"Little Man" baby shower

"Oh BOY...A little man is on his way... We Mustache you to join us for a shower before the big day!"  

 Thank you Sara and Leah for letting me help with this shower.  I loved the theme and colors!  These are the mustache cookies I made.

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup butter (creamed)

1 cup sour cream

Combine & beat until creamy. Add 6 1/2 cups flour and 2 tsp. baking soda, and 1 tsp. salt. Mix well. Roll out on floured counter 1/2 inch thick. Or place between sheets of parchment paper roll out, freeze for 20 minutes, then cut shapes out and put on cookie sheet. (This method will keep you from having to use so much flour which makes your cookies taste like flour :)   Bake for 10 min. @ 350.
Cream cheese frosting:
1 8 oz cream cheese softened
1 stick butter softened
1 tsp. vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar

 Love the bunting banners that Sara made!  Her sewing talent amazes me.

Leah did these cute drinking jars with the straws and mustaches. Love them!

So fun! Sara made drinking these look so cute so I had to take a pic with her.

 I really loved this idea of putting drinks in these cute jars. Thanks Leah!

 The shower was in the mid morning so we had brunch food which is amazing and delicious, right? Sara made these yummy yogurt parfaits with homemade granola (on the bottom) and sliced fruit to add to the top (the bananas aren't pictured here but were yummy too.)

 Banana muffins, Pumpkin muffins, cinnamon rolls, and they had a quiche and breakfast casserole too!

 I made these for a take home treat.  They were fun to do.  I found the mustache sucker mold at Hobby Lobby.  I used orange candy melts and almond bark for the white and blue (added a few drops of Americolor to the bark.)

 We decided to fill the jars with rice rather than buy more candy which can get expensive.  I remembered my dear friend Alicia Cutts coloring her rice to make a fun project for the kids.  She was right it really was easy to do.  All you need is 1 Tbsp. of vinegar (or rubbing alcohol,) 1 cup of rice and food coloring(depending on how dark you want it. I used a couple drops of Americolor per batch.)  Mix in a ziplock baggie and spread on a cookie sheet to dry overnight. The smell of vinegar goes away once it's dry. I made about 10 cups to fill all 3 of thing giant jars. I had fun making fun designs with the rice.

 This rice design turned out a little crazy thanks to the help of my 3 year old.  It was so fun for my kids to do.  I need to remember this for future boredom days!

 I cut out the bow ties with my circuit and glued them to ribbon wrapped around the jar which you can't really see.

My kids loved sampling these for me! Love them to pieces!

 This is one of the cutest things I've seen done at a baby shower! If you don't love playing games at a shower then this is perfect for you.  Thanks Amanda for the idea! So she had us write words of encouragement/silly things on a diaper so when our mom to be is up at 2 am changing her baby she will have a special note from us.  Super cute, right?

Here's the poem she used.  I think she got it off Pinterest.

Gender Reveal Cake

 So this is Valerie one of my young women from church.  She wanted to do a gender reveal cake for us when we found out the sex of our baby.  I'm so glad I let her do it.  Look how cute it turned out!

My kids were so excited to cut the cake!

We couldn't wait to find out either! This was even a surprise for me, when I was getting the ultrasound done I turned my head when it was time to find out the gender.  They sealed the results in an envelope and I gave it to Valerie.  I was so proud of myself for not looking.

It's a boy!! Lucy looks excited here but she's not very happy she's not getting a sister.

I thought it would be fun to make gender reveal cupcakes for all the young women at our activity tonight.  I made vanilla cupcakes with a blue vanilla pudding filling.

Coffin treats

 I found these adorable little coffins at the Dollar Tree and couldn't wait to fill them with a fun treat.

 I only had a few so they were perfect for the ladies I visit teach.

 I found that some of the caramel apples I made fit inside these little coffins. They had to be the small apples we picked from our local orchard.

 I found these Halloween cellophane bags at Target last year.

I also found these at the Dollar Tree for the bigger apples.

Mother/Daughter Fall Social

 The Beehives (girls 12&13 year olds) and their leaders put together a Fall Social for all the Young Women and their moms. We did an "Apple of My Eye" theme because we needed an excuse to eat caramel apples.

 I made these for the activity using our local orchard apples which were really small and fun.

 I am really liking the new Salted Caramel one that is on the bottom right.

 I also did Reese's Pieces, Health, Oreo and mostly white chocolate cinnamon.

 The Beehives, the advisor, and Secretary worked really hard helping me with the decorations.  Aundreya did the banner and cut all the apples hanging from the ceiling from her Silhouette. The Beehives helped with Pom-Poms, paper pumpkins, and setting up and taking down. Michele also helped set up and provided a lot of the decor and made apple desserts. They were life savers.

 Michele's cute center piece.  Those little apples are from our local orchard.

 The girls helped hang all these Pom-poms and apples.

We also had a photo booth that Jonice, one of our Young Women made. We had a great night playing games and eating lots of yummy food (apple straws, caramel apples. cheese ball with crackers, apple streusel dessert, apple juice with Sprite, apples with fruit dip, and a veggie tray)

Game #1-Self-Esteem activity.  You can print your papers here.  We had everyone fill out the ME poster and then we gave the moms a poster that said MY GIRL and the girls a poster that said said MY MOM and they wrote the things they loved about each other.  It was so sweet.

Game #2- We played a how well do you know each other game.  We had a set of questions for the moms and for the daughters.  We gave each of them a laminated sheet of paper and a dry erase marker.  After I read the question (example: What is your daughters least favorite food?) they would each write down the answers and then compare them.  Whoever got it wrong had to eat a piece of bubble gum.

Music note cupcakes

 My mom and I made these for a musical fireside that our youth put on.  I was in charge of refreshments and thought something with music notes would be fun.  These look a little silly and random but we had fun making them.

Strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting

To make these you just need a mini Oreo cookie and black frosting.

YW handout

 I taught the YW lesson today on Strengthening our families. Click here for the lesson.

 As I was studying for this I came across this blog called Hands Free Mama and was so touched by one of her stories that I shared it with the girls.  I also used some of her words in my handout.  She talked about how she was dealing with her oldest daughter being mean to the younger one.  She shared something with her daughter that happened to her when she was little.
She told her that when she was in grade school she was a mess.  She has a bad bowl cut, too many freckles, and wore the same awful blue sweater every day.  Her hair held the unbecoming shine of ultra quick showers minus the shampoo. She had horrible smelling feet and she gained so much weight before middle school that she got stretch marks.  She was ashamed.  While her parents worked, her sister took her to the neighborhood pool.  She said her sister never said a word about my body. She only said, "I love your bathing suit." She remembered.  It meant everything that she chose to look beyond the unsightly marks.  In high school she said her sister would wave her over as she walked down the halls.  She would introduce me the awkward freshman to her senior high friends.  "She was proud of who I was.  She believed in me. She never told me I was not capable even if she thought there we no way I could make the volleyball team or move up a chair in orchestra.  As an adult she showed me the same support. She was adamant that I should start a blog. She helped me. I would not be a published author today had it not been for the unconditional love and encouragement I received from my sister."
This mom asked her daughter to pay attention to her tone of voice, notice when her sister is stressed out or struggling and say, "how can I help? instead of "just deal with it."
Weeks later her daughters began riding the bus for the first time.  On the second night of school she overhead them talking. "When the teacher says walk to the bus, you need to go as fast as you can, okay? I was worried you were going to miss it.  I kept praying you were coming.  Walk real fast tomorrow. I know you can do it." said the big one.
"Okay, I will" promised the little one.  "Thanks for letting nothing bad happen to me."
"I won't," said her protector.
*I love this story and wanted to have it on here since I went back to link it and it's no longer on there.
I told the YW don't you want to be that kind of sister!!! The one who always looks at the positive and protects. I want to be!!

 Hands Free Mama says"We all need someone in our corner, to have our back... to believe in us when we don't believe in ourselves.  We can do that! We can do that for our sisters...our brothers... and for each other.  We can be their Lifesavers (I added this sentence as part of the handout) We can do that for the people who are learning how to treat others by watching us live. "

I filled the boxes with Lifesavers.  I found these boxes at Dollar Tree during Easter time.

Back to School Treat!

 My kids love to do a Back to School treat to share with friends and teachers but this year we had to go simple.  I have pretty bad morning sickness and don't want to spend all day in the kitchen so simple is my new best friend.

 I ordered these giant Smarties on Amazon which my kids thought we're pretty awesome.  I copied the tag from some I had found online- Good luck on your first day Smartie Pants.  I used a 2" scalloped punch to cut them out.

 This is how big the Smarties were.  I wish I had a smaller one to compare it to.

For Lucy's class we just used regular sized Smarties and put them in a cellophane bag with this simple tag. Hopefully you get the idea with this terrible picture!