What I've Been Working On...

I've been a bit overly consumed lately with planning one of my best friend's, Julie and her husband Dana Jorgensen's Baby Shower! I asked what colors and theme they wanted to go with, and from there everything else was a surprise.

She chose to go with the colors from the baby bedding she chose at Dwell Studio:

Isn't it precious? They're having a boy, but I didn't yet have a name to go with, so for the time being, the name was Baby J ;-)

I admit, I'm pretty proud of how it turned out ;-) My friends told me I'm "Pinterest Worthy" ;-) Quite the compliment, if you ask me!

Let's break down the dessert table, shall we?

 Here we have a dessert stand with cream puffs, homemade Nanaimo Bars (I realize I spelled the word incorrectly on the labels - dangit!) and homemade Sugar Cookies.

 Next up, I made sour cream vanilla mini cupcakes with a Swiss Buttercream. I know it looks like very little frosting, but trust me it was enough for these little guys!

 These glass jars might look a little familiar to some, because I had bought them for our wedding. From left to right, Cinnamon Kettle Corn, Root Beer Candy Sticks and Original Kettle Corn. 

 Here we have homemade Vanilla flavored Cream Cheese Butter Mints that were super tasty & super easy to make! Now if I can figure out what to do with all the leftovers?!

I got asked numerous times throughout the evening if I had made these Coconut Donuts, and as much as I wish I could take credit for them, no I did not.  These are Shipley's Donuts and probably one of my favorite things on earth. Holy Moley, they're so good.

 Two friends of ours Amy & her sister Jenni helped with the food and made these delicious Cucumber Sandwiches, Pimento Cheese Sandwiches and Veggie & Ranch Cups. So delish!

I found these adorable Mint Chocolate Chip Malt Balls online and they taste as good as they look!  

 Much like the other Vanilla Butter Mints, these are actually mint flavored.

 I had seen a paper tree on Pinterest and knew that would have to be the inspiration for the dessert table and bought some scrapbooking paper, cut some branches off our tree in the backyard and set to work. After the shower, I gave it to Julie to use for decorating in the nursery! It looks so cute in there!

 This idea is actually one of my own - or at least I didn't intentionally copy anyone, but thought of it on my own.  I thought instead of a guest book, guests could write on a pre-cut leaf one word of blessing over Baby J and then tape it the canvas. I'm definitely no artist, but I did my best painting out the tree. 

For party favors, again another Pinterest idea - felt owls glued onto Mason jars and filled with caramel corn. SO cute and so yummy!

 Here we have Dana trying on one of their gifts, a baby wrap.

 Dana & Julie next to their dessert table.

And finally, the ladies who all made it happen, Amy, Julie, Jenni, myself and Denise. 

It was SO much fun, but I am SO glad it's over so I can relax and catch up on some reading!!



Post Christmas Follow up

A little wrap up of Christmas -

I made white chocolate dipped candy canes and homemade vanilla marshmallows from for my friends at work and our home group - they turned out beautiful AND delicious!

Then I baked for 3 days straight making 6 different types of cookies & treats for gifts to family and neighbors.

Some of the neighborhood kids came to the house and baked some of their own Christmas Sugar Cookies as well. 

As soon as things were packed, baked, cleaned and the pups dropped off at Grandma & Grandpa Keiths, we took a flight back to Seattle to my family.  

We went to see Sherlock Holmes as a family (which was great!) and Kati snagged a picture of Jason in front of Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible poster.  He gets told he looks like him a lot.

There was a WHOLE lot of game playing and even more eating!!  I enjoyed Sequence so much, I think I'm going to have to grab us one for our own home!

My parents have started a new tradition since Jason & I got married, where they buy everyone a book for Christmas. So we headed off to The Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle for browsing and coffee

Our loot. See that gigantic one Moby-Dick?  Yeah, Jason picked that one up.  Any bets on how long that might take him to read????

Christmas Eve we went to Candlelight Service in honor of celebrating the true meaning of Christmas...the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Then back home we had a little family photo montage.

Sisters being sassy as usual.

What better way to wrap up the holidays than with a holiday tongue-licking for the Little One?!