The Baby Shower

I threw a baby shower for my dear sister-in-law Elisa. It turned out pretty cute, I guess.

What would a baby shower that I pretty much totally planned on Pinterest be without a few chalk boards?

We had mad libs cards that everyone filled out with advice for the new mommy.

The food turned out deliciously. Lots of family members made the food happen, and it was gobbled up promptly.

The Menu:

Turkey Special Sandwiches

Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Filling

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Filling

My Moms Amazing Cheeseball

Artichoke and Spinach Dip with chips and baguettes

If you could not tell, the shower was bird themed. The table was also decorated with tender pictures of baby Charlie I took the day before the baby shower.

By the by, Elisa made this cupcake stand! It turned out beautifully, don't you think?

We had a yummy apple cider punch.

I asked Cody to put the cups out for easy access. Cody got creative.

This shin-dig took lots of work but it was sooo good plan it out as much as I did, otherwise things would have been a mess. And the lovely new momma enjoyed it, I think. And that is what makes it count the most!

Thanks so so so much to every single person who helped make this partay happen! And Congrats to Elisa and Kevin!

I'm cropping a lot of people out of these photos.

Yesterday was one of the best days of the year. Halloween. I got up at 6:30 am which is not a time I want to see anything other than the inside of my eyelids. But there was much preparation that needed to be done to get ready for work on this creepy and wonderful day. 3 hours of make-up application later, I looked like this:

This is my manager and me at work. We are a team so we dressed up in coordinating Dia de los Muertos costumes. I wanted to look like the work of Sylvia Ji, but with less skin showing. The costumes turned out great and I even won a $5.00 gift card to Judd's (a place by my workplace with yummy soup) for my costume.

The makeup turned out better than I could have hoped for. And my skeleton lady cameo necklace that I ordered from Etsy showed up on Saturday, just in time. Phew!

The dressed up Learnkey folks went on the annual parade around the area of Main Street and took lots of good photos.

Then we made our way over to the park carousel and the lady let us ride it! It was so much fun, as you can see I was quite gleeful.


Oh man. Halloween is the best. I sometimes wish everyday could be this way so that I can just go to the grocery store, or drive down the street, and pass people in the most ridiculous get-ups and it is considered acceptable. I guess that is what Wal-Mart is for though. And since I am a lover of the macabre, I just can't get enough creepy spooky talk. I love to hear stories about who saw what ghost or heard what place is haunted. And this is the day that people talk about it! I get to hear about the stories of the LearnKey basement and be frightened whenever I have to go down there to the bathroom! Yay!


Hope you had a very scary Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Here are some lovely shots of my front porch this year. These pumpkins are all from my very own patch. We got lots of cool ones!

Here are some not so great shots of my kitchen table. I am still having to use my cell phone for my photography needs.

This is a chemistry set filled with fall leaves.

Fall Throw Pillows

These pictures are really crappy. I apologize for that, the only pictures I can put on my blog are from my phone.

These are the throw pillows that I have finished so far. They are my first real project on my sewing machine that I got for Christmas. All I have used it for so far is sewing up my moxie owl packages and making a couple of bean bags for my Sunday school class.

I finally remade the cat pillows after losing the originals to a tragic explosive pumpkin-mold incident:

I think they turned out even better than the first set! Although I should have looked at the old picture before making these because I like the old version of the whiskers better.

These are my scrappy leaf autumn pillows. I got the idea off of pinterest. They took forever to make because of all the individual leaf sewing but it was so worth it!



Hopefully I will get a new laptop someday and I will be able to post real photos of everything awesome that has been going on.

Oh yes, Cody made me a giant amazing beautiful chalk board. Here is a picture of it!

He made it out of a big sheet of metal sprayed with chalkboard paint. And of coarse he made the magnificent frame himself. Cody is pretty much the bomb.

Not that I have anything against Costco or their cake

The baby shower is looming. There is so, SO much to do for this. Per usual, I am making it a lot harder than it needs to be because of my “vision.” I have so many decorations to make and I still need to test out a bunch of recipes for the food I will be making. I am both excited and nervous. My family has been giving me quite a hard time because I can’t just do what they have always done with baby showers and bring some cake from Costco, throw down some paper plates, and have a few members of the family come over to sit and chat for a while. I’m sorry, but no. Not going to happen.

I have been told that it is just a generational thing, that people in this neck of the woods just do things easy peasy lemon squeezey and don’t need their parties and gatherings to quote “look like a magazine.” That younger people like me must do things like quote “Paris Hilton.” Now this particular explanation both offended and confused me because quite frankly, I do not appreciate Paris Hilton or her work, nor do I see what she has to do with my wanting to throw a pretty baby shower. And if she did throw a baby shower, I can guarantee it would not be my brand of pretty.

I asked my sister what she meant by this and she said she was really just trying to come up with someone “hip and cool” to use as an example. I informed her that I didn’t agree with her idea of who we young people think is cool.

Aimee: I don’t know who you people like. Hanna Montana? iCarly? Justin Beiber?

Me: Are you aware that I’m not 12? I think when you are trying to find someone "cool" for me to relate to, you shouldn’t use your new found love of the Disney Channel as your frame of reference.

Aimee: I apologize that I like iCarly! iCarly is funny!

Riiight.

And she meant it. Haha. Oh Aimee, you are my little gentleman gentlewoman. ?.

I do understand that different people choose to use their time in different ways. I am a person who enjoys doing things all the way, and making them the way I see it in my head. Not to toot my own horn, but this is how my brain works. It thinks up beautiful pictures and I have the ability to make them come to life. I think that this was a gift that I was blessed with, and I should use it, not hide it under a bushel, whatever that is.

So what is so wrong with wanting to throw this shindig properly?? And this is not a rhetorical question, please; if you can see why I should be condemned for such a thing as wanting an aesthetically pleasing spread with cohesive serve-ware, please enlighten me. Things CAN, despite what I have been told, be made to look like “a magazine” with very little money. Or at least close. I have done it many times and I will continue to do so whether people agree or not. I have not asked for anyone’s help, I am doing this myself, so who am I hurting?

All I am asking is that the awesomeness that I am creating is appreciated. Just a little. Is that really so hard? No, I submit that it is not.

My Computer Blew Up

Hello, there. I have been wanting to post so many things but a few months ago my laptop took its last breath. She was getting old and it was bound to happen, but I had no idea it would be such a final death. Cody was working on it and it started to make funny noises and smell like something was burning. The next time I tried using it, it literally began to smoke. I could still use it but it would randomly shut off, and shoot blue sparks when I tried to adjust the power cord. But now it won’t even entertain the idea of turning on. Very sad. And saving up for a new one is proving to be a lot harder than we thought.

Cody does have a computer, but it may as well be a plank of wood with a mouse plugged into it because that’s about as useful as it is.

So that is why I have been absent. I do not like posting anything without photos, and I obviously have no way of getting pictures off of my camera anymore. But I finally gave in and decided to post a picture-less post.

My favorite time of year is almost here! My pumpkins are growing big and orange and the decorating fever has pretty much completely taken over my mind. My poor husband has been recruited for many projects that he doesn’t particularly want to do and I have committed myself to making a ridiculous amount of autumn-themed throw pillows. As in about 15 pillows. Who even does that? That is a lot of pillows for one little person to make.

I have been working full time which is such a blessing. I have so much less time now, though! I am getting a little overwhelmed with everything I want to get done over the next couple months. Sewing enough throw pillows to build a very large and impressive pillow fort, decorating for fall (a very daunting task at my house) and the big one, planning out the baby shower I am throwing for my sister-in-law. And usually by this time of year, I have a pretty good list of the Christmas gifts I want to get for everyone. Haven't even started. I feel like such a failure!

We are also trying to go to Disneyland in October and we have just been putting off paying for it over and over again. I am getting bigger pay checks but have just as little money as before. How does that happen? But we have to go! We have put it off for 2 years and I have already prepared a California themed playlist to listen to on the way there. So it's really not even a choice at this point.

Good Morning, Garden!

My backyard in the morning.

Here is a pumpkin that looks more like a watermelon.

Here is the pumpkin that grew first. He is the biggest. Still about the size of a large onion.
I don't remember what kinds these are, as they grew all over each other, but I have about 10 different species in here.

I was so worried that the bee's wouldn't find my pumpkins (if they didn't, that would mean the fruit would wither up and die) so I went to the nursery and bought a plant that attracts bees. When I got home and went to plant it, the bees were already there. They love these big flowers.

There is a whole world under the big leaves full of green light.

There's a baby pumpkin! The thing hanging off of it is a female flower.

These little curly vines grab onto everything they can find, even the weeds.