Showering Emily and Baby Jackson!

To say that my one of my best friend's Emily has a LOT going on right now is quite the understatement of the year.  She is pretty busy with lots of HUGE life events.  She is (1) moving next weekend, (2) having a baby at the end of March and (3) getting married the middle of May.  Um yeah, so see what I say "a lot" is an understatement.  Her life is on overdrive the first part of 2012 - but guess what?  Those things happening are all pretty amazing and we are all absolutely thrilled to be a part of her life - busy or not - and help her celebrate all of them in style!!!  She's going to be one hot mama and one beautiful bride no doubt!

That's why we threw her a baby shower to get ready for baby Jackson's arrival.  He will be here now in 7 weeks!  I cannot believe it!!!  So exciting!!!!

There was a pretty much amazing planning team in action to make this shower happen.  Emily's older sister, Katie, had the brilliant idea to make the shower Dr. Seuss themed to go along with the bedding that Emily and Jeff chose for Jackson's nursery/crib.  What a BRILLIANT idea.  Because wow, there are SO many Dr. Seuss party ideas on the internet and pinterest, it's pretty amazing.  Katie, Lauren (her little sister), Vanessa, Sharon (her amazing stepmom) and I had a pretty good time planning this shower and making it very fun for her!!

I was in charge of making a wreath (that we found on pinterest) and some food the day of.  I procrastinated a bit, as it was a busy week prior, so Jimmy the wonder husband came to the rescue the morning of to help me out.  As you can see here, his job was to cut up the fruit and put them on skewers.  He was thrilled - as you can tell my his impression.  These were "truffula sticks" in official Dr. Seuss language.

Boy did they turn out delicious!  Good job Jim!

 I also was in charge of making salty and sweet green eggs and ham.  So up first was GREEN deviled eggs.  Jimmy said they looked like baby poop.  But guess what, people liked them and they were all gone by the end of the party.  I'd call them a hit.

Then were the "sweet" green eggs and ham, that were super cute, super easy and super delicious.  This task entailed Jimmy separating all the m&m's and pulling the green ones out for me. He was a trooper.

To say Sharon is amazing is also an understatement.  When we arrived early to help set up, the set up was already done and was so fun and EVERYTHING went with the theme.  I mean everything - even the bathroom was decorated.  It was SO fun and cute!!  Look at the cute popcorn holders and bins and the matching flowers!!!  AHHH!!  She should be a professional party planner!

The cake!!

Sadly, I didn't force anyone to take group pictures at this baby shower, as I did at Lauren's...and now I'm totally regretting it!  I didn't even get a good picture of Emily!  I had to steal this from her sister's facebook album.  Shame on me!!  But look at how cute she is!  Ready to be a mommy!

Here was the beautiful mantle all set up with the present table.  She bought some cute stacking blocks to go along with the theme to give to Emily for Jackson to play with someday.  And there is the ribbon wreath I made!  It was so fun and super easy - I will do a post on how I did it, just in case anyone needs something like this for shower decor, etc.  I'm excited because they are going to hang it on the door to his nursery!!

Adorable favors that Sharon made!!!!

And the amazing diaper cake.  Yep, Sharon is a rock star.  My mom told her she will need help throwing my baby shower!!

It was so great because there were so many people that were able to be at the shower and help Emily get ready for baby Jackson's arrival!!  Even Emily was in town from Denver and Dr. Courtney was there from Oklahoma City!  So fun!!!

Opening presents

Showing off the butt paste!

And I was super excited to get Emily 12 little onesies that I made for baby Jackson.  Have you seen these before?  I feel like they are all over the internet of people taking a picture of their baby each month in a onesie to show how much they have grown.  Well, I thought it would be fun to have them already made for her, so she doesn't have to go through the hassle because I'm sure she will be busy enough!  They were super easy to make and a great present!

Overall, it was such a great shower and such a fun afternoon seeing all our friends, Emily's family and helping her celebrate!!!  Ah babies - so fun!!

Which speaking of, later that night, Jimmy and I got to head over to Lauren and Cory's house to watch sweet baby Brodie for a few hours while they were at Lauren's work "holiday" party!  When she asked if we would be interested - I said YES - as we need all the practice we can get.  I was super nervous when they left that Jimmy and I would mess up - but Lauren was right, he was an angel and we didn't mess up.  AND in big news - I changed a diaper for the first time.  So that was a big milestone, right?   You don't need to know that I put it on on backwards and wondered why it wasn't working before Jimmy (who also has NEVER changed a diaper) had to correct me.  Oh, so much to learn.

But Brodie is so sweet!  He was exhausted from all the attention at the baby shower earlier that day, so he slept most of the time - right on my chest!  I loved it!!

Sweet Brodie!  I sent this picture to Lauren so she would know how sweet he was being!!!

Jimmy feeding him his bottle.  He loved it.  We do need to figure out the whole burping thing...

 And FINALLY (as if this post isn't super long already), Lauren was nice enough to leave me an awesome drink in the fridge.  Finding good things to drink that don't have caffeine or aspartame in them while pregnant is not fun.  And Lauren knew that.  So apparently, she found this drink when she was pregnant and she bought four for me.  I love them.  They are called Izze and it's a fruit juice, but carbonated.  So they are really good for you, but taste delicious too.  A nice break from water!!!

There you have it.  A post about babies and babies to be.  So excited for Emily for her upcoming arrival and loving Lauren's sweet baby boy!!!