Baby Shower Brunch

I promise that my life as a modern mommy consists of more than just party planning. Between Harper's birthday party and this baby shower brunch, the last few months were consumed with all things party. If I could turn this hobby into a profitable job, I would do it in an instant. I really love planning the party. I love finding tasty food ideas that go along with a theme. I love creating activities that will guests will remember and I love finding and making the party decorations.  However, when it comes to hosting or having to talk above a large group of people I usually depend on my husband to take the reins. In this case, my friend Jess was the one I leaned on for that. Jess, Katie and I were roommates in St. George while we went to Dixie State College. It seems like a thousand years ago, but whenever we get together it brings back all of the fun, care-free memories we had in college. Now it’s been a few years, we have all gotten married and are starting families. Katie is the third one to join our mommy club and we are all eagerly anticipating her baby girl’s arrival. A couple of weeks ago Jess and I, along with some help from Katie’s family, threw her a Baby Shower Brunch. Here are a few of the highlights.

 The menu consisted of yummy breakfast casseroles, mini cinnamon rolls, fruit and dip, muffins and some colorful doughnut holes.

We played a baby food guessing game. I was surprised how few people would actually try the baby food.

 

We asked each guest to sign the picture frame matte. They also each chose a letter of the alphabet and made a flashcard for the baby's ABC book. 

 

Guests each took home a hand sanitizer and friendly reminder to use it before holding Katie's baby.

It was a fun morning. Katie and her baby were showered with adorable clothes and other gifts. We can't wait for that little girl to get here! I'm sure Katie feels the same way!

Harper is Two- Sesame Street Party

I find the title of my blog perfectly fitting to explain why I haven't posted in over 3 months. Being a modern mommy is all consuming; it consumes all of me and all of my time! Tonight however, I rewarded myself. Since I finished paying the bills before midnight, I decided I had some time to work on the blog. Well, now it has been a couple of hours and I have a nice new header on the blog...and I also have bloodshot eyes. Posts written at 1:00 AM could become a common occurrence around here if I want to post more than once every three months. I'm not going to make any promises, but I would like to reassure the one follower I have that I am re-committing myself to this blog. And if 1:00 AM postings is what it takes, then so be it!

So what has been consuming all of my time lately?  Harper’s second birthday party is partly to blame for the craziness. Or as my hubby (the modern daddy) would say, “my craziness is to blame for Harper’s birthday party". This year his party was supposed to be scaled down a bit, I guess I don’t really know how to do scaled down. I blame it on Pinterest. I just love planning parties, especially when they are for the people I love most!

 

This year we held his party at the Treehouse Museum. Harper loves that place and it made the party planning a bit easier on me because I didn’t have to come up with activities for the little ones.

 

I had a lot of fun with the food and decorations. Harper was in love with Sesame Street this last year, so I had a long time to think of and find fun ideas!

 These D.I.Y centerpieces were purchased from Etsy.

 My talented sister made the cupcakes and cake. She rocks! Check out her website. Harper's favorite was the cookie monster cupcake. I think the cookie on top may have swayed him...

I think everyone had a pretty good time. It was a lot of fun to plan and prep for. I'm glad it's over and that we have our house back. For a good month before the party most of the house was covered in Sesame Street monsters. My husband is extremely patient, understanding and helpful when it comes to my parties. I can't believe my little guy is two now. He has morphed, overnight it seems, from this little baby into an independent, stubborn little person. It's hard to remember life before I became his mommy.

Back to Blogging

I've been on a hiatus from the blogging world for almost a year. After Harper was born, things other than blogging just seemed to take a higher priority. Of course I try to keep up our private family blog for journaling purposes, but let's be honest it hasn't been updated since Halloween. Things such as changing diapers, constantly doing laundry and trying to discover a meal that my child would take more than three bites of seem to swallow up most of my day.

After getting Harper in bed tonight, I walked through the house hopelessly staring at all there still is to do. Baskets of laundry that need folding, piles of who knows what that need organizing, meals that need to be planned and shopped for, home improvement projects uncompleted and that's just to name a few. Where did the weekend go? It's not like it was a lazy weekend in our house, it was fairly busy. At the end of it I had hoped to check a few of those items off my list, not add another one to it like starting a new blog.

So why come back now? It's not as if my life has suddenly slowed down, allowing me ample time for blogging. In fact, after finally making it to bed tonight, I was bombarded with a rush of thoughts that needed somewhere to go. So I begrudgingly shuffled down the stairs to the computer to try to organize some of those thoughts. Most of them about being a mom and all that goes along with it. I need an outlet; I need somewhere to write about what goes wrong in my day and brag about the few things that go right. I need other moms to tell me I'm not alone and that their laundry isn't done either.

Earlier tonight, after feeling like a failure as a house keeper (which also contributes to my worth as a mom and wife, right?) I messaged a friend who is also a new mom, hoping to discover I wasn't alone. I asked her if “she felt like she would ever be on top of everything there is to do?” Thankfully her response was “heavens no!” In fact she had also just been surveying the aftermath of a busy weekend and wondering if she couldn’t stay on top of things now, how she would ever be able to! It was extremely comforting to know I wasn't the only one doubting how I could take on more; more hours working outside our home, having another baby, and buying a larger house to keep up with. If I can't do it all now, how can I possibly consider doing more?

I don't have the answer, but my hope is that with this blog I can find fellow moms that have the same questions racing through their minds as they try to fall asleep at night. Moms who at the end of the weekend, look at the state of their house with disgust instead of pride. Maybe a few moms will know the answers or have some tricks up their sleeves, please enlighten me! Maybe we can share easy recipes, preferably ones that toddlers enjoy that don't include chicken nuggets from McDonalds. And I would love to share the moments when I do feel "on top" of things; because there are definitely times of the day when I do feel on top of the world. When Harper tries to say "I love you" (which in Harper language can only be written as "lalalu") or I watch him giggle as he plays with his daddy, those are the moments I have to keep replaying in my mind. If I don't I will surely convince myself that I am a horrible wife and mom when in the morning the hubs will most likely have to pull a clean shirt out of the laundry basket for work.