A Baby Shower for Stacy

My friend Stacy will soon be having a baby. She threw an aswesome shower for us and brought us an amazing lasagna when we got Abby, so I of course wanted to have a shower for her. She is having a boy. A few years ago my sister Emily hosted a baby shower for my other sister Jenny when she had a little boy. I didn't get to go to the shower but I saw the pictures on her blog. It was so cute I figured I couldn't top it so I bought and borrowed decorations from her for this shower. Emily is just better at all things creative and decorative than I am and her shower was cuter (you can see it here) but I was still pleased how this shower turned out - and even more important Stacy was pleased. Stacy has a masters in art and is the director of education at one of the art museums here - she's very artsy and crafty. She has an etsy business of selling handmade cards. When she walked in she said over and over "This is so pretty" and went around taking pictures. She also commented several times on how it looked like something out of a magazine. I thought that was a pretty big compliment from someone like her. But the biggest compliment was that she said she felt loved, which is my whole goal in doing showers so I think the shower was a success. We had a pancake bar and I think everyone liked it. I had cups of pancake batter ready and people could add any mix-ins they wanted then cook their pancakes then top with whatever they wanted. I had chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, cinnamon chips, toffee bits, toasted coconut, toasted nuts, granola, strawberries, mango, bananas, peaches, and blueberries for mix-ins and toppings as well as whipped cream and 3 kinds of syrup. I also made these little egg muffin things, kind of like quiche all with egg and cheese, some with red bell pepper, some with sausage, and some with bacon. People seemed to like the food so I guess it turned out well. Anyway, here are some pictures...

 

I noticed while at the shower that the pictures weren't quite focused, but I couldn't figure out what the problem was. I realized a couple days later that my lens was on manual focus rather than auto - doh! But you can still get the idea.

Earl Family Reunion

My family tries to get together at least a couple times a year. When nearly my whole family lived in Las Vegas that was easier. We are currently more spread out. I'm hoping this won't be a permanent thing. We got to be with most of my family at our family reunion up at our cabin. There are actually 2 cabins now. The one my grandpa built and that I grew up going to, and my sister's family cabin that they built about 10 years ago - there is just 1 cabin between the two. There were 5 nephews, 2 nieces, 2 sisters, and 2 brothers-in-law missing, but since my family is so huge there were still lots of people there. We were at the cabin for a week and had a lot of fun. We had activities planned every day and so were never bored. Some highlights included:

 

We spent a couple hours cleaning up all the fallen pine needles in the yard to minimize the risk of fire.

 

We played some fun Minute To Win It games one night.
 

 

We walked to and played in the spring

Abby played with cousins (unfortunately she didn't play with them as much as she usually would have because she had a fever most of the time we were there, clearly didn't feel well, and spent most of her awake time wanting to be held by Ryan or me - poor baby)

Took some family pictures (my sister Emily designed shirts for everybody and each small family had our own color)

 

Had  treasure hunt

And Ryan and I went to Brian Head, rode the ski lift to the top of the mountain, and played their disc golf course down. It was a lot of fun, the weather was great, the wild flowers were so pretty, and as an added bonus toward the end of the course we happened upon the cattle roping thing - Ryan was awesome!

 

Ryan had to get back to work a couple days before the end of the reunion (most of the men ended up leaving early) but Abby and I stayed, and then staye din Las Vegas for another few days. I had to go to dental and eye appointments. My sisters kids were also staying my parents during htat time so once Abby got feeling better she got a little time playing with cousins. We spent a lot of time in the pool, which was great.



Isn't she just so cute! Another thing we did at the reunion was that my sister made cloth pockets for everyone and hung them outside then throughout the week people would put little things in them for each other - Abby got those cute glasses from my sister.