Big Brother & Birthday Prep

Hello! I haven't posted twice in a week in a long time but I thought I would pop in and do a quick update on Jonah.

We've been prepping Jonah on being a big brother gradually since we found out we were having a girl. With about 6 weeks left to go we are talking more and more about his upcoming role. So far he has been taking it in stride and he enjoys talking about Haley (he always says Haley Rose). So far these are the cute and memorable things he's been doing in regards to his soon-to-be little sister.

• He always calls her by both names i.e. Haley Rose rather than just Haley. Who knows....that may stick even though we initially intend to just call her Haley.
• We talk about babies and he always says "babies cry" like it's just a matter of fact and no big deal. We will see what he says when he actually experiences in real life. LOL We do tell him that babies can't talk like he can and they have to cry to tell us what they want. He seems to understand this somewhat.
• We talk about all the things he will get to help show her how to do....like eating and walking.
• He likes to show my belly his toys and new things he finds like he is showing them to Haley. I love that and think it's too sweet!
• He will hug on my belly especially when I am sitting down and gives it kisses too. :)
• He loves to hang out in her room right now and see all her stuff. He calls it Haley's room now. At one time there was confusion on what the room was called because we always called it the office but now we have another room that is the office. He has finally caught on now though.
• Sometimes when we are talking about Haley between the three of us, Jonah will ask her a question (towards my belly) like "You ok Haley Rose?" It's so cute!!
• The one time we talked to him about being a protector for Haley we asked him if was going to help take care of her and protect her from getting hurt and he immediately answered enthusiastically "YES!"
• When someone we know asks him about being a big brother he sometimes says "her name is Haley Rose" like "don't you know that?!" 

I am sure there are more but that is mostly what I can remember right now. I think he is as ready as he can possibly be for his little sister to arrive. We just hope and pray that he will love her and that he will know how much we love him just as much! It will be a big transition but I think he will rock it just like he has everything else. I honestly think he'll have a harder time sharing his grandparents and other relatives more than us. LOL

Here is a little scrapbook page I put together to go in his yearly book that I do before each birthday.

Jonah will turn the big 3 on July 21st and so we are gearing up to celebrate that (right after my sister's wedding). This year we are doing a construction theme because he loves all the big construction vehicles and knows all their names. He loves watching those Mighty Machine DVDs and loves playing with his Daddy's tools and watching big trucks work. He always points out construction vehicles we see along the road too. He is really excited about it!

It has been pretty easy to put together decoration, food and cake ideas too. We are planning to have the party here the Saturday before his actual birthday. It will be hot and outside but we have the pool and a sprinkler and we are going to have it pretty early in the day too. Hopefully we won't all have a heat stroke. LOL


Here is the little invitation I whipped up. I love how it turned out. Getting excited to finish up the planning and buy his gifts.

Sister's Wedding Shower {Burlap, Sunflowers & Purple}

This will be my last shower post for a while. LOL Next I will be posting pictures of the wedding, birthdays and then little Miss Haley!

Our church hosted a wedding shower for my sister, Audrey and her fiance, Jeff this past Sunday. I took a few pictures of the decorations before everyone arrived. Their wedding colors are yellow and purple with sunflowers being the flowers for the wedding. Audrey has ALWAYS loved the color purple for as long as I can remember. I think it's so sweet that she is using it as her wedding color. The ladies in our church do an outstanding job of decorating our fellowship hall each time we host a shower. This was Audrey and Jeff's one big wedding shower and man did they get a lot of stuff. It was seriously the largest shower (as far as people and gifts) that I can ever remember and that is including my own showers held there. It was amazing and so nice for them to get so many nice things to start their life together. Neither has ever set up a house all on their own (they both either lived with family or with roommates) and I think they got every kitchen utensil and gadget known to man! LOL

Here is the happy couple. Sorry my picture is a little dark. Loved Audrey's dress and that Jeff matched her. One of the few times we've had the groom stay for the whole shower. He was pretty brave to stay with that room full of women. LOL

The sign in table. They had a guest book made with their engagement pictures. They also had their family Bible that everyone could go in and highlight their favorite verse and add any notes to the side.

There were engagement pictures scattered along the tables.

The sunflower centerpieces.

This table had several items for us all to do. LOL They had a lot of cute ideas they wanted to mark the occasion. Everyone wrote wedding advice or wishes on little strips of paper that will be rolled up and put in clear ornaments for their first Christmas tree. Then there was a thumbprint heart for everyone to add their print too. They will hang this up in their first home. They also had us all share a favorite recipe for Audrey's collection.

This was not even half of what all they opened. All three tables were completely covered in gifts at the end of the shower. :)

The whole set-up. (I hate our red carpet!)

The bulletin board all decorated.

The beautiful and delicious cake and cupcakes. There were three flavors of cake: strawberry, chocolate and banana with peanut butter frosting. Yummy!

Love that each cupcake looked like a sunflower. I am sure it was lots of hard work!

Now we are just counting down the days until the big wedding day. I can't believe my little sister is getting married and moving off to Nashville. Very bittersweet time for our family!

A Bunch Of Random

I don't really have enough of anything to warrant a post so here is just a bunch of random stuff that we've been up to lately.

1. Father's Day was a nice day. We went to church and then over to my parents for lunch with my Dad. Then we went home and napped (I actually napped for an hour) and then took Michael's bass boat out for a spin. Jonah is so funny. He loved when we went fast down the water but when we stopped the boat so Michael could use the trolling motor, he said he was scared. I think he was just in a mood though. LOL

2. We (Michael) got the nursery painted and he put the crib together last night. It is slowly but surely coming along. I have the bedding about 75% done and am going to work on the crib skirt next. Here is a little sneak peak of the color of the room.

The room is a mess but here is the color (Aqua Glow by Valspar). I love it and it's really more of a green than blue. It's bright but I really like it. Also love that little white book shelf I got at a yard sale for $20.

Jonah was so excited to help his Daddy put Haley's crib together last night. Michael let him put the bolts in and turn them while he held the pieces in place. Jonah actually listened and followed his directions really well. He did great at screwing in the pieces too. Love seeing him and his Daddy working together and he loves helping!

3. I just have to share this neat Father's Day gift that Michael got from his secret friend at church. We draw names every year (for anyone who wants to participate) and you give little gifts to your friend at church here and there. This would be a great idea for any man gift. It's a Grilling basket full of BBQ sauce & a brush, lighter, hamburger spices, rags, baked beans and some nuts for snacks.

4. In other news, I am 33 weeks along as of this week and still feeling really good. The heat hasn't been too bad this week so that helps. Just trying to get geared up for all that is upcoming in the next few weeks. Got my sister's bridal shower this weekend and then it's countdown to the wedding. I still have to get my bridesmaid dress altered too. Dr.s appointments and then before you know if my sister will be married and the following week is Jonah's 3rd birthday. Lots of planning and buying happening over here. A fun, stressful and busy time!

Haley's Baby Shower

This past Sunday afternoon some of my good friends gave us a baby shower for Haley. It was so nice and we were blessed with so many things we needed and lots of things that were just cute. I just wanted to share some of the pictures of the decorations. My friends really went above and beyond for me and we had a great time.

The adorable cake and it was so yummy too! It looks almost identical to the owls on the invitations they sent out.

My good friend, Amanda, had this banner made and we can reuse it at her first birthday if we want to. Such a cute idea!

The tables were decorated so cute with a basket in the center and favorite children's books.

The shower was held in the basement of one of the bank's in our little town. It was a great space to have it at.

The sign in table.

Jonah and Michael stopped by before the shower got started and Jonah had to try out one of Haley's gifts. :)

Here I am....31 weeks along and definitely looking it! LOL

My wonderful friends and family that came. This was a little before we got started and few more came in.

At the sign-in table they had a place where everyone could guess the birthday. I really hope the person that guessed August 14th is wrong. LOL

The guestbook was such a neat idea too. They had everyone sign in a box on the inside cover of the book "Momma, Will You?" by Dori Chaconas. Such a sweet book and something we can keep forever.

Then I started opening gifts. This is part of the gift my Mom gave Haley. These are teeny tiny little slippers that go with the outfit below. The outfit is newborn size so I can't wait to put her in it for her first church outing...hopefully!!

This is the quilt that my mother-in-law made for Haley and I just love it. It's nice and light-weight and so soft. It matches her room colors too.

This is part of the gift that the hostesses gave me. Such a pretty smocked top with bloomers that matched.

As you can see we really racked up and got so many beautiful outfits and other things we needed. It's funny that we really didn't get hardly any diapers (not complaining at all!). I think everyone just loves to buy little girl clothes. LOL

The hostesses and I. L-R: my good friend Amanda, her MIL Cindy, me and Cindy's daughter, Shana.These ladies are the super shower decorators at our church. They could be professionals.

My Mom, me and my Mother-In-Law, Dee.

My Sister-In-Law, Mandy, my Mom, me and my sister, Audrey

Two of my Grandmothers and me.

I am so appreciative of the shower and now I just have to get her room all ready for her. We got the crib in this week (My Granny in the dark blue bought for us) and the room is painted. Now I just have decorate it and finish bedding. The fun part!!

Sharing these ideas here:

Audrey's Lingerie Shower {Black & Pink VS Lingerie Shower}

So we had a super fun and busy weekend! Our Saturday was jam-packed with running errands and getting stuff done and getting ready for my sister's lingerie shower. I was helping my cousin and sister-in-law host it at my SIL's house.

We had a great turn-out and everyone had a wonderful time showering Audrey with her "special" gifts in preparation for her wedding night and honeymoon. I just wanted to share some of the decorations we prepared and pictures of the event.

All of us 3 hosts decided on a pink and black color scheme but leaned more towards a vertical stripe for the pink (if we could find it) to look similar to Victoria's Secret's vertical stripes. It was fun putting all the pieces together. I was in charge of the invitations and made them in Photoshop Elements. I love how they turned out and Audrey loved them too!

 I wrapped scrapbook paper around these glass vases (Dollar General) I had and just did a laced up effect with ribbon and stuck some pink flowers in them. They turned out pretty cute! It was a pinterest idea.

My sister-in-law, Mandy let us use her house for the shower and we decorated her mantle. She made the clothes-line with panties on it. I made the "Ooh la la" banner.

My poor brother's deer head even got decorated. LOL!

Yummy chocolate cupcakes with pink and black icing that about 3 inches tall! I will have to say that the black icing made for interesting discussions. Lets just say there were more black cupcakes left than pink and we some of us looked a bit like zombies. LOL They were really yummy though!

I made Raspberry punch and it was GONE by the end. It's so easy to make too. For this pink one I used 1 2-liter of Raspberry soda, 1 large can of pineapple juice, 1 half gallon of raspberry sherbet and 1 can of sweetened condensed milk. Just mix all together.

We each made a dish too. I made chicken enchilada roll-ups. We also had chocolate covered strawberries, hot spinach dip, a fruit salad and ham and cheese sliders. 

Just one picture of people from the fun night of us hostesses and the bride-to-be. L-R: my sister-in-law Mandy, my cousin Breanna and my sister, Audrey and me.

Audrey got lots of nice goodies and all in so many different and pretty colors. We played a fun game where she had to guess the answers to some questions that we had asked her Groom, Jeff, prior to the party. For each one she got wrong, she had to chew a big piece of bubble gum. She ended up with 7 pieces of gum in her mouth and could hardly talk by the end!! LOL!

Sharing these ideas here: