Navy Blue and Pink Baby Shower for Twins!

So I posted a couple of weeks ago the details of the baby shower I hosted for my good friend from college who is expecting twins in January - well I have the photos!  I don't have a ton of photos to share, but you'll be able to get a general idea!!  My friend Kelsey of Kelsey Ann Photography did a great job for capturing the party work!

So, without further adieu - here they are!

Custom "Welcome and Wishes" sign

"Wishes for the babies" cards and basket.   

Custom cupcake toppers.  Those buggy toppers are from the dollar store!

close-up of the toppers

Custom Favor Tags and Favors.  The favors were custom Hershey Kisses

Favors sign and favors

Sorry I don't have a photo of the whole table - but if you piece everything together, you get the idea!

Thanks for checking out the Navy Blue and Pink Baby Shower!

PS -  You will notice these photos aren't watermarked - if you plan on posting them, please make sure to give credit where it's due!  Thank you!

Real Wedding: Aviation Vintage Travel Dream

It's always fun to hear and see of weddings that went totally out of the ordinary... did something super memorable.  This weeks edition of Wedding Wednesday featured on Style me Pretty does just that - the couple held their wedding at an airplane hanger amongst vintage airplanes.  The wedding was inspired by the grooms love for flying.  The location and decor fit so well together, with the vintage travel theme.

Scroll down for the photos taken by Chenin of Boutwell Studio.

The bride and groom making their grand entrance

Look how happy they both look!

I am LOVING the brides bouquet... it's like one GIANT rose!

Such an awesome venue to host a wedding! So very unique.

Perfect vintage travel theme to match the venue.

beautiful!

To view more photos from this wedding, head over to Boutwell Studio's blog or read more details at Style Me Pretty.

Christmas Idea for Family Friends

Gifts for a family can always be so tricky to buy or put together... but this idea from Disney's Family Fun web site is great - plus it's a fun activity for your whole family to make together.

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There are a couple of different ways you can put this Gingerbread Family kit together - a) purchase the gingerbread men from your local supermarket, or b) make the gingerbread men by scratch.

If you are interested in making your own gingerbread men, here is the recipe found on the Family Fun site:

Ingredients:
- 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup molasses

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, mix flour, cinnamon, ginger and baking soda.  In a separate bowl, cream butter and brown sugar with electric mixer.  Add eggs in one at a time, then mix in molasses.  Slowly add in the dry ingredients, beating after each addition (the dough will become stiff).  Divide dough in half, shape into disks and wrap in plastic.  Chill for 1 to 2 hours until dough is firm enough to roll.

2. Heat over to 350 degrees.  On a lightly floured surface, roll out one piece of dough to a 1/8- or 1/4-inch thickness.   Use a 5-inch gingerbread man cookie cutter to cut the dough and use a spatula to transfer the gingerbread people to an ungreased baking sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes or until lightly browned.  Cool completely.  Repeat until remainder of dough is complete.


To assemble kit, line a plastic container with tissue paper and add 4-5 undecorated cookies.  Also include white decorators frosting, M&M minis, Cinnamon Red Hots and shoe string licorice in with the cookies.  Or add whatever ingredients you like to use when decorating your cookies!  When everything is packaged together, add a cute little tag and bow and get ready to deliver the family their gingerbread kit!

If you are looking for other quick and fun ideas for Christmas gifts to make with your kids, head over to the Disney's Family Fun site now!

Letter for Santa

I just can't believe that tomorrow is December already!  Goodness - before you know it, it's going to be the new year and I'm going to be a new auntie (my sister's due date is January 1st).  Since I'll have so much more responsibility as an auntie, I have to start thinking of fun things to do with my little lady, Eva!  When she's old enough, I would love to have her do something fun like this Letter to Santa kit below, created by Heather of Chickabug.

The story behind the Letter to Santa kits:  Heather was inspired to create these cuties while looking at the form for a letter from Santa in the grocery store.  The letter includes some boxes that your little kiddies can check whether they have been good or bad... and what they're doing when they're being good.  It also gives space for them to write their Christmas list and sign their name!

To purchase one of these cute little Letter for Santa kits, head over to the Chickabug shop... or head over to their blog to find out how you can get it for 50% today only!

Real Wedding: Dodger Stadium

We're back for this week's edition of Wedding Wednesday {I know, it's Tuesday, but tomorrow will be busy getting ready for Turkey Day!} and it's a fun one!  I first came across this wedding on the Calligraphy by Jennifer Facebook page and immediately fell in love. Cakes and Kisses, a Los Angeles based photography company, shot this fun wedding - and boy did they do a great job!

I just love weddings that tie in a passion or hobby that you and your significant other share and enjoy together.  I also love hearing how the photographers enjoy the wedding so much, and this one was no different for Kelly Steen, owner of Cakes and Kisses.  She herself is a Dodgers fan and attends games as often as possible during the season.  What a fun wedding to be able to help with when you get a behind the scenes look at a venue you love to be at!

I hope you enjoy the photos from this wedding - it's so fun how could you not?!?!

Beautiful shot!

I totally dig this cake topper!

What a great cake!  Keeping with the theme, but doing so tastefully for a wedding.

The couple had custom jersey's made for their big day!

Here is Kelly, owner of Kisses and Cake, with the stunning bride!

For more information on this wedding, head over to the Cakes and Kisses blog. Stick around and check out some of the other great weddings and events Kelly has photographed!

Homemade Christmas Idea

Last week I was sitting at the car shop waiting for my car to get finished when I came across this super cute idea for a homemade Christmas gift.  I thought this would be a perfect gift idea for a teacher, hairstylist, grandparents, neighbor or as a hostess gift {honestly, you could give it to anyone!}.

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Who doesn't love hot chocolate on a cold winter's day??  Why not pair some yummy hot chocolate with these yummy chocolate dipped marshmallows??  These 'mallows are such a fun spin on the traditional dipped marshmallows you see around party land.  To make these sweet treats, simply insert a straw into a marshmallow and dip into melted chocolate.  Let the chocolate "cool" a little, then dip into red sprinkles while chocolate is still slightly soft.  Your gift recipient will love having chocolate marshmallows mixed in with their drink... and a straw to drink it with!

**Another cute idea, instead of a straw use a peppermint stick - nothing better than peppermint flavored hot chocolate!**

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While your marshmallows are cooling, why not make some homemade hot chocolate mix to go with your chocolate dipped marshmallows?  Better Homes and Gardens provides a great recipe to create your own hot chocolate mix.  All you have to do is package all the goodies together and your friends and family are bound to think you're the sweetest thing since, well, your sweet Christmas gift! :)

What are you favorite homemade Christmas gifts to make??

Teressa's Navy and Pink Baby Shower - the details

The shower I co-hosted for my good friend from college went great this past Saturday - much more laid back and less hectic than my sister's shower last Saturday... but I think that has something to do with the weather and a smaller guest list.

My other friend from college, Kelsey is starting her own photography business and took some photos of the shower for me - I can't wait to see them!  You can check out more of her great work here, at Kelsey Ann Photography.

While I don't have any of the photos yet, I wanted to give some details of the shower... with the pictures to follow!

Teressa {the guest of honor and momma-to-be of twin babies} wanted a friends only shower to avoid an event getting too big {after last weeks shower for my sister, I totally understand this!}, so she invited around 17 people and we had 10 or 11 people in attendance.  Because she isn't finding out the sex of the babies {she has way more will power than I would if I were pregnant with twins}, I wanted to go with a theme that matched colors for both a boy and a girl, so we went with dark navy blue and a fuchsia/hot pink - I think she's having a boy and a girl, so I think the colors worked great! :)  I'll post photos soon of the invite and envelope I sent out... it may be one of my favorite creations so far!

The shower started at two and after some mingling and chatting, we started the games.  We played three different games - the first was a bottle game where every guest was given a bottle filled with 4 oz of lemonade and they had to drink it the fastest (through the nipple mind you).  The game was hilarious to watch... and I honestly never realized how hard it was to drink out of a bottle... especially with sweet lemonade (note to self, lemonade hurts the jaw when sucking it through a bottle).  The next game we played was a quick game of The Price is Right.  My co-host, Tanya, picked up a bunch of essentials for babies and mom, and each guest had to guess the total cost of the everything - the mom-to-be was quite fooled by the cost, as she quested more than $20 below the actual cost of the items!  Our last game was a relay game involving a clothesline.  Each guest was given a teddy bear to hold on their hip while they took onesies, bibs and socks down from a clothesline and dropped it in a laundry basket on the floor - the variance in time was crazy!

After all of the games everyone filled up on lunch and dessert.  Tanya brought all the food for lunch and I made all of the desserts.  For lunch, Tanya made pulled pork sandwiches (they were so delicious!), chips, vegetables, a pasta salad and I made a jello salad.  For desserts, I made vanilla cupcakes with pink frosting, pink rice krispy bars and brownies. I dyed the cupcake frosting and rice krispy bars pink because I didn't think anyone would want to eat a blue dyed cupcake - can you imagine how that'd temporarily dye your teeth!?  Guests were also asked to fill out a "wishes for the babies" card for Teressa to keep as a memory.

The last part of the shower was reserved for the opening of gifts!  Teressa received a lot of fun stuff - including plenty of toys, which made her husband extremely happy!  She also received a lot of diapers (she's going to need them with twins!), some clothing, and other essentials for the babies.

I hope you enjoyed reading about the shower!  Like I mentioned, there are photos coming, so you can put an image to the novel I just wrote!  I will leave you with one my favorite maternity photos of the mom and dad to be, taken by Kelsey Ann Photography.

Aren't they too cute!  I think this photo should be an ad that is in a pregnancy magazine!