Guest Post - Gender Reveal Party

I have a special treat for my fabulous readers today! When Lance and I started dating he lived in Suwanee in a neighborhood.....where the houses were really....no- really close together! It's a good thing he had fabulous neighbors.....because the Friend family is part of our adopted family. My guest blogger today is a girl I met when she was 15 and I have seen her learn to drive, graduate high school, start college (to become a teacher :), and will ONE day watch her graduate from college. Whenever she has a crafty project, she knows just who to call......me, of course! So this post is about one of our fabulous Saturdays together! I'm going to turn this over to Laurin.....

Hello! I am thrilled to be a guest blogger on the blog this week. I have been trying to convince Michelle to start a blog since she was pregnant with Addi, so I am sure you can all imagine my excitement when you finally gave me the go ahead to create her blog. :)

I’ll start by introducing myself. I am Laurin. Michelle and I have been friends since 2005 when her boyfriend (now husband) lived next door to my family. I wanted to be a teacher so I started helping out in her classroom. Since then, I have watched her get married, move an hour away from me, have two beautiful little girls and have even been honored with being her youngest, Sofia’s godmother. Now lets get to the fun part!

I have two sisters, one older, one younger. I have a horrible case of middle child syndrome. Jokes. I don’t have it too bad. We all live in different places so it can only be SO bad. My younger sister is still in high school so she lives with my mom, I am in college so I live in the town I go to school in and my older sister is married and lives with her husband in a town about a half an hour away from me. I am the closest family member to my sister and brother-in-law, Jennifer and Jesse, so I was overly thrilled when they announced in February that they are having a baby in August! I adore entertaining at any level. My mom is the best party planner that I know, she throws the best parties. With her awesome parties in my head and Pinterest as my most commonly clicked shortcut on my computer, a gender reveal was a must in my head. I started at my sister Jennifer almost immediately. She was not totally sold on the idea. She said it was a new idea that was a bit weird. Not being one who gives up easily I kept at it, one night after work she said she has officially decided yes! I went to straight to her house and we planned almost everything that night, with the help of Michelle and my mom. I was out of town for almost two weeks leading up to the party so we really had to get our butts into gear. We went to Michelle’s that Sunday and spent the whole day making decorations. Jennifer did a great job of pulling most of the other details together while I was out of town.

Now for the rundown of all the fun stuff we did and pictures from the awesome party!

For the front door I made this adorable burlap pennant banner. It was a fun little project I whipped up in 30 minutes. That is the lovely pregnant lady on the left. And my non-pregnant self on the right.

We did a fun game of going through some Old Wives Tales, just to see which ones turned out to be ‘true’. Sitting on the fireplace on the bottom left side is a canvas that everyone who came filled in their finger prints with their guess on a girl or boy. One of our cousins is going to draw a box that looks like the one outside and then make the fingerprints look like balloons to match the party.

We used an old changing table to put desserts on. The added touch of the ‘flags’ on each cupcake is actually drink stirrers that were left over from their wedding in 2011. We knew they’d come in handy one day!

The pink and blue punch was my favorite part!

A- My mom always prewrapped the silverware, so of course, we did that as well. B- Michelle helped us make this fun banner for the fireplace. C- We had baby clothes hanging around the party. It was a nice touch. D- These adorable duckies kept watch over the punch.

This is the adorable set up outside! That box contains the colored balloons. Nana is responsible for the adorable banner.

The BIG reveal! Both Jennifer and Jesse were going to be overjoyed whether it was a girl or boy. There were so happy it was a girl! Let the pink overload begin in our family.

After the big reveal, we enjoyed hamburgers and hotdogs with some fun sides made by friends.

And Hershey candy bars for the road.

We had such a great time planning this gender reveal party in addition to it being just a wonderful party with family and friends. I hope everyone enjoyed this post and hopefully I will have a few more guest post in the future!

I'm so sad that I wasn't able to make it to the gender reveal party myself....due to my family have the 12th stomach virus of the year. No joke it really is the 5th. Everything turned out so precious! The picture when the balloons were released is just precious! I can't wait to meet this sweet baby girl...and most importantly I can't wait to make some goodies for her! Girls are so much fun! Thank you so much to Laurin for writing this post for me.....and thank you Jennifer for allowing us to share your story! 

Happy St. Pat's Day!

Top o' the morning to you! The girls were really excited when they went to bed last night......they were hoping a little leprechaun would visit the Burns' house. They would not be disappointed! 

That little rascal used our potty! 

He left a trail of shamrocks and gold through the house! 

That ol' leprechaun didn't disappoint! He left the girls crowns and stickers!

Dang that leprechaun! When we put milk in our cups it turned green! That leprechaun must've talked with Elfie! 

This is my favorite part about holidays...getting to surprise the girls and make them smile! 

Dreadful Stomach Bug

This is what I call puke patrol. I'm so over it! 

We have had this norovirus stomach bug in our house for almost 11 days. First Sofie had it, then Addi....just when we think it is over and done with, Lance and I both get it! Our bedroom looked like some kind of hospice room yesterday! It was so sad! We managed to get ourselves together enough to pull off ole St. Pat's fun before we went to bed for the night. It was totally worth it! I forgot to put a pick of our green fingernails! We painted all of our nails green with our 'Anti-Pinch' nail polish. Gosh mom....quit slacking! 

With all this sickness in our house, it sure was a good thing that I had a week off of work. I have managed to get a lot done...craft wise that is! I had lots of girls over Thursday night and got my beautiful Origami Owl locket. So excited! 

A Little Craftiness

Here is a few of my crafties that I have worked on over the break! 

Monogrammed running shorts. $16 on Etsy.

Beautiful summer pocket tees! How fun! 

Love this sweet brown tee with the coral and mint! What makes it even sweeter is that it's a size 2T! 

I'm totally smitten with these boy's pocket tees. There is nothing cuter than a little boy with blue/white seersucker! I think I need me a cute little boy to dress in all these preppy clothes! 

More cute running shorts.....I will have tank tops to match coming soon! 

I couldn't resist making some of these rainboots for myself! Cute, Cute, Cute! 

Kisses from Katie

My mother-in-law Alice gave me a book at Christmas and she has asked me twenty times if I have read it. So.....since I am on break and all, I decided to break it out! It is called Kisses from Katie. It is an amazingly beautiful story about a teenage girl that dreamed of doing mission work in Uganda. She quickly made her dream into reality and has pretty much been there ever since. This girl has an amazingly strong faith in Christ. It is truly a beautiful story. I don't want to spoil too much! She has a blog that you should definitely check out. If you manage to make it through the book without shedding a few tears or wanting to give your heart to them I will be very surprised! 

My Struggles

So Lance and I have been trying to have baby #3 for about 9 months now. This is unheard of in the world of babies for us! Addi and Sofie were both conceived within 1-2 months. So I had went in for my annual physical back in June and I had some sketchy blood work. My thyroid was a little off and my iron was extremely low. In the back of my head, I have thought about all of this being connected somehow. So I finally called my OB and make an appointment. I went in and had more blood work done. They called me Friday with the results. My thyroid was still off and they have put me on meds for that. There is so many different symptoms that I have been having as a result of this thyroid issue. With these new meds, I hope to see some changes....for the better! They did a lot of different hormone test that I expect back in the next few weeks. So maybe, just maybe we will be hearing more good news in the future! 

I hope you guys have had a great weekend! Hopefully I can sweet talk Laurin and Jennifer into sharing the Gender Reveal party with you guys! 

Trying Out Some New Ideas

The t-shirts have been such a huge success that I know that one day the fad will come to an end. I am trying to come up with a few new things that I can keep this train moving in the right direction. 

Invitations

I have always designed the girls invitations for birthdays throughout the last few years.....and I absolutely love doing graphic design type of work. I made this cute invite for a friend last weekend. 

If you happen to need some invitations, let me know! I need a reason to do a few more so I have samples to put on Etsy! My friend found a print shop to print these on a nice heavy card stock. Best of all, they only charges her $32 for 40 of them with envelopes! 

Rainboots

I know you have seen the monogrammed rainboots before, right? They are so adorable....and so expensive! They are $59.95 on Etsy and I would love to know how the heck you monogram those big 'ole things. I'm pretty sure my machine would disown me if I tried that! So....me being the creative cheapskate that I am....I found an alternative! It is just as cute! 

I love it! I used my Cricut to cut these on outdoor vinyl. I think I will list the stickers for these on Etsy this afternoon. $7 doesn't seem so bad compared to $60! I have most colors of the vinyl already, so why not! 

T-Shirt Land

I landed by biggest order yet.....18 shirts! That doesn't seem so huge, but I am not a 'for real' monogram shop and I don't have commercial machines! I am cutting and sewing these things with my momma's extra iron and a sewing machine older than me! My monogram machine is only a year and a half old, but this is still quite a project. Mission completed! These will ship out Monday morning, bright and early! 

While I have been working on this order, several more have been rolling in. So I better get my tail off of here and get busy! It looks like I have another 10 to go today! Let the blessings continue on! Life is good! 

Checking In

Like always....this week has been non-stop. I pretty much work from the time I wake up until I hit the bed at night. Last night we took a little family outing with Lance's dad. The girls are always a handful in a restaurant. Isn't that normal for a 3 and 4 year old though? I shocked myself with such a brilliant idea while we were sitting at the table. When you go to restaurants now, they always have some kind of kid menu. Most of them always have a word search on them. Those are useless until you are at least 6 or 7! Addi has been learning her letter sounds at school and Sofie is starting to recognize some letters. So.....I was giving Addi letter sounds and she had to find and circle them on her mat. For Sofie, I was just telling her the letter....only she only lasted for about 30 seconds! Addi loved looking for the letters and was doing a great job matching the sounds with the letters. Make sure you add that to your next round of restaurant-kid-juggling! 

Sometimes when I create stuff it is so hard to let it go! This sweet little dress hit a soft spot with me. I have made tons of these pillow case dresses in the past.....but this one is too sweet! 

I can't get enough of it! Boy am I glad I bought an extra few yards of this material!

Last week, I wrote about a little project I had started collecting junk for over the past weeks/months. Well- I finally finished it! It turned out very nicely! 

A little lantern love! I had seen this on Pinterest ages ago as a bargain project. I must've missed the bargain part of it! It is cute and looks great on my table, but a bargain it was not! I think I ended up spending $30 something along the way. Not horrible, but definitely not a bargain project. 

I have a crazy busy weekend looming over my head.....I think I have 26 shirts to make to be exact. So I better get to it! I have to share this one last sweet pea picture of my Sofie. My Grandma sent her this darling outfit and it looks so adorable on my sweet girl! 

How could I not love this munchkin?!