Baby Shower {Little Monkey}

Saturday, we celebrated the upcoming arrival of my niece, Maddi at a couples shower of family and friends.

Her nursery is monkey-themed, so of course the shower theme had a great jumping off point.  My sister-in-law Jessica did a great job putting it together.  

 

They even had advise cards for guests to fill out.

Diaper cake decorations...brilliant!  There is a great tutorial on how to make them here.

 One of my favorite things from the shower: Maddi cookies!

 The food was mexican themed... so I brought my Aunt Linnet's Spinach Queso...so good.

My other favorite thing from the shower, was that everyone brought a book to sign instead of a card so that they could start Maddi's library.  I was so paranoid that they were going to get two of the same book, I picked one that I had never heard of in hopes that no one else would.  

We ended up bringing: 

She got some really great books...and surprisingly each one was different!  

I can't wait to meet sweet little Maddi!

Oklahoma!

On the flight to Oklahoma, I had the title song from Rogers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma stuck in my head... "Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the lane..."


It really was windy there!  We had a great weekend visiting with family and celebrating the wedding of my dear cousin Alyssa.


Here are some picture highlights:


The rehearsal wouldn't have been complete without a ribbon bouquet... 

 

Rehearsal Dinner at BJ's (can you tell there was mood lighting?!?)

The Helveston/Ludtke girls!!

Bridal lunch at Blu's - complete with delicious cupcakes

and super cute favors!!

 

the lovely bride halfway through the hair process ;)

and the cake!! Yum - I love me some butter cream icing!

There was a lot of fun and sweet moments to be had.  

Congrats to the happy couple - Mr. and Mrs. Ross Sandlin!!

Christmas & New Years

Christmas was a fantastic 7 day event!  


Day 1


We kicked it off with the annual Honeycutt Christmas Party.  It was a great night of food, fun, family...and Dirty Santa Bingo.  Imagine this: the rules of white elephant and $5 mystery gifts, but instead of getting a number, in order to get a turn you have to win a round of holiday Bingo.  


These were our spoils (hint: the Scrabble SLAM was mine):

It was Italian theme, so what a better contribution than delicious Chocolate Truffle Cheesecake.  I hardly ever make cheesecake, since it is last on Wesley's long "I love desserts" list.  Thankfully, the rest of his family loves it, so I didn't feel guilty.  I was able to snap a photo just before we cut into it:

Day 2

Another day of Honeycutts!  The highlight was the all too intense monopoly game.  I confess, monopoly is not one of the games on the top of my list, so Penny took my place on Wesley's team:

 It was a good match - they won!

Day 3

We spent Christmas day with my family.  It was so great and relaxing.  I LOVE my family! In true Helveston tradition, we had a fabulous Olde English Christmas complete with standing rib roast and yorkshire pudding.  The dogs got these to nibble on:

Candy cane rawhides!

Day 4-6

Our Christmas present was our trip to Charleston for New Years.  

We had a great time roaming those gorgeous streets, shopping at the market, and eating at Charleston's finest.  My favorite place was Poogan's Porch.  It is a life experience must!  If you need a direction - the shrimp and grits are to die for.

Day 7

Probably the most exciting day of all was yesturday....when Wesley got offered a job!  He will be starting as a programmer at Supply Point Systems on Monday!!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Late Start

I had every intention of beginning this blog with our fantastic Christmas weekend...


...and then we had some serious internet connection problems!  Wesley came to the rescue, but an hour later... and we were still having problems.


However, I was able to get a few chapters farther in Mockingjay, the third book of the Hunger Games.   If you haven't discovered the Hunger Games yet, you should!  Here is a preview of the upcoming movie of the first book:

So excited!

P.S. - Christmas post coming soon!