she wore an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini

The week before Gracie arrived, my sisters and I hosted a lingerie shower for our future sister, Jessica. We had a blast and think it turned out too cute!

I'm hoping the insane amount of pictures I am planning to upload doesn't slow down the blog...we'll see!

So a few months ago, Kim came up with such a cute theme for the shower....yellow polka dot bikini! Perfect, not only because we had never seen this theme used before, but yellow was one of Jess' wedding colors. We (Kim, Steph and myself) all got together and started planning.

We started with invitations.

We found a great shop on etsy that we loved. Tori from SweetBeeDesigns was amazing to work with. We told her exactly what we had in mind and what we wanted our invite to say and she immediately set up a custom listing and had a proof back to us in no time! She was willing to send as many proofs as we needed to be 100% content. I'm not kidding when I tell you she was super fast. She also custom made our toppers...

food labels...

and water bottle labels.

I didn't print out the water bottle labels until the Friday night before the party (not smart!) and came across some trouble getting them lined up with my blank water bottle labels. I emailed Tori and she literally had the problem fixed in a matter of minutes. It had something to do with her using a PC and me using a mac. I was really impressed that she responded so quickly on a Friday night. Another reason why I will use her again and would recommend her to any of you if you have a party or shower, and need some cute invites or party printables.

So, here are our invites ready to be sent out in the mail...

I added a cute bikini to the return address labels from the PDF file I purchased.

Front door sign...

We decided to have a dessert bar along with our dinner.

Steph and I made this doilie banner to hang above all of our sweets. :)

Here are some of our desserts....

Paula Deen's lemon blossoms

Petit fours

lemon squares and lemon cookies...lots of lemon!

chocolate covered pretzels

thumbprint cookies

white chocolate fountain with marshmallows, rice krispy treats, brownie bites, and fruit skewers

...and the only thing on our dessert bar that we can't take credit for baking ourselves (we just added the doilie wrappers), were these amazing cupcakes from Twist. They were cream cheese pound cake and I'll say it again...they were AMAZING! And how cute are those fondant toppers? There were three different designs and in my last minute haste, I didn't get a picture of the other two, polka dots and a "D" for Jess' soon to be new last name. :)

For dinner we had chicken parmesan and chicken alfredo from a local Italian restaurant and a homemade salad.

We made Jess a birdcage blusher veil. :)

We had paper straws and made personalized name flags so we could all keep up with our drinks.

Playing a fun game to the tune of "itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini"

I hope no one is offended by this next picture... Everyone was asked to bring an extra pair of panties that suited their personality. Jess had to guess who brought each pair. I have seen this game played so many times and I have never seen anyone get as many right as she did. She probably guessed 95% correct...CRAZY!

Do you see the garland on the back of that chair? We hand made fabric ruffled garland and had it hanging in a few different places throughout my house. It's so girly and so fun! My sewing machine and I became best buds and spent a few really late nights/extremely early mornings together making sure that the garland got finished. :) If you sew regularly then I'm sure this would be no problem for you, but it literally took me forever! It was worth it though and we will definitely be using it again at other parties. So, I'm sure you'll see it again on the ol' blog. :) Toot here.

Jess, got to open some pretty packages...

Don't worry, I'm not sharing what was inside those pretty packages.

Group shot with some of our ruffled garland in the background.

Our traditional bikini cookies and a water bottle for the road...

Unfortunately, our cookies didn't turn out as pretty as we prefer. Sometimes royal icing can be a royal pain! :)

Sisters are the best!!!!

A little Dr. Pepper to get us through clean up....  :)

Jess was too kind and bought us all hostess gifts...

HeartArt by Kathy Cate...love it!!

Jess, we had a blast planning this shower especially for you! We are so excited to have you as our sister! Love you!

Stephens, party of four...

Gracie is three weeks now and she is such a wonderful addition to our family. She is such a good baby and I am so thankful for that! She doesn't cry, she grunts. It's the sweetest little grunt you've ever heard. :)

I thought for sure I would have been back by now, filling my blog with sweet baby pictures. But, in the last 2 weeks, we have been busy little bees. We have celebrated a 60th birthday (my dad), a 2nd birthday (Ella Claire), been a part of a bridesmaid luncheon, wedding rehearsal, rehearsal dinner and a beautiful wedding (Brian & Jess). All of which I will share pictures of very soon. I also want to go back and tell a little about the shower I helped host, the week before Gracie arrived. Today though, it's all pictures of Gracie and us as a family of four. Hope you enjoy them.

Last pregnant picture, taken right before we headed out the door for the hospital. My mom came to pick up Ella Claire after we called to tell her I was in labor.

Jeremy checking out the monitors...

His first time holding Gracie, just a few minutes old. Can't believe I actually thought to grab the camera and snap this picture, so glad I did!

Ella Claire's first glance at her little sister.

I love this picture with my mom in the background.

I'm sure you're wondering why I put this ridiculous picture of myself on here. :) It captures Ella Claire's reaction just perfectly though. She was so giddy and excited about her new sister! We were all laughing at how hysterical she was.

First photo of us as a family of four. We couldn't get EC to drop the sippy cup.

Such a GOOD daddy! What is he going to do with all of us girls!!

Ready to go home!

The picture to the left is of Ella Claire on the day we came home from the hospital and the one to the right is of Gracie on the day we came home from the hospital. They both wore the same coming home day gown and bonnet. Do you think they look alike? :)

                                              Ella Claire                                                                       Gracie 

                                      2009                                                                             2011

 

First picture at home.

It's a tradition in our family to have a welcome home cake for mom and baby. 

We were supposed to celebrate Jeremy's birthday after church, the day Gracie was born. We celebrated the night we came home from the hospital instead.  So, daddy got a cake too. :) Probably over 15 years ago, my mom started making us cookie cakes for our birthdays. We have continued that and now even our spouses get a cookie cake. They are sooo good! We like them very gooey; not raw, but close. :) 

Gracie brought big sister a gift when she came home from the hospital.
An Elmo balloon.

A new mickey mouse coloring book.

And, her own laptop, so she can write emails and update her blog. :)

Ella Claire is still giving lots of kisses and loving her new role as big sister.

1 week old

2 weeks old

Now that things have slowed down at our house for a while, I'm hoping to be back a little more regularly with updates from our family.  Have a wonderful week!