Our first baby shower was hosted by my mom and I know my pa helped a little! 🙂 I have called baby wild thing because he really likes to move and wiggle. My mom took that and wanted to do the Where The Wild Things Are theme for the shower, it turned out great! She was so creative and worked hard to find the cool decorations! We decided on soup, bread, veggies, hot apple cider and sangria. The guests had a lot of fun. My mom out did herself and it was such a special day! Our peanut is loved by so many and he doesn’t know it yet! 🙂
Here are some fun photos from the shower!
the guests were greeted by the fun porch decorations
My mom had the guests sign the book
My pa picked out the flowers for the table
My cousin was awesome and made the cupcakes and the display
My mom got the picks for the cupcakes
the balloons had Where the Wild Things Are stickers on them
I made sangria
My MIL made the veggie tray and made it into a train! So cute for a boy baby shower
Our food of choice was soup! My mom nailed the soups, corn chowder, wild rice and broccoli and cheese
These were the cute favors we put together for the guests
Thank You Mom and Pa for throwing us a fun baby shower!
We had our 8 week appt the beginning of June and our 12 week appt at the beginning of July. We kept it a secret from family and friends until we finished our 12 week appt. At the 12 week appt, I did the genetic testing to make sure that nothing was present that we didn’t know about it as I am adopted and don’t know my family history. After we got our results back, we asked the nurse to put them in an envelope so we wouldn’t know the gender and decided to do a gender reveal with our family in September.
One of my sisters was bummed that we didn’t let her know sooner; so we decided to make her the keeper of the gender for the reveal. We decided to do the reveal with cupcakes. My sister had stayed at our house to watch Arie and we left the envelope for her and she left a gift for Carl. She said it was hard to open the envelope and actually know what the gender is and she had to keep a secret for a few weeks.
There is a little peanut in there.
My sister got the envelope with the sex of the baby for our gender reveal
She had to drink a glass of wine prior to opening the envelope
About a month ago, the weekend before Carl’s birthday; we had our housewarming party with our friends and I used that party for a dual purpose as a surprise 30th birthday party for Carl. I invited family and they showed up and surprised Carl! We had so much fun, lots of food, friends and laughter. I cooked the main meat-pulled pork sandwiches and grateful enough that our close friends and family brought sides to pass, we had plenty of food! My brother made layered jello shots and he made a layered jello shot birthday cake for Carl. It was intense and delicious, I think there were about 80 jello shots, they were all gone by the end of the night and the cake. 🙂
I had 15 pounds of pulled pork from a local meat market
My little sister brought the big birthday balloon
I hung a birthday banner while I got Carl out of the house
Happy 30th Birthday Honey!!!
Thanks friends for coming and celebrating!
What a great day!
The jello shot birthday cake is almost gone!
Arie was pooped from all the fresh air, pool time and people.
Mother’s Day breakfast at the cafe! Delicious
We really want to extend our love and appreciation to all of our friends and family who came and gave us a great housewarming party and helped celebrated Carl’s birthday! Many of our peeps were close but a handful of them had to travel in a distance so we are so glad you could join us!
Here are some photos over the last month or so. We have been pretty busy with house stuff and needing to be places. We had sisters weekend, our annual dinner with our friends and did a few house projects.
We had sisters day with my sisters and we went to a local winery
It was a beautiful day
This is what happens when you borrow a skirt to your sister. it ends up in the lights
I had to get the push-up from menards
We have a great cityscape
fixing a patch of grass in the backyard
we stopped at the winery again with friends
Carl gave us another good bonfire
We love the firepit
These are four postcards of Duluth where we got married. A few of our friends have found these and gave them to us.
Last weekend Carl’s parents and sister from the west coast came to our house for lunch. His sister hasn’t seen the house at all and his parents haven’t seen it since when we moved in. We have made a lot of changes and done a lot of things.
I wanted to make a yummy lunch, so I went to the one place that I knew I would find a good recipes. I knew Carl’s sister would appreciate and crave a good midwest homemade meal; which consists of meat, potatoes and veggies.
I settled on the following:
PW’s Smothered Pork Chops This was an easy recipe and full of flavor. It was the epitome of midwest food.
PW’s Crash Hot Potatoes I have been made these a few times before and are easy and taste so good. I added rosemary and thyme.
It was a great lunch. Carl’s mom was in charge of dessert and she rocked it! I have had it before but it has been a long time so it was nice to have it again.
It was strawberry pretzel dessert! Delicious!
We had a great Sunday lunch filling our bellies and enjoying each others company! 🙂
I highly recommend all the recipes! Pioneer Woman never disappoints, I have hooked my mother-in-law and sister-in-laws on PW!
It also got Arie’s stamp of approval, he was licking his chops!
A few weeks ago we ordered a area rug from Overstock. I got an email an hour later saying that there was an inventory error and they didn’t have the rug. Which stinks because it was our first purchase for the house. I put the name of the rug into google and it popped up on amazon. So we ordered it from there. I was anxious to get it.
We love the rug! Its nice and soft and fits in the area perfectly. Arie did not like laying on the hard floor but loves the rug! Little by little it’s coming along.
Two Saturdays ago, we went to go see my father-in-law as he is retiring and closing the family jewelry store. It is bittersweet for the family; however, a great adventure is ahead of my in-laws now that they both will be retired. We went Friday so we could see him and then went back Saturday with my sister and friend so they could check it out and we helped with customers. After, Carl, Me, my sister and mother-in-law went out for dinner and went to the local winery! That was a lot of fun and the wine was good! Carl and I had pizza, my sister had a panini and my mother-in-law had oven baked parmesan what was amazing and I am still trying to find a way to re-create it! I am drooling just thinking of it.
Last weekend, we had a wedding to attend. It was a lot of fun, probably one of the best times we have had at a wedding. A friend of our’s son was getting married. The wedding was at a venue I haven’t been too only have heard about. We had time to stop at one of my favorite local establishments for a drink. The decor was beautiful. The bride had a dress that looked stunning on her.
Carl and I literally danced our feet off! I would like to say I had the hottest date and best dance partner, obviously I am bias! 🙂
Dancing the night away
My sister and I
Centerpieces
haven’t stopped dancing
It was a fun night and a good distraction from house stuff.
I would like to think I’m a pretty patient person, but waiting to hear if you are approved to close on a house is HORRIBLE! We weren’t told until the Friday before we had closing. We were scheduled to close on Thursday January 21, 2016. Most people said it would be pretty good if we could close in 30 days from when we put in our offer, apparently that doesn’t always happen that smooth. We wanted to be out of the townhome prior to January 31st so we didn’t have to pay rent for February and then we wouldn’t have to start mortgage payments until March 1st. The week before closing is when all my co-workers and friends decided to tell me all the horror stories of their house experiences. NOT COOL and it only made me more anxious. I was relieved when my signature was on the last page.
Outside of the house.
We closed on Thursday January 21, 2016 and had all the papers signed by 10:00am that morning. We have great families and friends. One of my sisters came Thursday with the big suburban, you don’t know how much they hold until you pack them full. She also helped me clean the kitchen so everything was all clean and ready for my mom to put all the kitchen stuff away. We made 4 trips total on Thursday. We brought Arie and his stuff that night to let him be there without the distraction of everyone else.
Oh Arie loved the backyard
I think he lost the ball
Lots of kitchen boxes
Plenty of boxes for my mom to help unpack
Arie in his new house
The next two days were crazy busy, we were up by 5:30am every morning, packing and moving boxes. Carl’s parents came on Friday morning with both vehicles! We were able to pack a lot in both vehicles. My friend came to help move all the precious wine making things-very important plus we packed our vehicle. We got a lot moved that day, my friend was on her game and started unpacking kitchen boxes to get stuff in the cupboards-thank goodness, I would have been lost! lol My parents showed up later with lots of yummy food for all of us to have lunch! Which was nice to have our parents there. My mom started really helping to unpack the kitchen was beyond helpful and my Pa and Carl were looking at what they were going to need from Menards. Then we went back to the townhome and finished getting everything ready for Saturday for the movers. I was really sad on Friday night because we were leaving a place where we had lots of memories, we loved our neighbors and our pond.
On Saturday morning, the movers were coming to move all of our big stuff/furniture. It was really nice of my parents to come Saturday morning as well! The movers rocked, they had all of our stuff packed up and moved to the other house and unpacked in just under 4 hours, so our quote and final price was much cheaper! 🙂 We did more unpacking, two of my other sisters showed up to help. One helped set up the beds and make them, the other was awesome and cleaned all of our bathrooms. My brother showed up later and helped Carl with wiring a few things for the computer for his work.
This is Arie while we were waiting for the movers
Front door-new house
downstairs-new house
Gotta love the frig art
Yay, we got TV! lol
Arie and I were so pooped and had to relax a little
We are beyond blessed and thankful for all the help from our families and friends. Now to get settled!
The last month, was nothing short of quiet; that is a LARGE reason for my absence. Carl and I had been looking at houses on and off for the last year, which felt like forever. We found a house that fit us so we put an offer in in mid December. The house had been on the market for a few months and it’s winter here. So the odds were in our favor.
This house was exactly what we were looking for: 4bd 3ba, just over 2,000 sq ft, a fenced yard, open layout and close to work
Friends with kids kept saying a house with 3bds on one floor is a big deal for having kids. We had a hard time finding a master bedroom that had a master suite was hard to come by. We wish the yard was a tad bigger with acreage; however, we have one of the bigger lots. It is a quiet neighborhood, which we like, close to highways and literally EVERYTHING! We can get to any store or place within 10 mins or less. That is a big change because in our last home we were at least 20 mins from the nearest highway. We are much closer to family, friends and my work, which is a huge plus.
Arie, was very unsure of what was going on with all the packing and moving of boxes. He definitely knew something was up.
Here are a few pictures.
We had all these boxes up in the loft and in closets. We had to bring them downstairs
I had packed all the wine glasses away, so this is what I had
my power food, it a GF California Pizza.
Not sure about all the packing and moving of boxes
Poor Arie, he was looking pathetic and unsure of what was going on
Sweet boy
We literally moved up, north of the metro and moved out; as Billy Joel said it best!
A while back, I found a blog on Pinterest that was a budget friendly food site. The blogger breaks cost of meals down by meal, individual serving and ingredient price. The blog is Budget Bytes. I love the descriptions and the step by step photos.
The last month, we have been beyond busy with packing and moving but I made a point to make sure we got a good meal in between all the chaos.
This is the photo of our dish.
I added mushrooms, rotisserie chicken, white wine, lemon and red pepper flakes. I also used gluten free noodles so it is a gluten free dish. It was easy to make. Carl gave it a 8 or 9 out of 10 for taste.
Go Blondie! 