a vintage-inspired bridal shower

On Saturday, Steph and I gave our cousin, Monica, a bridal shower.

Steph did all of the work and cooked all of the yummy food!  I just helped with the ideas and decorating.

Here is our version of a vintage-inspired bridal shower...

     

My favorite parts of the shower were...

...the jars and jars of flowers...

...votives wrapped in lace...

...the super cute matches favors...

...the cupcake table...

...and my VERY favorite thing was this cupcake sitting on a covered cake stand!  LOVE!!!

John was out of town, so I had both kids there.  Fun!  Thankfully, I had some help with Carter!

Grace had fun playing with cute little Presley...

...and eating her special cupcake with pearls!

I had fun doing girly stuff with my little girl!

Monica and Matt's wedding is just a couple of weeks away!  I can't wait to see how it all turns out!  Beautiful, I'm sure, just like the bride!

A Royal Wedding

Today was a weddingful day!  We started by giving our cousin a wedding shower (more on that here) and ended by watching the royal wedding.

A tea party, a tiara, and a princess dress were the perfect compliment to the royal celebration!

When Kate was driving to the church and waving, Grace got a huge smile on her face, giggled, started waving at the TV and said, "Hers waving at me!"  After an outfit change or two, the actual ceremony finally began and Grace was really into it!

Wedding Commentary

by: Grace

~hers gress is long~

~dat carpet is nice~

~dis movie is bery long~

~dat boy looks like Tripp, but it not~

~shhh!~

~dis movie is bery long~

~I fink I want one of dos carriages~

~I see gold~

~da horses are pretty~

~dis movie is bery long~

Hope you are having a

magical weekend!

Cheerio!

Where's the tomatoes?

Last night, we had some more storms!  We are getting pretty good at taking cover during all these storms.  While waiting, John and Grace made a pizza and we had a "picnic" in front of the tv watching the weather and looking through a Pottery Barn catalog.  Grace kept asking me where the tomatoes were and I kept showing her the pizza sauce.

  Then it was finally time to "take cover!"  Here is what you need to battle a tornado warning:

iPods and/or iPhones

  two laptops

one to watch the weather on

one to read blogs on

Mountain Dew, of course

this sweet face

Oh yeah! and a camera so you can capture these moments!

So, this morning we were getting in the car and it was pouring and storming again!  Grace was very nervous to walk out the door and I asked her what was wrong.  She said, "but what about dose tomatoes?"  

OH!  Tornados! (duh)

Resurrection Rolls

On Easter Sunday, we made Resurrection Rolls.  This is not my original idea.  You can google this and you will find many recipes, but this is how we did it.

Ingredients:

1 (10 ounce) can refrigerated crescent dinner rolls

8 large marshmallows

1/4 cup melted butter

2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons white sugar


Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees
• On a lightly greased baking sheet separate crescent rolls into individual triangles.
• In a small bowl, mix together cinnamon and sugar.
• Dip a marshmallow into melted butter.

• Talk about how Jesus' body was prepared for the tomb.
• Roll in sugar mixture.

 

• Place marshmallow into the center of a dough triangle. 

• Carefully wrap the dough around the marshmallow. Pinch the seams together very tightly to seal in the marshmallow as it melts.
• Explain how Jesus' body was placed in the tomb.
• Place on a baking sheet.

• Repeat.
• Bake in a preheated oven until golden brown, about 15 minutes.
• Talk about how Jesus was in the tomb for 3 days.

• Explain that death could not hold Jesus in the tomb.
• Open the roll and it's empty!
• He is risen!!!

Keep in mind that a 3 year old who placed a yummy marshmallow inside the roll may be EXTREMELY disappointed when it is no longer there!  We will try again next Easter.  I think this is a neat way to keep the focus on Jesus during all the Easter morning festivities! 

A Happy Easter

We had a fun-filled Easter!

The Easter Bunny came...

...ate some carrots...

...left some candy for Grace...

...and a Easter bucket for Carter!

Grace kept looking for tricks that the Easter Bunny played. She may have gotten the leprechaun and the Easter bunny confused! With a handful of jellybeans, Grace asked me to tell her the Easter story.  I was so excited that amidst the candy, the tricky bunny, and the candy that she wanted to hear about Jesus' love for us!  We then made resurrection rolls for breakfast.

We went to our church and celebrated our risen Savior during an amazing service!

attempt #7...kinda hard to get a decent picture of all four of us while staring into the sun

I love this girl SO much!

These two are so sweet when they choose to be!

After church, we went to my parents' house for a yummy lunch and a little Easter egg hunt.  Grace, Andrew, and Tripp were excited to get started hunting for eggs!

And she was off!

Once all the eggs were found, they had to check out their loot!

Yum!

We can't go to Mimi's and Poppa's without spending some time on the "playground."

For some reason, Carter and Charlie ended up laying in the grass for a little while.

Grace and Poppa were good buddies today!  I think they played together ALL day!

After all of that, we still had one more stop before home!  We went to Grandma Great's house and ate dinner and played outside with more aunts, uncles, and cousins.  I didn't get any pictures because Carter was SUPER fussy and Grace was scared of Grandma Great's dog!  We came home and Carter finally and happily got to check out his Easter goodies.

We ended a wonderful day, blowing bubbles in the backyard!

Oh yeah!  Favorite conversation of the weekend...

Grace: Mommy?

Me: Yes, Grace?

Grace: Maybe, I could be Jesus for Halloween!

Me: Umm...well, we'll talk about that closer to Halloween.