It's October.

It's October.  And this summer was realllly busy.  And I have posted anything for a month.  So here's a condensed update.  Early July our family visited the Ozarks with Mark's family.  We had blast and James loved every minute with cousins in the "YoZarks."

 

 Before leaving Osage Beach for home we made one last stop for James' first go-cart ride with Daddy.

The following week, Mark left on a 10-day missions trip to Rwanda with a team from our church.  There were few pictures taken that week as it was a challenge to single-parent but the trip was quite fruitful for Mark and the team!

 Also in July, Elizabeth (far right) and I hosted a bridal shower for our (then) sister-in-law to-be, Anna.  It was such a joy for us to do so. 

We enjoyed the planning portion, making a menu of yummy appetizers and creating coordinating decor.

 In August we celebrating the marriage of my youngest brother Jeff to his bride Anna!

 We love this girl and are thankful to have her in the family!

 Mark and I were honored to both play a part in the wedding party!  We were so grateful for Mark's parents coming to watch James and Clara for the weekend to allow us to enjoy it!

 Then we spent four weekends in a row of continued busy-ness---we were in Manhattan, Sabetha, Nebraska, etc.  It's rare that I have my picture taken.  Mark took this one in a field of sunflowers where his parents live.

 Somewhere in there we squeezed in a last minute trip to the zoo.  Gotta love the zoo...James sure does!

 Then just a few weekends ago we celebrated James' 3rd birthday with a trip to the pumpkin patch, followed by a family party complete with balloons, fried chicken, and a dump truck cake (which was quite well constructed by Mark).

 We love this boy.  He surprises us daily with his creativity, boundless energy, knack for memorizing random things, and growing independence.

 Clara is on the verge of turning ONE YEAR OLD.  Can't believe that.  Just had to include this picture of her from the pumpkin patch.

In addition to having much to do on the weekends, we've (well, mostly Mark) taken on a few home projects, including re-tiling the kitchen backsplash.  I love how it has turned out and we now just need to paint the kitchen to finish it off.  Hopefully some before-after posts to come.....

Tea Party Baby Shower

Oh Girl!! My family is getting realllllly excited about my brother and sister-in-law's baby, due in February. My friend Kristen and I were honored to host a shower, a tea party shower, for Elizabeth the week following Christmas. We held the shower in our newly carpeted basement (yay!) and decorated with tables set with china (tea cups and pots of course) and little touches of ribbon with nursery rhyme-themed toile.

The menu was such fun to plan--I've always wanted to throw a tea party! Chicken salad sandwiches and cucumber sandwiches,

chocolate chip scones (dangerously yummy, thanks Kristen!),

fruit skewers,

a GORGEOUS AND DELICIOUS raspberry cream cheese torte made and brought by Elizabeth's mom, which I somehow forgot to take a picture of (how is that possible?), and there were also some cute little strawberry meringues (shown lower right in the above photo).

In an effort to use supplies I had I got in touch with my crafty side and made votive holders out of jars, tissue paper and Mod Podge (love that stuff), painted and framed a few photos of Joel and Elizabeth, and constructed a sweet girly banner to hang on the mantle!

the sweet mother-to-be, Elizabeth

my grandmother and brother Joel, who popped downstairs at the end of the shower to mingle

Four generations! :)

Pink, Pink, Pink!

Our friend Amy (the tall blonde one :) is expecting a baby girl at the beginning of February! This sort of kicked off a series of showers I will probably be co-hosting in the next several months...and I just LOVE it! Because I have a boy this was definitely an outlet for all things pink!

"the" cupcake bites. same story as the ones I made in October. but these are pink!!

my first diaper cake; Andrea made one for James' baby shower a few years ago and we thought it was SO cute that we wanted one for Amy's shower, too!

these two little cuties were the gift bearers for Amy...they also claimed to have given her most of the gifts she opened and were just as excited about them as anybody there!

a few guests (Amy's mother-in-law on the right)

chatting online with our dear girlfriend who lives too far away to have made it to the shower...we love you, Susan!

Amy with the three co-hostesses (myself, Andrea, and Kelly)