Pickles and Ice Cream

So our ward likes to celebrate EVERY baby bump.  We [the young moms] are desperate to get out of the house and speak with other adults - and a baby is a perfect excuse!  Usually for people who have already had a baby shower, we'll just meet at Yogurt City and have a girls night in honor of their pregnancy.  Well, Laura was prego with her third and I didn't want to miss the celebration.  We started planning it in February and I wasn't sure if Jake would be home from Chicago in time.  I asked Laura if we could just have it at my house so I was sure I could be there.  Her instructions were that she wanted it "low key".  haha!  ya right!  In my defense, Jami and Kandy are party-throwing animals.  So "low key" to me includes a theme, decorations, and a lot of planning!  :-)  I asked my friend Sara to decorate - she and I had lots of fun scanning Pinterest for ideas.  Since Laura loves Ice Cream, we decided to do a Sundae bar.  Sooo many people wanted to help (since Laura is so sweet - she makes everyone feel like they are her best friend).  It worked out great cause everyone just brought a few toppings.

I came across the idea to to Pickles and Ice Cream for the theme.  I found a few cute designs for an invite, but they were for too girly - we needed something that works for a baby boy too.  I found this Etsy shop where I could buy the pieces I needed to make my own cone.  Then I had to modify a pickle I found online to match the rest.  I'm pretty happy at how it turned out.  Very bright and joyful!

Sara came up with these decorations - seriously adorable!!!  I love the "ice cream cone" balloons!!!

I have a cool metal bin that my mother-in-law gave me.  I put a bunch of ice in it to keep the ice cream cold.  Don't forget the pickles!!!

Sara and Laura rockin those baby bumps!  My friend Rachel came up with this service jar idea for people to offer their help.  What a great idea!  She also organized a group gift.  We got Laura a bunch of "mommy survival" things.  Like ear plugs, sleep mask, chocolate, huge water jug, etc.

It was an open house, but mostly everyone came and stayed for the whole time.  I didn't plan any games, but I decided that it would be fun to do something since we were all just chatting in a circle.  I saw everyone's shoes in the entry way so I grabbed a laundry basket and filled it with everyone's right shoe.  Then Laura had to guess who they belonged to (sorry for putting you on the spot!)  It was fun to see the personalities in everyone's shoes.  Someone suggested to share baby advice when she guessed your shoe.  She has 2 kids, so she didn't really need the advice... but I think we all like talking about what helped us through that difficult newborn phase.  Kind of validating to hear how hard it was for everyone.

The next week Laura's sister was in town but I crashed their party so I could paint Laura's toes.  It's our labor tradition!  It was fun to chat and meet Deb, we had fun while Laura was miserable and timing contractions.  For whatever reason I kept using old fashioned words and phrases that night.  Random!  I have no idea why, but I kept referring to toes as "tootsies" and stuff like that.  Apparently they bring out the old lady in me!  haha!

Little James finally made his debut.  What a sweetie!!!

Another friend, Allyson, had her shower the week before Laura's.  I asked if I could bring a dessert to her shower.  Since I knew things were crazy with Laura's shower, Scarlett's bday party, and Scarlett's birthday the next week, I decided to make these Oreos a few days early and leave them covered in our very cold garage.  I bought 3 flavors and dipped them all in white chocolate.  I realized that I can't spell out Oreo in front of my kids to conceal what I'm talking about, cause "O-R-E-O" sounds just like "Oreo"  oops!  I came up with a crazy idea to use a clean medicine syringe to suck up the melted chocolate, then I pushed it out on wax paper in the shape of a heart.  I was surprised at how well it worked!  Then I put them in the garage to freeze.  After they were hard, I put them on top of a recently dipped Oreo (the white was still soft) so they stuck right on.  All of these were easy and I did a TON all during nap time.  It was soooo hard to leave them alone in the garage til the shower.  I will admit that they didn't all make it to the end of the week....