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?!

Crossing My Fingers

Seven, Wake Up.

 Hey, booger - I need you to listen to me.

 

 There will be NO more peeing in Grandma Sherry's house!!  Understand??

Uh-uh-uh! Don't give me any excuses.  I mean it! 12 days - NO PEEING IN THE HOUSE!

Jeep - Don't you cover for him either. Enough with the cute puppy eyes.  I mean it.

Jeep - you keep Seven in line until we get back. 

Love you boys, mom.

Christmas Questionnaire

I just got some fairly sad news about some friends of ours who will be moving away come Spring.  Ugh.  It gets so frustrating building relationships from scratch only to have them leave and start all over.  This will be my 4th set of friends in 4 years. Unfortunately, Nashville is notorious for this since most folks aren't locals anyway, so it doesn't take much for folks to move on to the next place.

In trying to cheer myself up before attending our Home Group Christmas Party tonight, I thought I'd do this little Christmas Questionnaire I found floating around the blog-world.


1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? Both! I can't possibly decide between the two, especially after making some homemade marshmallows and white chocolate dipped peppermint sticks! 

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wrapped! Are you kidding me?! Who just sits them out? When I was a kid, they were wrapped, numbered and opened one at a time in order around the room! haa!  I might subject my own children to this torture myself someday :-)

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Growing up, our house & tree usually always had multi colors, but I do remember a time when I was very little and we had a pink-themed tree and then one year a blue-themed tree. Or did I just dream that one up? Jason and I use white lights on our tree and red & white lights on the house.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Sorta.  I have a fake mistletoe ball thingy that we hang between the dinging and living room.  

5. When do you put your decorations up? Tradition is to go out the day after Thanksgiving & pick out our tree.  Then the following day we decorate it, while watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation & sipping Jason's homemade mint hot cocoa. That movie just never gets old.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Hmm....do I have to choose? I love my mom's turkey, it's so moist.  I also love the sugar cookies I make every year. 

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? It would have to be spending Christmas in Montana with my cousin Tina & her family.  The snow was so deep and we rode snow mobiles, horses, and sat by the fire.  It was incredible. And that year I got a Nintendo, which I had been dying to have!

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? No idea. It's blocked.  Along with half my childhood. Sucks.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Of course!!  My family's tradition is to open stockings and one gift on Christmas Eve after the Christmas Eve service with sparkling apple cider. 

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Since I've lived on my own, I've collected red, white & silver ornaments and have used white lights.  I guess until we have kids, that's probably how we'll keep it.  I just think it's so classic and pretty looking. 

11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Love it!  As long as there's lots of it to prevent me from going into the office.  When there's just a little, then it just gets really muddy and gets my hopes up.

12. Can you ice skate? I'm thinking so?  It's been a while. Ooohhh, that's a fun idea we could do as a family when I'm home!!

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? It was either the cabbage patch kid, the keyboard or the Nintendo.  I was equally excited for all three growing up.

14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? It's celebrating the birth of Christ and the time I get with my family and friends.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? I kinda covered this with the frosted sugar cookies!  Yum!! 

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? There are so many, there's no possible way I could choose.

17. What tops your tree? A pretty silver star.

18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? Giving for sure.  I just get so darned stressed out about what to give people, cause I want it to be perfect.  This year we drew names for the first time and its taking everything in me not to run out to the mall and go buck wild breaking the rules. 

19. Candy canes: yuck or yum? I like them with other things, like crushed up in peppermint bark,  sprinkled on a dessert, or soaked in a cup of hot chocolate!

20. Favorite Christmas movie? National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and While You Were Sleeping (though I only watch that one with my family).

21. Saddest Christmas song? I'm not exactly a Christmas song lover, so I can't really answer this one  (I know, I know).

22. What is your favorite Christmas song? Oh geez, again with the Christmas music.  I've recently discovered Pandora's Indie's Holiday Music station and I'm starting to appreciate some Christmas songs.  I wouldn't say I have a favorite one yet, but they're growing on me!  So that's something right? 

Ahhh, that worked.  I feel a little better now.

In honor of Christmas and Katrina ;-)

If she can do it, so can I.