Utah Part Two

After the crazy first 24 hours I had in Utah all I really wanted to do was sleep, alas that did not happen. There were just too many people to see and fun things to do! Eric’s family was gone at this time working in California but we were able to spend the weekend with his little sister Amy and it was SOOO GOOD to see her! I loved having her all to ourselves!    Eric's Brother David and our sister in law Stephanie were in town too and we got to spend the evening with them and their adorable new baby girl.  I just love being an Aunt!  We put on a movie and I was pretty much out like a light.  Ha ha oh well my body was there soaking up family time.  Come Monday sadly we had to say goodbye to Amy and we dropped her off at EFY. So the events just kept on happening. Tuesday was McCall’s bachelorette party and Thursday was the wedding. From one thing to the next was pretty much the theme of this trip. The wedding was beautiful and I was so happy I got to go. McCall looked gorgeous and I’m just so happy for them! 

I mean come on look at those gorgeous girls!

 

 

Is she not the most gorgeous bride you have ever seen?



It's so weird to think we are both married now, and its fun to think back on some of our conversations just a few years ago.  Its funny to see how far we have come and how much has changed.  One thing I know for sure, is that I am so thankful for McCall and her friendship!  She has been there for me through so much and I don't know what I would do with out her in my life. 

Love my Cally!

 After the wedding there was no time to recover it was right on to the next event or what my sister and I like to call THE BEST BABY SHOWER EVA!! My sister Mel and her husband got in on Thursday while I was at the wedding! It was also my mom’s birthday! Late birthday shout out Mom holla, LOVE YOU! So Friday morning was spent finishing up projects and working on the food for Nicole’s baby shower. We did a Dr. Seuss theme and it turned out awesome if I do say so myself. I was thrilled when Mel was willing to help do it with me, it made my life so much easier and I love planning things with her because we are so similar. We decided to split up the responsibilities and I was over the decorations and invites and she did games and food. We helped each other out with the whole thing, but those were the main things we were in charge of. We had a lot of fun and it was so awesome to see all my sisters and sister in laws and have some girl time to just hang out with everyone. I didn't realize how much I had missed it and them. It makes me sad sometimes to think we are all in different places, but it also makes me happy to see how close we all are and how much fun we have when we do get the chance to get together! 

The sign said "From there to here from here to there baby things are everywhere."

Sign in table.  We had little snacks to the left, one game in the green basket, our favors, another game and the sign in book.  Mel got an "All About Me" Dr. Seuss book.  It was really cute and I think Nicole will enjoy being able to keep it but it being of use.  We did Hop on Pop-corn {caramel popcorn}, truffala seeds {skittles}, and one fish two fish red fish blue fish {goldfish crackers.}  One game we did was the star-belly sneetch game.  Everyone took a necklace with a star on it and if they said the word baby it got taken away from them.  We also did a Dr. Seuss name game where they had to match up the names of characters with what book they were from.  There was also an ABC game where you had to come up with a baby related item for each letter kind of like Scategories.  These were really fun filler games to play while we waited for people to come and while we ate. 

This is what we did for favors.  It says "Don't cry because its over, smile because it happened." - Dr. Seuss.  We had a chocolate turtle inside for Yertle the Turtle and had a sign with a quote from the book that said "And the turtles, of course....all the turtles are free. As turtles and maybe all creatures should be."

We took a bunch of the plants from the institute and put them everywhere to create a jungle of Nool kind of feel.  We also made a bunch of banners from old pages from the books that we had hanging everywhere.

We did a display table at the back.  We had the diaper cake I made Nicole plus a bunch of Dr. Seuss books.

Gift table

Diaper cake I made. Nicole planned on having another shower which would be the big one, so for this smaller friend one we just did a book and diaper shower.  I got her Goodnight Moon and The Hungry Caterpillar.

We had another game set up called Diaper Thoughts.  We all got to write funny messages on diapers and then we packaged them back up and gave them to Matt and Nicole.  :) Hope they have fun changing Mia and reading all the funny things.

 

Food Tables

Drink table

Eating tables.  We wanted it to be unusual seating since everything Dr. Seuss is a little silly.  We didn't want everyone at seperate tables but we didn't want to be sitting family style so this is what we came up with!

We had water that was from Luke Lucks Lake and pink lemonade  - Pink Ink Yink Drink

 

These were yummy!

 

The yummy food table.  Green eggs and ham - Deviled eggs with green food coloring and ham sandwhiches.  We also had roast beef sandwhiches to go with the Grinch.  We then had grinich spinach (SOOOOO GOOOD) and stuffed mushrooms - Yot in Pot (One of Nicoles favorites) 

 

 

Desert Table

Beautiful Schlopp with a Cherry on Top {chocolate mousse with strawberries}

Who pudding - white chocolate mouse with strawberries parfaits and a piece of chocolate on top.

 

David Donald Doe's Donuts

Cake pops - Truffala Trees

 

Centerpiece for the table we made out of dollar tree sponges and craft fuzy balls with pipe cleaners.

Center of all the tables.

PARTAY!

 

Paisley having fun with the big girls!

Lacie having a little too much fun!

Nicole opening gifts

Diaper thoughts

 

A lot of us dressed up for the shower.  I was Amazing Mazie from Horton Hears a Who, Mel was the Lorax, and Nicole was a Star-belly Sneech.

 

 

 

 

Utah Part One

With Eric not working at the time, he was able to head out to Utah a week early and enjoy some needed time with his family! I know he had a blast being able to see them for some extra time! L I wish I could have gone out early, but someone had to pay the bills! It was weird to spend the whole week alone here, I didn’t even have Rango to keep me company because he went on the trip with Eric. You should have seen this 25 year old man walking a kitten around on a leash! Precious I tell you! Rango actually did pretty well in the car for a cat at least! So I flew in Friday night and got to work! My friend McCally picked me up from the airport and we got straight to work on the first shower. She is the main reason I came out because she was getting married! She was such a doll to be willing to help with her OWN shower but I was so thankful! We had a fun time shopping and buying more food then we had ever seen in our life haha and then we went back to her apartment to get cooking! As most things happen, especially at the last minute, things did not go as planned. But luckily we had two awesome men supporting us that were willing to run all sorts of errands for us! They were awesome! By about 3 o’clock in the morning I thought it was time to pack up and move to a bigger kitchen where I could finish things off. We headed to Eric’s parents house and I really did plan on sleeping at some point but the time just never came. Before I knew it, it was morning and time to shower and head off to the next step of decorating! My wonderful sister let us have it at The Echo Theater which is the theater they are running! It was so cool to finally see the space and see what they had been up to! Luckily I had her and my Sister Nicole to help me out; I don’t know what I would have done without them. My wonderful mother and Eric were also the saving grace of the day! I love the amazing support system I have behind me! Over all it was a crazy morning but I thought the shower turned out beautiful! Granted with time constraints I had to let go of some of the awesome things I had planned, and I wish I could have changed a few things,  but overall it was awesome. A lot of people showed up, we had a lot of fun, and I think McCall enjoyed it and that’s what really matters. Numero Uno shower done!  I am a little sad because I had forgotten my camera so I didn't get to take all the pictures I wanted.  Luckily Nicole had her camera so she was a dear and took some pictures for me.  I wish I had a few more of some of the other stuff, but oh well, this is what you get! 

This was the favor table.  I did a green apple with a caramel cream cheese mouse on the bottom inside a little container.

The tag said "Thank whooooo for coming!"

I had all different tables set up.  I wanted it to be a really rustic and eclectic feel.  Each table was just a small side table, but they were all different.  I  then had a burlap table runner tied off with raffia and had a mason jar with flowers on each one on top of a wooded slate.  I also did a cute little saying on each table that how owl in it.  "Owl love you forever"

"Love whooo you love"

I didn't get a picture of the rest of them and can't remember them all, but some other ones said ;

"Owl always love you"

"You're the owlny one for me"

"Owl never let you go"

"Owlys and forever"

 

Instead of a sign in book I did serenity stones.  We had people write a message on the rocks and put it in the fish bowl for McCall to take and put in her home.  You could put uplifting quites, messages, or funny sayings.  Whatever you though would make McCall smile!

I put together a slide show of Bryce and McCall that we had playing in the background.  Forgive the Shakespearean background.  Ha ha they were doing complete works of Shakespeare at the theater at that time and we kinda just had to work around it!.

We played two games at the shower.  First I had them all do a Bridal Shower Mad lib while we all watched the slide show and mingled. It was fun to read some of them after and see who did a serious one and who made them really funny!

The second game was like a newly wed game, but instead of testing McCall to see how well she knows Bryce, we tested the people at the shower to see how well they knew Bryce and McCall.  It actually turned out really fun.  Each person got a McCall card with a princess crown on it and a Bryce card that had a mustache on it.  I would then read a question that I had asked McCall and Bryce and then read one of their answers.  They then had to guess if I had read Bryce or McCall's answer.  I think they all enjoyed this one a lot.

 

I had planned on doing a burlap back drop like this behind all of the food tables. I had the burlap cut and ready to go and everything. Unfortunately I once again ran out of time and also didn't know how to hang them. Having never seen the venue until that morning I wasn't able to plan sufficiently so I had to let this one go. The garlands that ended up hanging above the tables were suppose to go on the front of the table but I had to substitute them for the backgrounder instead. So once again I say it didn't all turn out how I wanted it to, but for traveling there the night before and having just a few hours to get it all completed I think it was an okay job.

For the desert table I had cake pops that looked like owls, mini cupcakes with owl cake toppers I had made, and then chocolate bowls with a cream cheese mousse and berries on top.  There were suppose to be owl cookies as well......sadly due to time issues they didn't make it to the party!

 

 

 

 

 

This was the savory food table.  I had tortellini skewers with a pesto sauce, asian glazed meatballs, buffalo chicken wraps, cream cheese crab puffs, veggie cups, and tempura shrimp with a honey dipping sauce. Ignore the funky table cloth at the moment.  Another last minute solution! 

 

 

 

 

Then in the middle we had the drink table.  The signs at the front of the tables read "Savory Treats" "Drinks" "Sugary Sweets"

 

We had water and an Italian soda bar for our drinks.  We had the club soda and then you added your choice of flavor and then cream!  They were soo yummy and a big hit!

We had vanilla, blackberry and raspberry for flavors.

 

 

For their cups I dipped mason jars in sugar and had cute paper straws!

 

Playing Mad Libs

Her big haul!

The sign I made for outside!

McCall and her lovely sister opening presents!

She got a lot of cool stuff!  I hope she enjoyed the shower!