Baby Sprinkle Sip 'n' See

We had a baby sprinkle sip 'n' see for the newest addition of our life group.  Her name is Mikayla and she was born on the 10th.  We had it at our house and had such a good time.  One of my friends and fellow life grouper, Christyn, came over yesterday to help me decorate.  She hung out with us the whole day.  It was lovely.  She just totally relaxed and went with the "flow" of our day.  Anyway, when we got it all set up, we were very satisfied with how it turned out.

This was the drink area.  We had punch and coffee.

I showed a pic of the garland a few posts back and that's it zig-zagged across the ceiling.

When I took these, I didn't realize the curtain had come undone on the right side... oops!  This was the main table.  There's that bunting/pennant banner I made a while back.  See the little balls under the mirror?  They are feather balls and I like how they turned out, too.

Lucy (I'll introduce her in the pics following these) made that diaper cake in the center.  Isn't that stinkin' cute?!  Lucy's daughter and I put the fruit bouquet together.  Sam and I had a fun time putting the skewers into the head of cabbage the night before.  Sam did get a little maimed, sadly, but kept on keepin' on.  I had my meat tenderizer in use as a hammer for the skewers....yeah. ;)

I forgot to take the plastic wrap off of the s'mores pops before I took pics, too..another oops!  Those things were stinkin' yummy!  I just dipped marshmallows in melted semi-sweet chocolate chips and then rolled them in gram cracker crumbs before the chocolate hardened.  Underneath them is a breakfast casserole.  Its super easy, too.  You just let some frozen biscuits thaw out and then line a baking pan by squishing them down and into each other, then pour some whisked egg, milk, salt and pepper combo (like you would do for scrambled eggs) over the biscuits, then crumble cooked bacon over that and top it off with shredded cheese.  Pretty yummy!

I made labels and everything...they were a last minute thought at mid-night.:)

I was excited to be able to use all my decorative junk, plates, platters and whatnot after such a long time!

This is my version of a corsage for the new mommy. I've really gotten into rolled fabric flowers lately and I made this one for her.

This is the beautiful mommy, Allyson.  This is her second baby.

That's Lucy on the left and her daughter Laury on the right.  Amber has little miss Mikayla, the star of the show, there in the middle.

We have Laury on the left, Christyn, my partner in decorating crime, in the middle and Eun (prounounced un), on the right.

Alex is on the left, Cami on the right and that's the back of Zekey in the front.

This is Cami's little tyke, Liam.

Ailey was giving kisses.

This is Joziah, the big brother.

He's all about cars right now.

Mikayla wasn't so impressed with the party...

She just wanted to let us know about it. :)

Ailey and Rico were hiding under the table cloth and having a giggling good time.

Now we have the loot, which is really the whole point of this shindig...j/k, we all love to get together...any excuse will do!

Lucy put this beautiful basket together, too, with the help of her handy-dandy daughter Laury.  She's SO talented!

Scary pic of me...

These are the booties I made for her, but I totally forgot to take a pic of them.  They turned out really cute!  I think they are the cutest ones, yet.

Lots of goodies in the basket! 

This was the cute pop up card that Christyn got for her and we all signed.

Amber made this fun onsie and diaper wreath!  Great job!!

Rico came to inspect.

Mikayla and Cami

Miss Laury

Less scary pic of me

Eun

The guys were hiding outside, but came in to eat and see the presents.  Sam wanted to give some asymmetry to this shot. :)

That's the proud papa, Jeff to the left there.  Shawn is puttering around in the background and is married to Christyn

Jason is Lucy's husband there on the right.

Cuteness!

These were made by Tamara, who couldn't be there, but dropped them off for us anyway. Yummy!

This is the mobile I made.  It evolved as I went along and this is what I ended up with.  The bedding for the baby's room is paisley and the theme is angels, so you get the idea.

These are our home group ladies.

I guess we'll include the guys, too... watch the progression of the shots

I think Jason was dancing a little jig there in the back row. ;p

This is an amazing group of people and we are so grateful God has put us all together in his family and this place for this time.  Love them!!!!

Some things I've been up to....

I have been doing some crafty things, though more infrequently....  Some of this I have done since having Brea and some of it was before I had her...

I decided to paint this on the wall after trying hard to find a vinyl rendition for less than $40.

Mom gave me two yellow and one red paper lanters and I painted them orange.  They all have little light kits and will get turned into a single light fixture...some day.  For now they are hanging on the hook that used to hold the original light fixture for the dining room. :)

I am co-hosting a Sip and See for a friend from church and I made this bunting as part of the decor as well as a take home gift for the baby's room.

 This is a garland for the sip and see that I made after watching a tutorial on making a lamp shade using the same technique.  Still need to make another one.

I've had this lamp for a while.  (Its yet another donation from my mom.;p)  The lampshade that was on it originally didn't fit in with the way I'm slowly, but surely trying to make my living room look.  Mom said she had a lampshade she would trade with me.  Win-win!  She liked the one I had and I'm really liking this one!  It was plain white and so I needed to add some contrast to it.  Its just two sizes of brown ribbon and hot glue.  I had to add the pleats around the insides so it would lay down right.

These are my very unusual humming bird feeders that I inherited from my Aunt Kathy.  They have little test tube looking feeders on them.  I used a red marker and colored the outside of the tubes and wrapped those red flowers around the whole thing in the hopes of attracting some hummingbirds.  I did all that instead of buying two extra red feeders to hang on the hooks on the ends.  WAY less expensive this way!:)

These little bunnies were just plain wood cutouts that my mom gave me.  (Seriosly love it when she cleans out her stashes of stuff.  Its like home shopping network!)  I decided Ailey needed more bling.  Plus, I could do a little mod-podging.  ***Tangent - Mod Podge is stinky....okay - end Tangent*** I painted a couple of coats of acrylic paint on all three and then I mod podged some sparkly paper around the outside edges and cut outs of her initials out of the same paper on the fronts. Added eyes using paper punchouts of same paper.  I trimmed the edges of paper in paint.  They needed more sparkle so I got out my glitter glue and went over the painted trim.  I finished  off with some shiny ribbon around the necks and done!  (Did these while Brea was still incubating:)

Brea update

I know I haven't been posting lately, but I'll get back to it soon...hopefully consistently.  Brea is about 3 1/2 weeks old and I've been needing to post a little update on her.  She started smiling about a week ago.  It started out that she would smile while sleeping, which is pretty typical and then she started smiling while awake and being talked to.  She's so sweet!  She sleeps pretty well.  She will slightly wake up 3-4 times a night to eat, but she just latches on and we both go back to sleep.  Its still not great sleep, but its not terrible either.  Her eyes are still a grayish blue color, though I would be greatly surprised if hers didn't turn brown after a while, too.  We're pretty sure she is a redhead, though its more of an auburn color and we'll have to wait until she gets more hair for full effect. :)  She's a pretty calm and content baby.  She cries when she's hungry, gassy, poopy or tired.  There's not a lot of fussing where she is concerned.  I'm very thankful that the Lord answered our prayers in that area. :)

The kids LOVE her.  Ailey is constantly trying to hug, kiss or lay on her.  She even talks to her in a specific voice.  So funny!  If Brea starts to cry, Ailey goes on high alert and let's me know that "Brea's, she's crying!"  Then, she'll run in there and tell her its okay.  Very cute!
Braden and Zekey both ask frequently to hold her and as long as they are seated, they can both hold her unassisted and they do such a great job!  Both of them ask after her if they've been playing in a different part of the house or outside away from her for a while. They just kind of check in on her.  Its so, so sweet!

I've been asked a few times how Ailey is handling the division of attention.  At this point, I honestly can't tell a difference.  She hasn't gotten any more desperate for attention than she already was. ;p  She does want me to hold her just as much, but she's perfectly fine with Brea sharing Mommy space.  She will sit with us and love on Brea, though I'm still working on not poking Brea in the eyes, nose and mouth....you know, the usual.

Anyway, we are all doing well.   I didn't really feel any sense of being overwhelmed until about the 3-week mark because I was ready to get back to getting stuff done and I couldn't go at the pace I wanted to.  Just something God is working on in me.  I'll have to learn to be patient in a bit of a different way than all the other times he's had to build patience in me and I'll have to learn to let go of some more selfishness.  :)  I'm a work in progress and I'm so glad that He's not done with me yet!

I'll be back!

Now I know blogging hasn't been on my list of top priorities in the last 12 days and all, but I've had some catching up to do in the kitchen alternating with lengthy rest periods.  I fully intend to back date all about my experience with Brea's birth, but its apparently taking longer than I expected to get to that point on my to-do list!  Also, typing one-handed is a pain in my backside.  So, just for clarification: 1) I'm still alive and kickin' 2) we are all healthy and well and 3) Brea is a fantastic baby!