Monday the 2nd thru Sunday the 8th

Last week was a very busy week, it seemed like I had too much to do in only a little time. All was accomplished though and thank goodness it's over. Last Monday we left Andrew planting (yay!) and my mom, the girls and I headed to Idaho Falls to pick up last minute items and food for the baby shower I was hosting for my really good friend Margie Walker. I had been planning this Dr. Seuss baby shower since the day I found out she was pregnant. She is expecting a baby boy at the end of June and she loves Dr. Seuss so it just seemed perfect. I gathered several ideas from online, came up with my own and had our friend Diana Wilson come up with some too since she would be co-hosting with me.

About two weeks ago I sent out the invites for the shower. I saw several ideas online as to Dr. Seuss invites and so I kind of meshed together several and came up with this.

I printed them off at Wal Mart, 50 invites. Since there were 50 I decided it would be best to direct each guest in a different area for a gift. So I printed off 10 for Bedroom, 10 for playroom, 10 church, 10 changing table and 10 for bathtub.

Later that Monday I was asked to play in a fundraiser volleyball game, where the high school boys play each other and determine the best team either Fresh, Soph, Junior, or Senior, then that team plays a team made of coaches, teachers and administration. It was fun and I enjoyed playing on a team again.

Then even later that night I got the bug that seems to be going around town, the dreaded stomach flu. Tuesday the day I had planned on doing a lot of preparations for the shower turned into a day in bed watching, "Not Without My Daughter", "The Road Home", and "He Knew He Was Right" thanks to my new best friend Netflix. Fortunately I started feeling better around eight that night and so was able to make the tissue paper puff balls that were to represent the Lorax trees at the shower.

Wednesday morning, the day of the shower, I was no longer sick, the only good thing about the stomach flu, it doesn't last long. I had Diana come over and help make all our delicious refreshments; white chocolate dipped strawberries drizzled with orange colored white chocolate, dipped pretzels sprinkled with red and green sprinkles (How the Grinch Stole Christmas), green deviled eggs with rolled up ham (Green Eggs and Ham of course!), red cupcakes with blue cotton candy hair (Cat in the Hat, Thing 1), fruit trays and veggie trays and lots of colorful candy to represent all of the different colors in Dr. Seuss books. So fun!

Along with all the food I needed to think of a clever way to tell the guests about the first game we would play and also to tell them to write some advice for Margie. Thanks to Diana she came up with the cute poems and the idea to have them write their advice directly in a copy of "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish". Brilliant!

Just like the sneetches in the book we had the guests put stars on thars (bellies) and if they said the word cute then the person who heard them say it could take their star. The person with the most stars by the end of the shower got a prize. It was a fun game and "Cute" is by far the best word to use!

I didn't get a picture of the front book table but we had these two poems displayed, a cute pen for them to use to write in the book and some cute Cat in the Hat stuffed animals to welcome them in.

Since I knew that 50 guests were invited I thought it would be best held at the church so we set up in the Primary room and got out the banquet tables and chairs. After two hours of prep at the church this was our spread! Turned out very Dr. Seussy with the help of the books and stuffed animals.

It was a very good turn out and Margie had great support from co-workers, friends and family. It was fun to get together with a bunch of women in our Ward and town. It's just fun to do that and chat and eat yummy food!

My mom had received the invite that requested a gift for church, and being the ambitious person that she is she decided to make Margie an extremely cute quiet book. After all was said and done, she probably would have chosen something else to make since she did start Monday and the shower was on a Wednesday. But knowing her she put every ounce of creativity into it and it turned out sooo cute! Margie was not expecting it at all and got a little teary eyed thinking about all the work that went into it. (A sewn through finger!)

I went the sewing route too with my gift and since I have been so into quilting lately I decided it only appropriate that I make Margie and Jackson a Dr. Seuss quilt. I, unlike my mom, started mine clear back in February and quilted it in March so I was done over a month ago but it was still very exciting watching Margie open the gift. I was watching so intensely that I missed taking a picture of her with it so here is the collage I made down in UT in March.

Very Dr. Seussy wouldn't you say?

The shower turned out great and definitely a success! Congratulations Margie and Andrew we can't wait to see the little bug! Thanks to Diana Wilson also for all the help she gave, which was a lot!

Thursday was a day of rest, to recuperate from everything and so the day was spent mostly cleaning my very dirty house and playing our new favorite game on the Wii, Just Dance 2! Here is Leah doing her favorite robot dance.

Just Dance 2 brings us to Friday where Andrew was in charge of the Elder's Quorum annual Shrimp Social. If you have never heard of this I'll just have you know that there is no shortage on shrimp! Shrimp, shrimp, shrimp, all you can eat! This year, however, Andrew wanted to change things up a bit and have entertainment to go along with the shrimp. He requested I come up with the activity and the only thing I could think of was Just Dance! So we had the guests write their names on a piece of paper and then separate them into boys and girls and then we would randomly choose songs for four people to dance to. Songs like "Viva Las Vegas", "You Can't Hurry Love", "Sway" and lots more fun songs. I had to MC because Andrew Walker was supposed to do it but was at home with the stomach flu, and Diana Wilson couldn't attend either because she was sick with it too. (Andrew had it Wednesday) OOPS!!! Anyway it was a great night and very entertaining to watch old guys in our ward get their groove on. I loved it and so did everyone else.

Saturday was my volleyball tournament in Jackson Hole, WY. It was pretty much an all day affair but I was able to do some Mother's day Shopping at the fun stores there. I wish I could report that we had done better than we had but the girls were good about it and it takes us one step closer to being done with the whole thing! YAY!

That night we were invited to a Luau birthday party. I think people would have laughed at us Idahoans trying to pull off a Luau in May Idaho spring weather. It was cold, damp from rain and windy but it was a still a fun party because it's really the people who come that make the party fun, not the weather. Thanks to the Smith's for inviting us to their cute Luau.

While at the party, Leah had a slight mishap and tell into a stone fireplace and got a very bloody fat lip and a very large abrasion across her chin. Just in time for her talk the next day, which brings us to Sunday! Mother's day was a good day and since we have church at eleven we were able to have a delicious breakfast of waffles. The girls were sweet and Andrew cleaned up the whole kitchen before church. Thank you thank you thank you! Yes, as I mentioned Leah had to give her first talk in Primary. I can't believe she is old enough to do it but she is. We started practicing on Thursday and I had her do it several times each day. All the practice paid off because she did an amazing job, she spoke clearly and loud enough that everyone could hear her talk about Jesus Christ. I was a proud Mother on Mother's day and so were Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa. It was a very good day at church. After church we were able to talk to Zack in Uruguay and hearing him made me trunky for him because I know that he is coming home in four short months. I'm pretty anxious but nowhere near as much as my mom, which is to be expected. After all that we headed down to Sugar to have dinner with the Hawkes and Schauerhamer family. It was fun to see all of them and to visit.

When we got home that night I was so ready for bed that it didn't take long after I laid down in bed that I was out for the count. It had been an extremely long week and I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. Neither was Lily apparently, when she gets stressed out she sucks on her arm. I wish I had something like that to calm my nerves. ;)  

So I close the door on a very long week and say hello to May which will probably bring more rain showers, beautiful flowers, and fields of green.