A Beautiful Flower Blooms Today!

My brother and sister-in-law are in the hospital awaiting their little girl Daisy!!

Jessica's water broke this morning! She hasn't gone into labor yet and is still dilated 2.5cm and is 80% effaced (which hasn't changed from the other day). So I am waiting on a little more progress before I head on to the hospital!

I cannot believe my baby brother is going to be a daddy and that I'm going to be an Aunt!!!!!Daniel and Jess in Cades Cove in the National Park taken in October I believe.

Jess and Daisy (who is looking an awful lot like a bowling ball) on Dec. 8!

This is Daniel and Jess and their dog Tinkerbell on Dec.13 in the 9.5 inches of snow they got!

Thankfully I am able to get down our driveway after the ice storm we had last night...

The power lines covered in ice. Thank goodness we didn't lose power!

The ice was and still is beautiful, I'd never seen anything like it in my life!

Pictures of Daisy to come as soon as she has arrived!!!!!

I'm Still Alive!!

Sorry I've been MIA for so long. I've started a new job, been busy with Christmas things and just plain tired most of the time because I've been running like crazy so much.

I have good news though......we were finally able to get our image CD from the photographers!!!! Slowly but surely I have been working on organizing and re-sizing all 963 images! It is taking longer than I expected though but stay tuned because I hope to be able to have recap posts ready for the new year!!

I also thought I'd share with you our Christmas decorations! Everything that we have I had bought before we were married when I saw things here and there on sale. I am sooo glad I did that or we wouldn't have squat for decorations! We are so excited to celebrate our first Christmas as a married couple and start our own traditions!

This little ceramic tree was made by my grandma.

The decorations in the guest bathroom.

Pom-pom garlands on all the doors in the hallway.

The living room decorations.

Some decorations in the kitchen.

More decorations in the kitchen.
The decorations on the top of the china cabinet.

Our beautiful tree!!!

Our polar bear...he's so cute!

The big wreath we have outside.

Our outside lights!

Our Fall Decorations

I'm itching BAD to put up Christmas decorations already and will probably end up putting them up before Thanksgiving. But before that happens I thought I'd share my fall decorations with you. I don't have much but it's a start. Now Christmas is a different story...I have TONS of Christmas decorations!

Our fall display as seen from the road.

Our fall display as seen from leaving the house.

Our other fall display! We got all of the things for our displays for FREE!!

Found this cute little guy at the dollar store for like 6 bucks!

These little cuties were a gift from my mom after Charles and I babysat the animals and mom's house while she was on vacation. They are from Bath & Body Works and they are candles!

Grabbed this pretty garland from Big Lots for $6!

Had to decorate the stove too!

Some of my fall stained glass sun catchers in the kitchen window!

These fun little guys were on clearance for $3 each!! I love them!

The hand made pottery jack-o-lanterns Charles bought me!

My ceramic pumpkins. Found these at Walgreens several years ago for a steal. The little ones were $1 each and the big one was maybe $5 or $6!
Found this funky thing at a cool shop in Downtown Asheville, NC. The music box in the lid was broken but I replaced it and it works now. I have no idea what it originally supposed to be but I love it as a candle holder!

And the best part was that it was only like $10!

Found this guy at Walgreens also for $3!

Full view of the coffee table.

All of these gourds and little pumpkins were FREE as well! The little Harvest sign was $4 at Walgreens.

Love this little pumpkin!

Well, that's about it! I can't wait to start decorating our house for our first Christmas together!!!

It's All About Daisy...

Baby Daisy that is! My niece who will be here in December! The shower that I co-hosted for my sister-in-law Jessica back on October 2nd was also hosted by Jessica's other sister-in-law Betsy. I was in charge of all the decor and games and Betsy and Wendy (Jessica's mom) handled all the food and beverages. Since I was handling all the decor and games I had to get creative with my projects in order not to spend a fortune but still make cute things.


What baby shower is complete without a Diaper Cake? I knew I had to make one. It would double as decor and a huge part of my sister-in-law and brother's gift from me and Charles. I saw several different tutorials on how to make them but decided to do it my own way. I used 1" strips of paper taped in place to roll the diapers because I was afraid rubber bands would ruin them. For the base, I cut a piece of heavy cardboard to size and wrapped it in wrapping paper. I had some Glue Dots on hand that were left over from various wedding projects so I used those to help hold the various items onto the base. Jessica had registered for receiving blankets and I purchased those and used them to wrap around the bottom and middle layer of the cake to hide the paper around the diapers. On the top layer, I used ribbon I had on hand. The only ribbon I bought was the large purple polka dot ribbon used to hold the cake in place and for the bow on top. All of the other ribbon was on hand and left over from wedding projects. It was perfect that Jessica and Daniel decided to use purple in Daisy's nursery and I had all that purple ribbon on hand!

(Source: Yours Truly)

(Source: Yours Truly)

I absolutely LOVE how it turned out and had so much fun shopping for all the items and making the cake! Items used on the diaper cake: 90 newborn diapers, 4pk receiving blankets, desitin, washcloth lollipops, 6pk terry cloth socks, 3pk pacifiers, bottle brush, 2 small bottles, baby lotion, baby shampoo, baby powder, custom made "Daisy Gail" cross-stitch piece made by me.

(Source:Yours Truly)

This banner was a last minute project that I decided to make two days before the shower. It was so simple and fun to make. I used power point to create it and then just punched wholes in the letter pieces and used ribbon to string them together.

(Source: Yours Truly)

I decorated the flower pot using rub on letters I had on hand and some acrylic paint I also had on hand. I used the pot to hold the daisy flower favor pens I made for the shower guests! I just love flower pens, they make me smile and they are so cute and easy to make! :)

(Source: Yours Truly)

For the games I wanted something fun and unique. When I stumbled upon the candy game, I knew I had to do it for the shower! It was a little on the expensive side because even shopping at dollar stores, candy gets expensive but it was worth it! Jessica actually ended up winning it but since she was getting all kinds of gifts already I selected the guests with the next highest amount of correct answers. To make things easier on the guests, I created the card below using power point.

(Source: Yours Truly)

The Candy Game Instructions: Buy the following candy bars (or at least 10 of them)and tape them to a large piece of poster board. (I used a big piece of cardboard and covered it with wrapping paper white side out. Poster board isn't strong enough to hold the weight of the candy.) Hand out paper and a pen to each guest. Begin reading off each clue and have guests write down which candy bar goes with each clue. The guest with the most correct wins a prize, or a candy bar! If more than one person wins, have them each pick their favorite candy bar.

1. Contractions: Whoppers
2. AND/OR: 11 pound baby: Whoppers
3. Grandparents: Lifesavers
4. AND/OR: Epidural: Lifesavers
5. Boys' Names: Mike & Ike
6. Umbilical Cord: Twizzlers
7. Father: Sugar Daddy
8. Baby Fat: Chunky
9. Girl's Name: Baby Ruth
10. Cover Baby's Face with These: Hershey's Kisses
11. College Fund: 100 Grand
12. Time Alone: Zero
13. Lull-a-Byes: Symphony
14. Hospital Bills: Payday
15. First Year of Parenthood: Rocky Road
16. Dirty Laundry: Mounds
17. Night of Conception: Skor
18. Sweet Infant: Sugar Babies
19. Breast Feeding: Milky Way
20. Poopie Diaper: Tootsie Roll
21. Contractions: Now & Later
22. Triplets: 3 Muskateers
23. Teething: Crunch
24. Cool Mom: Peppermint Patty
    
    

(Source: Yours Truly)

For the other game I really thought "Don't Say Baby" sounded fun! We played for the entire length of the shower and I think the guests had fun with it. I liked the idea of the diaper pins/safety pins for each guest that would be taken away when they were caught saying "baby" but I wanted to put a little creative spin on it. So while at Dollar General, I found some cute pink plastic pacifiers meant to be used as favors. I bought one box which had enough pieces for the number of people attending and placed one on each safety pin. So instead of the safety pins getting taken, the pacifier was taken. My mom ended up winning this game! I bought some balloons at Dollar Tree (gotta love that place...Mylar balloons with helium for $1 each!) I placed these outside to greet the guests and then had two more that I put on the back of the chair Jessica sat in. (Source: Yours Truly)

The favors in action the day of the shower. (Source: Yours Truly)

The banner hung on the mantel at the shower location. I love how it turned out! (Source: Yours Truly)

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the paper flowers before the shower so these are the only pictures I have of them. I had all the supplies on hand so it didn't cost a thing to make them...gotta love that! And they were so cute, I loved how they turned out! Jessica did to so I let her keep them all...they are in Daisy's nursery in the hand painted flower pot I made for the favor pens! (Source: Yours Truly)

More of the paper flowers I made. They were a lot of fun to make and are too cute! (Source: Yours Truly)

The food table missing the mini quiches Betsy and Wendy did a great job with the food and the cupcakes Betsy made were a huge hit! (Source: Yours Truly)

All of the gifts waiting to be opened! You can see the "clothes line" in the background. LOVED this idea! I used some ribbon from the dollar store and clothes pins from the dollar store as well. I decorated the clothes pins by adding little purple bows to them! (Source: Yours Truly)

Jessica opening her gifts. (Source: Yours Truly)Jessica and all her goodies! (Source: Yours Truly)

Me, Jessica and my mom.

I had a blast planning the shower and got sooo many compliments from the guests! I was a little nervous going into it since it was my first shower to plan but it came off great and I had several people tell me they thought I was a pro. :) So what do you think?