Catch My Party!

Yesterday, I was contacted by the CEO and founder of catchmyparty.com, a new website for people to post pictures of their event parties (birthdays, weddings, showers, sweet 16s, quinceaneras, etc.) and share them with friends, family, and people who love parties. She saw the baby shower my mom threw on my blog. She loved the dress centerpieces and baby cupcakes.

She then asked me if I would like to post my party photos on her site. Then she featured pictures of the shower on her homepage in her 'Party of the Day.' Check out the other parties. They are quite amazing and have great ideas.

If you have time, go check out http://catchmyparty.com

Sister's Baby Shower!

This is my oldest sister Jenny. We had her baby shower on Saturday. It was such a special event. I wanted to share all of my mom's great shower ideas. My sister and my brother-in-law will be welcoming Penelope their daughter at the end of May. We are all very excited for them!

This was at the beginning of the shower, so there weren't many gifts yet. I like the idea of putting the gifts in the bassinet. My aunt found the bassinet at the Salvation Army.

The punch bowl

My party girl! Isn't she so cute?

On these cupcake holders there is a bracelet that each guest gets to go home with. My mom and sister Jamie made these.



These bracelets were made for the kiddos at the baby shower.



My mom found these dress stands at Hobby Lobby. I love the sweetness that they bring to the table.

My mom made these flower arrangements with Gerber Daisy's and she put these cute socks in them.

We had wedge salads then brushetta with olive oil, garlic, and cheese and for the main dish we had yummy pasta from Biaggi's Ristorante.

These are the baby cupcakes that sit on top of the holders. Aren't they just so adorable?

For the devotion we read scripture and put Penelope's name in the verses and prayed for her. Some of the guests read the verses aloud. It was so special to read her name out loud and pray for her life and the woman she is going become.

Grammie's 85th Birthday!

On Sunday, we celebrated my Grammie's 85th Birthday. The whole family got together to celebrate her at my mom's house. It is always fun to see my family and extended family. Now with kids it is a little more chaotic!

Timmy and Anderson just love being together!

Papa John helping Ellie eat her cake!

Grammie blowing out the candles with cousin Abigail and Timmy

This is my cousin Macey, a not smiling Avi, and Grammie. Grammie we love you so much and pray that you know how much you mean to each of us! Here is to many more wonderful years with you!

This is my sister Jamie and Ellie

Shamrock Shuffle

The night before the Shamrock Shuffle we needed to fill up on some carbs, so we ate at an Italian restaurant with the Lyman's and the McMahon's. The Lyman's live downtown so it was nice to catch up with them and go out without our sweet kiddos.

Since Kelli and I knew that we were going to burn 500 calories the next morning we thought that we should make up for them by eating some ice cream! HA!!!! After dinner we went and saw a movie and parted our ways to get some sleep before the big race.

Ryan's parent's and sister drove in to spend time with the kids, so we decided to stay downtown so we would be there for the race bright and early. We stayed at "The W." A trendy hotel where the check-in area felt like a night club. The rooms were super nice and hip and our view was of Lake Michigan! It was nice for Ryan and I to spend quality time together and be able to get a good night sleep without the kids waking us, because most nights at our house are like a circus!

Okay, there were 36,000 people who participated in the 8K race! Can you imagine that amount of people? That just blows my mind! I did feel a little like cattle getting into our gate to start the race and then when we finished our race we had to stand in a huge line to get out! It was extremely hard to find people. We were going to run with or friend Tammy, but we ended up not being able to find her. That was a big bummer, but we were able to hook up with her after and drive home with her and eat lunch with her.

Here are my running buddies, Lisa and Kelli. I ran the 1/2 marathon with Lisa last fall and Kelli has just become a runner and this was her first big race. We ran the Frosty Run in February, but that doesn't count.

After the race we all met up at Jake and Shari's apartment. Don't they have a beautiful view out their window? We are trying to convince Shari to do the triathlon with us in August.

Here we are running in the huge crowd of people! We were so excited to spot our spectators, because like I said, there were so many people there!

In preparation for the Shamrock Shuffle, people go crazy with their outfits. Look at the two below pictures. One guy is dressed in a peanut costume and running 5 miles in it. Yes, he ran the whole thing! In the other picture you see two guys covered in green body paint. They actually look like they are good runners and brothers!

Ideas for Rainy Days for Preschoolers

I always love projects for the kids to do, especially on rainy days or really cold days. I found these two fun projects to do with the kids that help with motor skills and they are not hard to set up and don't make a huge mess. I always find with a lot of projects it takes forever to set them up and takes the kids only a few minutes to finish them or get bored and make a big mess. Then I'm frazzled and tired from running around. So, here are two fun projects!

The directions are above. You just put food coloring in various cups and use an eyedropper to put the water in an ice tray. I think Anderson felt like a scientist!

At the end you put them in the freezer and pull them out when they are frozen and let the kids eat them or just play with them. I really didn't like the idea of eating them, but they had fun watching them melt.
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In the next project, I put cubes of ice in a bowel of water and told him to use the spoon to fish out the cubes.

He first uses a smaller spoon.

Then we decide to use a bigger spoon that has a slits in it to drain the water. Anderson and I talked about how it was easier to use the bigger spoon to move the ice cubes.

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At the end of both projects it was his idea to mix all the colors in the bowel. It was good to review his colors and he told me an object for each of the colors.