January in a Nutshell

   January was pretty crazy for me- so I think Nutshell is a good way to sum it up.  So much happened- besides being 5 months pregnant, I trained 2 puppies in 2 weeks time which involved going up and down the stairs 40 times a day, a week-long trip in Oklahoma, dealing with insurance problems involving 2 cancelled ultrasounds, scary paperwork, and being on the phone for hours, a couple photo shoots, a doggy house call where people had been having problems with their 2 year-old dog and I ended up pushing the right buttons- which means I got bit :(, my birthday, finding out we are moving in the end of July to Oklahoma...with an 8 week old baby...excited about the adventure, but also a little overwhelmed, traveling to Rochester for a bridal shower, etc, etc... It was a long, exhausting month, with a lot of stuff going on that was hard to deal with.
   Thankfully I have pictures to remember the great moments- one of the reasons I love being a photographer!!  It helps you remember the good times and how blessed you are and forget about some of the not so good memories.     

Playing in the church basement with their nerf guns that we got them for Christmas!

 

Fun times with the puppies that were here for training.

 

We got a little peak at our 18 week old before we left for our trip. :-) 

Getting so much bigger...even though I still can't make much out.

After the Dr Appointment, we took advantage of some of the nice weather and found a couple bookstores. Peter smiles his biggest in bookstores.

Our one "normal" Saturday, I made these life-changing 

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes! They are SO sweet, but SO good.  We use whole wheat pancake mix instead of the pancake mix recipe...not that if feels healthy once it is soaked in that butter and cream cheese!!! The picture on the right is Peter's reaction to how good they were...and possibly a sugar overdose.

Oklahoma Trip

 48 hours in the van. Pregnant. Enough said.

Heartland Baptist Bible College

All the preachers in the ministry that were attending for the Home Missions Conference.

Witness- the college ensemble that my sister and brother in law sing on

 YUMMY Italian restaurant that Peter took me and the couple that was hosting us to.

 

 20 weeks- Halfway already!!  I LOVE feeling that little one move inside me!  :-)

I got to visit Rachel when she was working at Auntie Anne's- she's so cute!  And- I got a free pretzel!

On the trip home- someone had a morbid sense of humor.

One of the prettiest sunsets I have ever seen!

  I couldn't wait to cook again when we got home from Oklahoma- you can only eat out so much.  The night after we got home we had a missionary's family over with some friends from church.  I made these to-die-for oatmeal creme pies. If you let them, and I highly recommend it, they will change how you think of cookies!  Unfortunately my guests were full from dinner, so they left me with way too many of these in the freezer. I GORGED. And I haven't really regretted it!

 SO good to be back home! 

 A meal I felt SO good about making. I have a new respect for missionaries and evangelists that are on the road so much and don't get the good home cooking they probably are used to.

French onion Pork chops, green beans, brown rice, and mashed potatoes.

My house was a DISASTER from the dogs being here, than traveling, and some baby items given to us. It was out. of. control.  The day after we got home I attacked our room to try to bring it some order.

 Before                                                            After

My 26th birthday! 

My husband made my first married birthday so special.

Flowers and breakfast in bed, presents, happy birthday in different languages at that country's time of my actual birth. Sigh. :-)

 My inlaws threw me a family party with some really good food and cake! I even got balloons!

 I was so excited- there was a 2 for 1 deal at my favorite frozen yogurt store on my birthday night. :-)

I ate both- every bite! It was SO good!

 

 My lens mug that my honey got me. :-)

 On my way to dog training- had to take a picture of the beautiful Grand Central Station.

 First snow I'd seen since I have been here. So pretty!

 I promise I don't only eat sweets- believe it or not before January sugar wasn't really agreeing with me.  Now I can't get enough fruit, especially!  My new favorite creation is bananas, strawberries, granola, cool whip, and hot fudge. MMmmmmm.

 Photo shoot with my honey. :-)

 Teen activity- counting and rolling coins to give money to missions. I forget the amount, but it was so much fun and we had some GOOD food.

   Maybe next time I will be a better blogger so I don't have 45 pictures to post!  :P

The End.

Starbucks Bridal Shower

   It was so much fun to help plan and throw a starbucks-themed shower for my friend, Felicia, who is getting married this April.  It was so "her" and we were all so excited to see her face when she saw how everything had come together with this surprise theme.  :-)  A lot of the ideas were inspired by Pinterest, but we also came up with a lot ourselves, which is a rare nice feeling! 
  Felicia's sister, Jessica, wanted to keep it as authentic as possible, so we got real Starbucks coffee, syrups, napkins, coffee cups, coffee lids, straws...everything!  We even ended up knowing a few people that worked at starbucks to get real aprons for our "baristas."

  Our real work of art was definitely the mini cupcakes that we made.  Baked in Starbucks espresso paper cups, with starbucks straws cut into 1/3rds and stuck in to look like mini-frappuccinos.

A bridesmaid working hard on cleaning up the cups.  The first batch we filled too high with the cake mix, so we had to scrape off the extra cake to make them look neater.  We did chocolate, vanilla, and pumpkin spice cake mix.

 

The frosting expert!  She made and frosted all of our little cupcakes, and even shared some of the frosting! 

 

 

 

We used the Wilton buttercream frosting recipe, and added coffee to 1/3rd of it for the pumpkin cupcakes, strawberry jelly to 1/3rd of it for the vanilla cupcakes, and chocolate chips to 1/3rd of the frosting for the chocolate cupcakes.

After tasting how amazing they were, we had to go to extreme measures to make sure the cupcakes didn't get eaten by the homeschool co-op children the next morning!  :-)

 

Syrups and the straws were added to finish the look. 

Coffee and drinks were the main attraction besides the dessert, so the bridesmaids built a little
"shop."

All ready to serve!

The drinks available

 Starbucks napkins, holders displayed in an empty frappuccino box, straws in a frappuccino glass, tulips in frappuccino glass bottles with ACTUAL coffee grounds from starbucks as their dirt- only problem by the time the shower started they were almost drunk on the caffeine and very wilted! Oops.

Little starbucks mugs from Greece and Athens that Feli's sister-in-law has gotten from her husband as he travels around the world!

I'm actually not sure what Starbucks uses these little plastic cups for, maybe samples?? But we put them to good use.  Every other one we slit on the bottom with a utility knife in an X and attached to a string of lights.  It turned out so cute, and made perfect little themed lampshades.

 Some more of the desserts!!

Mint chocolate cookies that were to die for

Cheesecake bites

Pumpkin Roll

Double Chocolate Cake

Many kinds of Biscotti (which I learned how to pronounce)

And more that I am forgetting!  

It made a gorgeous spread!!

We labeled the desserts with little chalkboard paper signs that we got at Michaels. 

We decorated the table with little stoneware dishes with coffee beans and tea lights inside them, 

and a welcoming trail of coffee beans sprinkled down the table.

 Speaking of tables, on the tables we had coffee beans, yummy smelling coffee-flavored candles, green plates and forks from Party City, Starbucks napkins, and chocolate spoons to dip in the drinks!

 The Stage:

 It's big and can be hard to make pretty, but we were so excited at how the stage turned out!! 

Green streamers were hung from the ceiling and fell to the floor.  The stripes seemed more modern than the classic twist, so we left them. Brown, cream, and green balloons were blown up by a few kids that were standing by, and strung together on fishing line to decorate the stage sides.  

 It was the afternoon before the shower and I knew something was missing- we needed a giant logo, but we hadn't planned one. I grabbed a few supplies before we headed to the store to make a big circle.  I had a paper heart in my hand and the winds were so strong, it tore it out of my hands once I went outside. Over the top of our car, across the parking lot, and into a few inches of water in the front yard.  I ran (51/2 months pregnant, and with summer shoes on) after it and had to wade into the freezing water to retrieve it.  It hadn't gotten wet so far, YAY, so I grabbed it and headed into the wind to bring it to safety in the car.  I saw my friend laughing, but thought it was because of how rediculous I must have looked running into the wind with a giant heart.  Little did I know as I was running the wind was ripping the heart to shreds.  By the time I made it to the car I was holding the top 2 inches of what was a huge heart.  It was SO funny- we laughed until our sides ached!!

Anyway, the process of assembling our big circle logo for under $10.

We got 4 pieces of foam core board, and 4 pieces of green poster board.  

We carefully lined them up and used the base of a big circle recliner as a stencil.  (We had to get creative, because I can NOT free-hand draw a circle!)

So, then we used a utility knife and cut each 1/4 of the circle out- in the foam board and in the poster board.  We had a plain white poster board for the center heart (we opted to do a heart instead of the ugly woman/goddess that is usually in the middle of the logo.) We slightly overlapped the layers of board and hot glued them together, and then layered the paper over the top to create an almost invisible seam.

Painted the poster with brown acrylic paint using a foam brush.  The lettering we printed out 4 letters to a page and applied them with a glue stick.  The heart was attached on the inside with little paper "hangers" that we made out of extra poster board hot glued to the back and hung with fishing line.  

Love how it turned out! 

(PS- we couldn't have done it without Claire's husband- Greg...seriously we were the brains behind the logo...ok, we had a few ideas...but he implemented them all, hung it, and then ended up staying at the shower doing SO much work right up until when it started! :-)

 SO cozy!

And a few photos of us all enjoying the shower! :-)

The beautiful bride and groom-to-be!

Sisters <3

The 3 preggos! 25 weeks, 35 weeks, and 23 weeks! :-)