sarah's baby shower

my dear sister in law is 8 1/2 months prego and just glowing and as beautiful as can be.  she doesn't look prego until she turns around...yeah, you know the type...:)  my mom and i had the priveledge of throwing her baby shower for her.  it was an evening of desserts and appetizers.  there were nearly 35 people there (phew), but it was so fun!  i will have to add the pics of sarah when i get them on my computer, but for now, here are the decorations 

(sorry about the weird brownish tent to some of the pics-i think it was the 

lighting in the kitchen).

the "parting gifts."  i found so many cute ideas for these online, but when you factor in buying 40 of them, um...not so much.  this was a cute, cheaper alternative.  valentine heart chocolates (because who doesn't really like chocolate???) along with a message that read, "please keep stephen and sarah in your HEARTS as they await the arrival of their BABY BOY."  so, HEART translates to pray for them-or at least this was our hope.  i totally messed up and put "hearts" plural...darn!  as if we have more than one heart-oh well.

this was my sweet little $1 garage sale frame.  i had just bought it that day and spray painted it a turquious color and staple gunned some twine to the back.  i hung some pics of the two parents-to-be when they were younger and viole-a cute decoration.  i am kinda kicking myself for not buying the other frame.  it is now in our kitchen and looks oh-so-cute against the dark wood cabinet.  i'll post more of what i scored that day in another post.

this was the cake-i'll spare you the long story and say that sarah's aunt, a professional cake decorator, made it.  i was terrified it would have little teddy bears and baby bottles and be in a light blue shade...argh!  i had wanted to go the route of more modern cupcakes.  i was ultimately happy to hand the cake baton over to her though..and i have to say, it turned out cute.  it was delicious, to boot (did i really just say that?)

one angle of the food spread (pinwheels, veggie bars, quiche, cheese and crackers, and a veggie platter with homemade ranch dressing, along with cake and cream puffs-my mouth is watering as i am typing this)

garage sale find.  two for $5.  i love these over-sized pillows and they are quite comfortable too. bring on the garage sales!

 

garage sale 2010

we have all been there...tons of "stuff" around the house and/or garage and the piles are only getting bigger.  you know that you can and should just donate it all to charity and feel good for helping someone less fortunate (and have a tax deduction to boot).   

but, then you remember that you have the summer off and don't get paid and figure, well, maybe i can make some money so we can eat this summer (hahaha-just kidding).   

what to do...oh yeah...

GARAGE SALE!

so, it may look like a bunch of junk, just laid across the driveway at random.  BUT don't let the picture fool you.  this was the most organized, nicest, chic-est (is that how you spell it?) garage sale you have ever seen. we had different areas of junk stuff: the baby items, clothing items, play items, accessories, and then the token chotchsky items (which actually made us a total of about $5-woo hoo for chotchskies).  

i had made these really nice alphabetized signs (which only about 1/3 of the beloved garage sale goers actually read).  anyway, i put these signs in many different places, to help our fellow shoppers with their purchases.  

my favorite part of the sale (which i affectionately termed the "tag sale" because martha calls them that and it sounds better) was the "coffee bar."  yes, i said coffee bar. 

 

i had this genius idea (given that i am an avid coffee drinker in the A.M.-and need one before i can go tag sale shopping as well) to sell coffee and muffins and water.  mark and i thought we were so cool for having this.  well, we actually drank more than we sold.  i think we sold two or three cups, gave away about four cups and sold about two muffins and ate about six.  oops!  luckily, the coffee and muffins were still good the next day.  note to self and future tag sale people...don't sell these things next time-OR don't be bummed if you sell them and no one buys them.

 

did i mention we even had cream and sugar put out...yeah, starbucks ain't got nothin' on us.  here is mark with the girls and our neighbor, sierra.  the garage sale was a neighborhood realtor sponsored event, so our neighbors had one too.  it ended up being really fun and we made almost $200, so it wasn't a total wash.

oh, i forgot, the highlight of the day, besides the coffee bar let-down, was watching the cars pull up and just stop in the middle of the road.  seriously, i mean in the middle of the road.  i ran and got the camera with this next one.  it doesn't really do my story justice, but you get the idea.  what are some people thinking?  i guess they failed the parallel parking portion of the driver's test and were scared to hit our neighbor's BMW or something.  there were so many cars like this.  just pull up in the middle of the street, get out, leave the car running, and shop...ha ha.