Baby Shower Fever!

We had ourselves a baby shower for some very dear friends yesterday, Sean and Christyn.  They are expecting their first baby boy near the end of the month!  So exciting!!  I am so blessed by a wonderful group of ladies in our church and home group.  I basically co-ordinated the plan, donated a few items to the cause and they brought the party with them and then took the party away when it was finished!  Fantastic!  I have to admit that my house was in complete disarray and it took most of last week to get it cleaned up and into party shape.  I need to start praying for a maid...for realz!

Anyway, we had such a great turn out.  The men folk came, too, and Sam started a fire in the fire pit in the backyard for a focal point addition to the party. ;p  They mozied back and forth between the fire and the food and occasionally to speak to their respective spouses.  :)  We had a full house, that's for sure and not enough seating, but that didn't seem to matter.  Lucy took over photography duty and I'm so glad she did because I didn't even think about it!  So, I have visual aids for blogging purposes!  Yay!  Plus, she was totally having way too much fun experimenting with my camera.  Work your artsy-fartsy skillz!  We had fun, managed to get one game in, ate lots of yummy food and the parents-to-be made out like bandits with the gifts!  Mission accomplished!

After everyone left, Sean and Christyn stayed so that I could do the indoor portion of the maternity shoot.  I was having lighting issues and then my fabulous husband had a stroke of genius and brought in our green house lights and he and Sean set up a make shift studio in our dining room.  It worked out really well and now I am going to see if getting different bulbs and making some diffusers for them will make it any better for future use. :)

At some point during the process, the guys decided to take a field trip to do something guy-ish...looking at a derelict truck at a junk yard. ;p After plenty of fidgeting and different poses and pondering and all the jazz that goes with the territory that is my life, we got done with the shoot and they offered to get pizza for dinner.  Fine with us!  Then we hung out til after dark and they went home and we eventually got everyone into bed.  Lots of fun packed into one day!

Anyway, I decided to use an online photo editor and played around with the pics and they turned out pretty well, even though I do say so myself!  I will eventually play around with editing the outdoor shots that I took a week or so ago, too.  I still have lots to learn by doing more shoots and figuring out what works and doesn't and all, but for now I am content with how it all came out.

So, here follows a bazillion pictures!  Enjoy:

Lucy made the diaper cake and did a fabulous job!  Leah A. made the topiaries and most of the hanging pom poms!  She, too, made fabulosity!

 I made the banner....felt is my friend. :)

 Hanging pom poms are my new favorite party decoration!

 Beautiful mom-to-be

 Lucy busted out her mad gift basket skillz and put together two of them from our home group.

 This was the beautiful and super yummy cake that our friend Christina made!

 Christina had to wrestle and wrangle fondant and I believe she now has the same relationship with the stuff that I do...we agree to just be strangers. ;)  I blame Lucy!  She had the idea for the baby bum cake, I then googled for visual aid purposes and then asked Christina if she wanted an, um, interesting challenge. ;p  She agreed and the masterpiece above was born!  She did a fantastic job!

 I, of course, had to make a funky, inspired at midnight mobile for little Liam's room.  Felt and ribbon brought together by hot glue....I'm in total like with these crafting mediums!

 Sam opened the festivities by praying over Sean and Christyn.

 Ummmm, Lucy!  You were s'posed to be praying!  I'm tellin'!

Food yumminess!  We had sandwiches, a veggie tray, a fruit salad, a cheese and cracker tray, cinnamon bread (I could have eaten a whole loaf of that stuff!  Accolades to Kim M's mom!), ducky s'mores, breakfast casserole (tater tots, scrambled egg mixture, shredded cheddar cheese, sliced up lil wieners and biscuits), punch, coffee and hot chocolate.  I'm thinking we can get together to do this food combo anytime!

 Christina also put together this fun baby ornament tree!  I love this idea!  She was so funny.  She said someone had given it to her and she saw this idea and also saw a way to give this tree to a new home. ;p

Laury and McKayla chowing down...

Baby food tasting was one of the games and then we were supposed to play baby charades and just ran out of time.

Caught in the act! 

 This was on the punch counter...the duckies would not cooperate and kept tipping over.  Can't really blame them, they didn't sleep well the night before.  Ailey kept trying to take off with them!

 Man-gathering around the fire.

 Ladies who braved the cold to eat outside.

LOTS of gifts!

Ducky s'mores!  Yum!  Saw the idea on pinterest for heart ones for valentines and just decided to make them duckies instead.

Heather right and Christina left.

 Baby food tasting...

 I think there was much pondering going on....

 Eun and Kristen chillaxin' in the corner.

 Sean even joined in!  

 Ms. Leah A. in the foreground there..

 Time to open prezzies!

 Sweet Nadine!

 No, Sean, it isn't a hat!

 Saw this idea while googling. :)  He like it and wore it proudly.

Mommy corsage. My take on a google inspiration. ;p

Lovely Lucy and Laury.

And now....the indoor maternity shoot.