living room floor, or move him to his room, or try to sit him in time out. He just goes belly-down and kicks his legs on the floor. Yikes.

Baking || a garden fresh squash bake! We had a few large squash from the garden, and I wanted a creative way to use them up. My big kids don’t really like squash, so I didn’t worry about choosing a recipe they would like. After scrolling through twenty or so recipes for “stuffed squash” of many varieties, I settled on making my own. I had read several with sausage, and several with a grain of some sort (quinoa, etc), so I stuck with sausage, and added grits, fresh tomatoes (also from the garden) and some pepper jack cheese I had in the fridge. It was delicious!


Well, that’s about it for our last little bit of summer here. What are you doing until school gets started again? Or has it already started for your family?!

Currently 

Happy Monday! I hope y’all had a wonderful weekend! I’m joining Becky at Choose Happy again this week for her currently link up. Lots of pictures in store for you today – I hope you enjoy it! Leave a comment or join the link up and let me know what’s going on with you!

Loving || Our finished shower! We chose a dark grout (it matches the wall color we chose almost perfectly!) to offset the white subway tile, and I really like the effect. We don’t have a door quite yet, because our old one is now too big, so we aren’t able to use it till we get one. Otherwise, I’m really happy with it! We need a little paint touching up in a few places, but it looks awesome.

Still undecided on the mirrors… there are two of those and they’ll be almost touching. What do you think?



Eating || at the Honey Pot! It’s a local restaurant here, and the chef is actually a friend of Hubby’s from high school. It is AMAZING. The food is fresh, mostly local, and really creative. Most of all, it’s plated beautifully and it’s outstandingly delicious! (If you’re local, check out their website here.) I wish I had taken a picture of every dish, but it was too good to not just eat it immediately. However, this dessert – a Georgia peach tart, with basil crema, accented with tiger lilies (who knew you could eat them?!) – was so beautiful I had to take a picture. And folks, it was as good as it looks. Really.

Growing || tomatoes and peppers! I mean, we are growing other stuff too, but those are our most fruitful plants at the moment. We’ve had one eggplant and some cucumbers and an ENORMOUS zucchini (I talked about that here) as well. Here are a few pictures I snapped last night as I was harvesting…



  


 

Planning
|| A baby shower! My sweet friend from college Melissa is expecting her first baby (a little girl!) in a couple of months, and my friend Lauren and I are throwing her a shower. We had a planning session this afternoon, and I can’t wait to post with a bunch of pictures after we shower her with love on Saturday!

Enjoying || this little series of photos. The first picture is the night before I had J… EK sprawled across my belly, the tiny little thing that she was, in her mismatched Christmas jammies. I’ve always loved that photo, and so now while I’m not so far away from having baby D, I thought it would be fun to try to recreate the moment with my two older sweeties sitting on top of their little brother!


 

Well, that’s about it in my world. Just waiting on baby D to get here! I have a post coming soon about how I packed my hospital bag – look for it this week!

What’s going on in your life currently?