o deer! baby shower

My friend is having a baby!!!

At first, I was distressed that she wasn't having a boy because I hard-core wanted to throw a "camping" themed baby shower for her, but it's hard to be upset long when you think about all the fun we will have with a cute little girl! Yes, I am beyond excited for the bows & frills & baby snuggles!

This is my first shower planning experience with others, and let me tell you, group planning is the way to go! It was great not to be running around 5 minutes before the party started trying to get everything out on time! Not to mention all the ideas, errands, & leg work the other ladies did - Amazing!

But let's get to the important part... the pictures

Our theme was "woodland animals" and we wanted lots of pink too!

The sign on the mantle reads "O Deer!"

The trees were a fun craft project and the animals & wreath we already owned!

Our centerpieces were twig filled vases with some cute decorations & animals

The only hard part about these was getting to the twigs in the snow and cold weather!

The all important food table!!

I made the cute bunting with paper, fabric, ribbon, felt flowers & felt animals

Again, our centerpiece is twigs in a vase, adorned with handmade felt animals, mini bunting & printables!

Time for a few close ups!

The food was awesome! I loved it all!

I made chocolate & vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream

and owl shortbread cookies

whoooo loves how cute these are?!?!?!

Erin made this stunning {and yummy} cheese ball

Christina made cheese tortelli with parmesean ranch sauce - YUM!

Amy made scrumptious stuffed mushrooms

{no, I am not required to tell how many I ate and yes, it was more than my fair share}

Katie made this amazing watermellon hedgehog

Soooo cute!!!!

One of my favorite party details were our cups for pink lemonade & water

Aren't they the cutest ever!

The cups & lids are from Staples (ordered online)

& the striped brown straws are from this etsy shop.

Instead of playing any shower games we had this create your own flower headband station

The mom-to-be is in love with headband flowers & bows so it was perfect!

Sam's hand lettering is stunning! I hope you are as impressed as I am?!

The flowers turned out great!

I'd like to try my hand at making some of these myself!

We also had a little advice stations set up where you could share some words of wisdom with the mom-to-be or take a guess at little baby girl's future name!

Our final party element was the favor station.

We had the mixins to "make your own trails mix" displayed in brown paper bags

with super cute homemade to-go bags. The bags were an easy sewing project that displayed all the cute homemade felt animals tied perfectly with a raffia & ribbon bow

Ahhhhh! It was all so cute! I love it all!

Thank you sooo much to Erin & Sam for taking all the pictures.

I just didn't have the frame of mind to get it done!

And thanks for making it through all the pictures I posted,

I just couldn't downsize any more than I already did!

our most delicious dinner of the year

Yes, that's right, every year for Valentine's day Kevin outdoes himself by cooking the most amazing dinner of the year! The only rules: it must include bacon and chocolate covered strawberries!

 

Yeah, the rules make it pretty tough so here's our 2013 most amazing, delicious dinner of the year!

 

We started by snacking on some delicious home-dipped chocolate covered strawberries

 

 

 

 

And then, to try minimize the bacon in all the other dishes, we moved on to cheese fondue with bread & veggies

 

 

 

We enjoyed some good Colorado wine

 

 

 

 

and then things got serious...

 

As in, bacon serious.

 

It's hard to top years past of bacon wrapped pork, then bacon wrapped steak so now Kevin just adds a little or a lotta bacon to everything for this annual dinner {this is not a complaint sentence, rather, it's more a of a thank you Jesus! sentence}.

 

{Hey! I bet I'll get bacon wrapped chocolate covered strawberries next year!?!}

 

Ok, ok here it is

 

Bacon wrapped filet mignon, lobster tail, mashed potatoes w/ bacon & cheddar and green beans with bacon & onions. Again, can I get a thank you Jesus!

 

 

 

 

It's perfectly alright if you are drooling right now. Callie still has a neck cramp by spending the whole dinner holding perfectly still in homage to all the bacon

 

 

 

 

Kevin also made some homemade strawberry ice cream topping that we had on vanilla ice cream - we ate that the next day because I was just too full to eat any more that night.

 

I forgot to take a picture of the ice cream {I tend to eat dessert first and ask questions later} so instead you get this lovely picture of the great Valentine Chef himself after a hard days labor

 

 

 

 

and least you think he forgot anything...

 

here's the beautiful flowers he gave me to start the evening

 

 

 

 

 

 Kevin you are an awesome, thoughtful, caring man {and cook} and I love you very much! 

 

 

 

 



valentine's mantle

Of course now that I have a mantle I'll be decorating for holidays that I've never decorated for before... though to be fair, Valentines Day has been working it's way up there in my book. Mostly because of the amazing dinner Kevin makes me every year {see 2012 and 2011}. I can always count on there being chocolate covered strawberries and this year there is even talk of lobster!! 

So now that you're drooling, here's my cute Valentine's mantle

I made the yarn wreath in just an hour

(I know because it was just 1 episode of Battlestar Galactica - geek alert -

Kevin suggested we watch it, but I'm actually really into it, not proud, but it happens) 

I did not follow any directions to make the wreath, but I was inspired by a pic on pinterest so I went back to find the link, which happens to include a nice tutorial if you're interested.

It took one skein of yarn and a few pink & red felt scraps - I even freehanded the heart and I'm a pretty poor artist.

{in a stick figure competition I'd be sure to find myself in the consolation bracket}

I also made the pom-pom flowers in just a few minutes and I love how cute they are!

I'll be making more of these in different colors throughout the year for sure! 

The heart garland was just a couple of dollars at Michael's so I can't take credit for making it,

but it's cute non-the-less!

Last year I made this red ruffle heart wreath.

It's hanging in my office at work and really brightens up the space!

 So maybe I really do heart me some Valentine's these days

{and Battlestar Galactica}

{and chocolate covered strawberries}

how about building me a mantle?

"How about building me a mantle/faux fireplace?"

Is a question I've casually asked Kevin off and on over the last couple of years...

and he finally said yes... wait... What?? YES?! YAY!!

(I know this is old news and I posted pictures on facebook, but I wanted to update the blog now that I'm back with some more free photo storage options)

 Here's our wall before

and after

{In all it's Christmas glory}

Kevin used all boards that came in pre-cut sizes  

and he bought a pocket jig, which he loves and now is constantly trying to find new projects to use it on :)

Here we are before the paint  

And after just one weekend of building and a couple of days of paint drying we had a beautiful new mantle all ready to decorate!

(Note: 1 weekend is very fast for any project to be completed in our household. I guess I should mention it took over a month to do the final caulking, but a project completely done after even just 1 month might be a record for the two of us!!)

Pretty details

And did I mention we finished it just in time for Christmas?

And even though Christmas is long over,  here's a gratuitous tree shot

(because all the decorating pretty much matches and that's the first time that has ever happened!)