Bonjour Bebe!

As soon as Christmas was over, I knew I would have to jump right in to plan Annabel's baby shower which was three weeks away.

I had seen a theme called Bonjour Bebe which I knew would be PERFECT for Annabel, seeing that she is into French stuff and speaks conversational French.  Anyhow... I was lucky enough to come across these invitations.  Totally perfect!

Once you have a theme, I find it is pretty easy to plan a party.  And I had so much fun doing this one!  I told Ellen about my theme and she offered to help me.  She lent me these perfect imitation depression glass plates, goblets, serving pieces in pink.  I really think these dishes made the shower so beautiful.  She also made me some custom table cloths and really helped me so much!

For the food I had all things french inspired... Croissants, casseroles, salad, cupcakes, and nonpareils.  The picture below isn't very good....This is before all the food arrived.  But you can see a mini sewing form as a center piece.  The table cloth was like french newspaper print.  It was really cool.

And the party favors were Madeleine cookies with "Merci" on the tag!

This was the entry way table (and exit) where we had the party favors.  I also included the photo scrapbook I had made for Annabel as well as her professional wedding photos for people to enjoy.  And, I put little diapers out for people to write little bits of advice for Annabel on a card and stick them in the diaper for those late night feedings.  The cute poodle statue was courtesy of Ellen again.  : )

I had so much fun doing this shower.  Several people helped me with the food which was very much appreciated.

I've thrown several showers now and I think this one was probably the best one yet!  I was really happy with everything!

And per Annabel's request, Mary came (and wore the perfect outfit if I do say so myself)!

Beautiful people of Highlands Ranch...

 Helper Mary

 Helper Ellen and Beautiful Annabel (Sorry I don't have a better picture of the guest of honor!)

 Dear friends that I miss...

Annabel's beautiful Mom and Sister (and good friends)

 Most of the party....

And here is a picture of Newborn Baby Aria...

And one a few months older.  Isn't she so adorable, precious, and sweet???

Bonjour Bebe!  We love you so!!!

Christmas (In July : ))

Our Christmastime was full of fun craziness as it always is.  Here are some pics to share...

Family time together on Thanksgiving weekend kicks off the season...

Taking Mary to The Polar Express and The Nutcracker

Annabel and I attending one of her baby showers

 Zoo Lights with Stephanie, Sigmund, and Mike

Making treats for Mary's Preschool Christmas Party

The kids got to wear their pajamas to school!  Isn't her class cute?

A cute seasonal outfit....The kids also had matching Christmas outfits - not sure if I took a picture.   Anyway, they were super cute white and black fairisle sweater and dress.

"Gingerbread" house decorating

Christmas Morning

 And I just have to tell you about Mary's main Christmas present this year.  I don't have a picture to post yet.  I'll try to do that.  She was still sleeping in a toddler bed and she was getting too big for it.  So I thought we could get her a new bed and fix up her room as her present and kill two birds with one stone.   Ellen, Jeff's Mom, also helped us.  Besides buying a chandelier (Mary's belated birthday gift), she took the curtains that used to hang in Mary's nursery and detached the old matching fabric and used a sheet from the new bedding and put it on the curtains.  (She also made matching dolls blankets and pillows.  Seriously awesome!)  We also got a new mirror for above her chest of drawers.
Anyway, so Christmas Eve, we had her sleep in our bed (which we never do) and put up the mirror, chandelier, etc., put the bed together (thank you for helping Charles) while she was sleeping.  It went pretty fast I thought.
In the middle of the night though - close to morning - she got up and wanted to go back to her bed!  I was nervous about that because she was tired and I didn't know if she'd like her NEW bed.  Of course I didn't want her to have a bad experience, but ultimately Jeff and I decided to let her go back to her (new) bedroom.  We walked in behind her as she walked into her room.  As soon as she saw it, she lit up and turned around, and said something like, "See Dad, I knew I liked this kind of bed".
So she loved it, and climbed into her new bed and we didn't see her again until morning.  It was fun!

I think I'm finally done recording 2013!  On to 2014.  : )

November - A Month of Gratitude

I enjoyed November.  One thing that we did that was fun was our gratitude calendar - a tradition I've been wanting to start for awhile.  Everyday we would say one thing that we were grateful for, write it on the back of the calendar, and stick a leaf on the tree.  (I had to come up with an activity for the Beehives in October - I was the Beehive adviser at the time - and I had seen this on Oopsey Daisy -  and been wanting to do it for awhile.  So it was a good excuse to finally do it!)  I enjoyed doing it so much that I made a magnetic leaf gratitude tree for all of my family members (and for us for future years) for Christmas.

Another fun thing we did was participate in another busy bag swap x2 because I signed up for the toddler and preschool age.  A busy bag swap is where you come up with an activity for your child that fits into a gallon sized storage bag.  You make 20 of them.  Then you get together with 19 other ladies, swap bags, and by the end you have 20 (or in our case 40) activity bags.  We now have three of the blue storage bins (shown below) full of activities.  My kids use them often!  Another thing to be grateful for!

The toddler bag I did is shown below (pipe cleaner toy).  It is perfect for Jonathan's age!  Before I began, I actually found a mini pringle can and did the same thing except using colored straws.  It works a little better than the pipe cleaners.  But the price was right for the big ones (my friend Heather helped me get a great price because she is a coupon queen).  Anyway, that mini one is the best $1.50 I ever spent.  Jonathan plays with it every Sunday.  

The one I made for the preschool swap was a spin and spell using nuts and bolts.  It is pretty cool too, but I don't have a picture of it.  Here is Mary playing with a different busy bag (counting fish - but she decided instead to take them swimming : )

Another thing I was most grateful for in November was that our new furniture started coming in.  When we moved, we decided to get rid of most of our master bedroom furniture - most of it was all old from college.  And in our new house we have a loft that we didn't have before.  So shortly after we moved in, we went to Ethan Allen.  They have design consultants that help you figure out your style, come measure your home, and make suggestions for new furniture.  So we ended up getting a bunch of new furniture for our family room (our old family room stuff went to the loft) and bedroom.  But it took 8-10 weeks to finally come!  It was worth the wait though.  

Prior to the new furniture coming in, it was just kind of frustrating.  I kept wanting to unpack more, but there was just so much and no where to put stuff, no where to sit....  When the furniture started arriving, it really became a turning point for me starting to love our new home.  Here is a picture of the new sectional (without the throw pillows) and rug.  I'm sure it doesn't look that exciting to you here, but you won't believe how it lifted my spirits!  I am hoping to do a post soon about how the house has come together this past year.  Hopefully you can get a better idea of how everything looks then.  But I really love my home now.  

Also of course we celebrated Thanksgiving in November.  Here are some family pics from that day:

Singing around the piano of course...

  Cousins playing....

Hanging out with the family....

Seeing relatives that don't live as close anymore (boo)...

And enjoying these little tots....

 And going to Frozen the next day!  This was Mary's first movie in the movie theater and it did not disappoint.

Mary is using her ice powers here...

We truly have so much to be grateful for!  And here is just one more thing I thought I'd throw in.  I got some professional photos done of Jonathan in September ....
and included Mary in one of them.  For their shot together they wore these fall outfits.  We went grocery shopping afterward.  Just thought you might like seeing the cute autumnal outfits.

Grateful indeed!