Amanda's Baby Shower


So my friend Amanda is knocked up. Baby M is coming at the end of February! I am so pumped and can't wait to be an aunt to two of my best friends' baby.


Of course I jumped at the chance to throw her a shower and hoped it would be one that she would love. I wanted the day to be special for her! I joined up with our other friend Amy (and the day-of help of Amy's awesome mom!) to put it all together.


Menu:
Brownies
Dunkin Donuts Munchkins
Chocolate Covered Pretzel Rods
Spinach Dip in a bread bowl with baguette slices
Individual shots of ranch dressing with veggies
Caprese Kabobs
Mini Fruit Pizzas

Chocolate cupcakes with fudge buttercream
Yellow Cake with vanilla buttercream

Fruity French Sodas (Orange, Berry Something, Lemonade and Pink Lemonade)
Water with limes and lemons

Hot Chocolate Bar!


The food spread.
Delicious spinach dip- Amanda's one request for the shower.
Yumm fruit pizzas. SO GOOD.

My baby.. the cake.
Cupcakes with little fondant flower toppers to coordinate with the cake.


I was nervous about the hot chocolate bar. I first decided on doing it back in the fall/summer when I was originally planning- I thought "January! It will be cold and awesome for hot chocolate!" How wrong I was.. Our January in Maryland was SO MILD. I was figuring no one would want hot chocolate since it would be so warm and muggy. 

I woke up the shower morning to snow and ice! (Of course then I was worried about no one showing up, but everyone pulled through!) The hot chocolate was perfect.

For mix-ins we had caramels, pirouline cookies, marshmallows and chocolate chips. YUM. Oh and canned whipped cream to top with.

For the favors I made cupcakes in a jar- these were so fast and easy to do.. About 2 weeks before the shower I made the actual cupcakes and then just froze them. A couple of nights before the shower I unfroze them and then next day sliced them all in half. I layered them in the jar with the frosting and topped with sprinkles and then labelled them with a little thank you card designed to match the rest of the paper-goods.




During the shower we gave both grandmas-to-be a little baby brag book and they both got corsages.




The room- typical church basement layout.
I decorated all of the tables with flowers in the colors from the bunting banner over the food and with kids books that I accumulated. I scoured goodwill and the $1 bins at Target for a month or so to get a bunch of books to start the baby's library. Oh and I used the scraps from the bunting to make little flags to stick in the flowers.



Me, Amanda and Amy.
Instead of the poopy diaper game we have a table set up for everyone to decorate onesies and/or bibs for the baby. We had iron on fabrics and fabric markers. It was so fun to see everyone's craftiness.






We also played the old shower BINGO standby while Amanda opened presents. I couldn't find any cards that I liked (or had enough quantity/the types of presents on the registry) so I just designed my own. It was a pain in the neck to make 30 individual cards, but they were cute.



Cutting the cake.

Sign on the present table "Little baby, big blessing... showered with love"
All the loot!
It was an awesome day and I was so glad so many people came out in the snow to celebrate this baby with us!

**Yeah.. my pictures are bad.. The lighting was terrible and camera kept crapping out. Sorry dudes. I supplemented some with pictures from Amanda's cousin.

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Productivity!

What a freakin' awesome weekend. I was so productive and it made me feel awesome.

John was away for work last week (in LONDON- POOR poor him) and came home Sunday so I felt like I needed to do a bunch of stuff before he got home.

Not Saturday- this was the Celtic Solstice 5-miler in December that I never wrote about on here.. :)

Saturday morning I got up and ran 8 (EIGHT!!!) miles! My furthest distance to date! I ran the whole thing too! Even the ridiculous hills! After I got home (to a sleeping puppy and kitty) I showered up and took Lucy-Loo to Petsmart for a little outing to get Jaq E Poo some litter. That officially wiped her out and I got to get me some Burger King on the way home. Is it gross that I rewarded my run with fast food? Whatevs, it was delicious.

Yeah.. I know I am slow.

After dropping off the sleeping puppy at home and eating I headed out to the motherland- IKEA! I love it there. I got a bunch of decor-type items and some storage that we needed.


 When I got home I played with the puppy and then got to cleaning (a ton!) and organizing. It was awesome and felt so refreshing.

Did I ever write about these paintings on here? John got them for me for my birthday- he saw them and thought I might like them (I may be slightly predictable) and could use them in the addition!! Their planned location is over the fireplace on the dining room side.

Sunday morning I got up early with the puppy and laid around for awhile. I menu-planned, grocery list made, put everything into my weight watchers points tracker, started laundry, grocery shopped and got home- all before noon! By 2 PM I had unpacked groceries, started the crockpot for supper, made sandwiches for the week, made a big pot of soup for lunches, made pico de gallo and sliced avocado for suppers and finished the laundry. Oh, and made myself grilled cheese for lunch. Awesome. And then I rewarded myself and Lucy with a little 45 minute nap before heading to the airport to get John.


Phew. It was awesome. I am sad though that it is now the work week and the awesome-ness has ended.

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Menu Plan Monday

I felt awesome this morning.. I had a wicked productive weekend (more later..), weighed myself this morning and have officially lost 13 pounds+ since September and then got up this morning and rode the stationary bike to start the week off with a workout. Then I got to my scheduled dentist appointment and as the hygienist was asking me about my regular medicines I realized I didn't pre-medicate (I need to take an antibiotic before any "procedure" due to my plethora of heart conditions). CRAP. So, I wasted their appointment time and had to reschedule for February.

Oh well... I still am planning on this being a good week!

Monday
(am-stationary bike for 30 minutes, pm-lift/arms)

Turkey "Stroganoff"
Sauteed corn

Tuesday
(am-run 5 miles)
Crock Pot Mexican Pork burrito bowls

Wednesday
(am- stationary bike for 30 minutes, pm- speed training on the treadmill at the gym for 4 miles)
Chili lime tilapia
Brown rice with cilantro
Salad

Thursday
(am- stationary bile for 30 minutes, pm- lift/arms)
Lentil, Kielbasa & Garlic Stew
Salad


Friday
(rest day!)
Bubble up Enchiladas
Salad
Ghetto margaritas!

Saturday
(long run- 8 miles)
Lunch- quesadilla, chocolate milk
Dinner- at a friend's birthday party, so lots of snacks!

Sunday
(rest day/walk with Lucy!)
Lunch- grilled cheese probably
Dinner- who knows

Lunches
Pita stuffed with provolone, lettuce, avocado, sprouts, cucumber
Veggie soup/broth
Greek yogurt
Grapes

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3 Years


Dudes... I have been married for 3 years today! CRAZY. This year seems like it went the fastest yet. Next year can only bring even more good I think!

Getting Ready - The Girls
Getting Ready - The Dudes
The Church Service
Group Pictures
Family Pictures
John & I
First Dance
The Toasts
The Cake Cutting
The Rest of the Reception
My Favorites - All of the Details

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Menu Plan Monday

Monday
Southwest skillet mac & cheese
Salads

Tuesday
3rd anniversary dinner.. out? John is supposed to be planning this...

Wednesday
Turkey pesto bake
Salads

Thursday
Lentil, Kielbasa & Garlic Stew
Green beans

Friday
We will be in the car to my parents' in NY- maybe hot dogs for the road? Or fast food..

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2012 Goals

Home
Create and stick to a daily cleaning schedule/checklist
Get our addition floor plan to a really good place and begin detailing so that we can go to an architect by the end of the year.
Make our wedding album (yes, we HAVE been married for a week shy of 3 years)

Health & Fitness
Keep running! Run 500 miles minimum- should be do-able if I:

  • Follow my training schedule
  • Run a 10 mile race at the end of March (Mission 10 Miler Race for Recovery)
  • Run TWO half marathons (TriColumbia Iron Girl Half April 29, and one in the fall TBD)
  • Register for the Disney Princess Half, February 2013
If I keep up with running, everything else is cake.

Monies
Keep saving for the addition! (A little over a year to go!)
Try and reduce the grocery bill- read the circulars more and meal plan what we can around those.
Keep DIYing things that I can & learn some more (this can also go into Health & Fitness since I am slowly eliminating processed foods/HFCS/white flours, etc)

Travels
St.Lucia in March
At least 2 long weekends camping
Cape Cod for a wedding

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ZooLights


Oops... I just realized I never posted this!
The Friday after Thanksgiving when my family was all still in town, we decided to all head to the National Zoo as an event. They deck out the zoo with lights for Christmas and the lights first come on that Friday at 5 PM.

We decided to get to the zoo around 3 and walk around to see the animals before the lights turned on.



A lot of the lights started coming on as we walked back the way we came even though it was just starting to be dusk. By the time we got back to the entrance it was mostly all dark! It ended up being perfect timing.





This was wicked awesome- it looked like the lights were dripping!
Pretty snowflakes projected onto the ground.



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Merry Christmas!

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Christmas with the Humphreys




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again.

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