Random Phone Pics

Here is a jolly collection of pics that have been accumulating on my phone lately.

Lil Sis are you sure you don't want a Wreck-It Ralph shower?

The headband I bought for Lil Sis's wedding

Sending Lil Sis pics of my proposed shower ensemble.

Showing Momma how clean my desk can be when it needs to be :) i.e. for Kindergarten Registration

One of our Oreo attempts for Lil Sis's shower. Thankfully they still tasted delish!

My copy of Lauren Lopez's cookbook, which I did not buy until she sold 100 that had been kissed by Mr. Joey Richter. Now I own one of Joey Richter's kisses! It was totes worth a cookbook I'll probably never use!

Lorax mustaches for an Earth Day craft for my class.

Pretty daffodils one of my kiddos brought me this week!

The dino currently taking up residence in our classroom.

New Darren Criss shirt I wore today :)

I'm Grateful For... A Fantastic Shower

Last weekend was Lil Sis' wedding shower!!! It was a lot of planning, but such a joy. I had so much fun planning all of the little details. The theme was Up, as it is such a sweet, romantic story that Lil Sis and Kev saw together. Here are some pics from the planning and the shower.

Since their wedding colors are pool (Tiffany Blue) and yellow, I decided to go with those colors for the shower, too. I spent a lot of time wandering Party City to get paper products.

I got blue food and cake plates, yellow bowls and adorable blue and yellow popcorn containers. They were in the candy bar aisle, but they worked so well as popcorn holders! 

I was so excited when I found this decorative suitcase at Michaels. I was trying to play up the travel theme from Up and this was perfect! At the shower we used it to hold all of the popcorn containers. I swear I took a picture, but it is not on my camera :(

I had seen on pinterest someone who wrapped their silverware in doilies instead of napkins, which I thought was really cute. But you still need to have a napkin, so I did both :) I bought yellow silverware (Dollar Tree, people), blue napkins, white doilies and yellow curly ribbon. I wrapped them in the napkin first and then the doily. I put them in a light blue Easter Basket I found a Goodwill.

We covered the tables in plain colored plastic tablecloths. We set the favors and silverware out on the tables, mostly because at Big Sis's shower we totally forgot to give out the favors until half the guests had already left. We were left with far too many chocolate covered pretzels.

Momma made the candy covered Oreos in yellow and blue to look like Up's iconic balloons :) They are delish!

The centerpieces were a piece of travel-theme scrapbook paper, a double picture frame with a pic from Up and one of Lil Sis and Kev's engagement photos. We also tied a single blue or yellow balloon to it.

Kev's sister made wonderful banner with alternating pictures from Up and Lil Sis and Kev's engagement pictures. It looked awesome! (Their engagement pics were taken by another one of the bridesmaids).

So cute!

For food we had a variety of subs from Subway, Caesar salad, and popcorn. It was all so yummy and a great combo! For dessert we had chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with Dum-Dum suckers to look like balloons (another pinterest find). Lil E helped put in the blue polka-dot and silver cupcake liners, unwrap the suckers and stick the suckers into the cupcakes. They looked so cute and tasted yummy!

The shower was a big success! We had a great crowd, all of the female members of the wedding party, both moms, three grandmas, lots of aunts, cousins and their kids as well as our childhood babysitter. There were lots of little girls (and a couple of baby boys) who had a lot of fun playing together.

Our childhood babysitter, Jeanne, and Lil C. She was our second mom growing up and seeing her and seeing her play with Lil E and Lil C was one of the highlights of the shower!

Bridesmaids!

Grandmas!

After we ate we played a couple of games. We also had all of the guests write anniversary/well wishes for Lil Sis and Kev to read in the future. I had printed out travel scenes from Up as postcards. Big Sis had this awesome idea!

I wrote their names and wedding date on the back where you would put the address. 

We played two games, Bridal Bingo while she opened her gifts and a Disney Couples matching game :)

Sorry these pics are sideways, Kodak is not letting me rotate them and I can't find a way to do it on Blogger...

Game prizes brought by the bridesmaids. It was fun to see the different ideas everyone had. Everyone loved their prizes!

People were super generous and they got lots of wonderful gifts!!! And had quite the entourage of little girls to "help" her open them :)

Here's the card I got her: It has flaps that you open, which I thought was pretty awesome. I also got her a High School Musical Cookbook, because every new bride needs one :)

It was a great shower and I can't wait to celebrate the big day later this summer!

Big shot-out to all of the awesome ladies who helped make this day so special. My Aunt who offered her home and helped plan and took care of getting all of the food!! Momma who spent hours perfecting her candy-coated Oreo making technique. My lovely fellow brides/groomsmaids who offered planning tips, designed invites, made an adorable banner, brought awesome game prizes, helped set up and helped the party run smoothly. Lil E who helped with the cupcakes :) This shower would not have been possible without you!!!

Adventure is Out There!

Today after thoroughly cleaning my apartment, grocery shopping and getting school stuff ready for the week, I decided that I deserved a reward, in the form of relaxing while watching a good movie: Up.

I love the movie Up. It is Pixar at it's finest. It is visually beautiful, as well as ver funny, while telling a poignant story. Kids enjoy it and so can adults. There is a surface level story that appeals to kids and a deeper one that appeals to adults. The characters are lovable and adorable and funny. I mean look at Russell

and tell me that he isn't the cutest thing ever.



 I laughed out loud several times and cried during two different points in the movie. It is just so excellent. That montage at the beginning, chronicling Carl and Ellie's adventures together, get me every time. The opening notes began playing and my eyes were already tearing up. I read somewhere that that is the world's greatest love story told in five minutes and with no words, and it is the truth. We should all be so blessed to find our Carl (or Ellie). Then, near the end, when Carl finds that Ellie has filled the Adventure Book with photos of their life together. Man, I couldn't make it through it without crying, again... Such a touching and beautiful story.

I mean, I can't even... They're so adorable.

I went and saw Up in theaters with Lil Sis and her then boy-friend, now fiance, Kev. We had so much fun. It was really the first time the three of us had spent time together. We rocked our 3-D glasses and teased Kev with the line "Kevin's a girl?" relentlessly. Good memories. It was the first of many fun and crazy times the three of us have spent together :)

Now, I am planning Lil Sis's wedding shower and of course I am going with an Up theme. I am so excited about this shower; it is going to be epic. I went on a shower planning tear this weekend, which probably contributed to my strong desire to watch Up today. I can't wait!!

A Day of Shopping

Today, Momma, Lil Sis and I headed out on a shopping mission: find a Mother of the Bride dress for Momma to wear to Lil Sis' wedding. We were also on the look-out for a dress for Lil E to wear as the flower girl.

(A little background. The wedding is happening in July. The bridesmaids are wearing "pool" which is basically Tiffany blue.)

We headed out to the local mall. We went to three stores and good choices at each. I think Momma tried on at least 20 dresses and had five very serious contenders.

We started at Macy's, where after trying on 5-6 dresses, we put three dresses on hold (one navy blue lacy/beaded number, a beige lace dress and a periwinkle beaded dress). (Sidenote: for being a semi-upscale place the fitting rooms at Macy's were sorely lacking, very bare, dingy and slightly dirty). After an ill-fated quest through their shoe department to look for silver shoes for me to wear at the wedding, we headed up to the little girls department. We found a really cute flower/tulley flower girl dress, but the shade of blue was just a little too green to match...

So we headed to Penney's, where we found about five dresses for Momma to try on. We found a couple of good choices for Momma (A navy blue and white rouched dress and an indigo dress with a verticle ruffle) and a really cute yellow and white lacy dress for Lil E. On our way out of Penney's we had to stop at the ICEE kiosk for a pre-lunch ICEE snack :)

At Sears we found 2 armloads full of dresses! Lil Sis also found some fetching hats, which I tried to convince her to wear as her headpiece at the wedding. After lots of, "I like it, but I liked other ones better," there were two contenders at Sears (a light pink ruffled dress and a navy blue satin). We found an adorable not-exactly-matching, but-far-enough-away-to-be-complementary blue flower girl dress. Unable to decide if the blue would work, we ended up buying both that dress and the yellow one from Penney's to compare to my bridesmaids dress and decide on a FG dress at a later date.

After reviewing all of the pics on Lil Sis' phone, Momma also decided to buy two dresses, show them off to a few more people and then decide which one to wear. She took home a to the knee, pink dress with some ruffles that angle diagonally across the dress and gather to one side (from Sears), and a navy blue, also to the knee, dress with a lacy overlay with some beads and sparkles (from Macy's). Both are great options and look beautiful on Momma! She also purchased a beautiful blue/purple number for the rehearsal dinner.

Not to be left out of all the shopping fun, Lil Sis got a bunch of cute work clothes at Maurice's (best fitting rooms of the day goes to Marice's- decorated cutely and chairs for those waiting!!) and I found some perfect silver, sparkly heels to complete my Maid of Honor ensem. I had been looking all over for these shoes I was picturing in my head and as we passed Deb to go into Payless, there they were in the window of Deb!

Overall, a very productive day! I can't wait for the big day to be here!!!