Bridal Shower!

A few weekends ago I went to one of my best friend's bridal showers!  Her wedding is in July and I am fortunate enough to be in it!  Kayla and I met in college, roomed together sophomore year and part of junior year.  She was in my wedding and now I get to be in hers!  I'm so excited for it this summer!


The shower was at her parents' house and it was a garden theme.  Kayla is one of those people who loves mix-matchy things so guests were asked to bring a bowl, plate, or cup for her collection.  It was fun to see what people brought!

I was asked to be the recorder for the gifts so I don't have as many pictures as I normally would.

 

Some of her mix-matched collection.

 

So many beautiful plates!

 

The beautiful bride!

 

So one thing about me and Kayla...we both love sign language and have it on our bucket lists to learn ASL.  We have both taken an ASL class (separately) and love to sign to each other to practice.  In college we would try to learn one sign a day.  So I thought long and hard about what dish to get her and found this really cool shop on Etsy called Twin Daisy Designs and the shop specializes in twin products and sign language products!  A match made in heaven for me!  So I contacted the shop owner and she created a mug that has Kayla's name in sign language.  The owner was even sweet enough to waive the rush fee for me!  Kayla LOVED the mug and I really want to get one for myself now!

 

Doing our name signs haha...we're nerds.

 

Her mom asked us to decorate garden stones that Kayla can use at her new house.  These were the two I did.  Another thing about the two of us is that we had four baby turtles as pets our sophomore year of college.  We weren't supposed to have anything more than a fish in a fishbowl but we made friends with the RAs and they thought the turtles were cute so we got to keep them.  We named them after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, hence the TMNT rock.  And in case you were wondering what happened to the turtles, we gave them to a friend's mom who raises turtles once they got too big for the dorm life.

 

Her rehearsal bouquet!

 

Mother's Day

I had to take off work yesterday to have a bump removed from my leg (nothing serious, more of an annoyance so I'm glad it's gone!)  and I thought I'd take advantage of doctor's orders to sit on the couch and elevate my leg to update the blog with a few posts!  We are in that crazy time of year where we have few days left and millions of things to do...it's insane! But the end is in sight and now that it is finally warm, even hot some days, I finally feel like the end of the school year is here.


Mother's Day seems like so long ago...I'm trying to remember what we did!  We took it really easy and lazy that day and didn't even go to church.  We had had a few busy weekends in a row and had more busy weekends coming up so we decided to sleep in (as much as you can do with toddlers) and relax.  My parents came up in the afternoon to visit.  They brought lunch and then we got ice cream & sno-cones afterwards. 

 

Mommy & Noelle

 

They were fighting to sit in my lap and didn't want to share it. I'm also wearing one of my favorite Twin Mama shirts.  I thought it was appropriate for Mother's Day!

 

Ice Cream and Sno-Cones!

For Mother's Day I asked Ben for a Silhouette Cameo printer, which he got me, and it is so neat!  If you don't know what a Cameo is, basically it's a printer that can cut cardstock, vinyl, leather, fabrics, heat transfer vinyl, and so much more!  You use the software to create a design and then load your material and hit print!  I've made a few things and have a list a mile long in my head of more things I want to make!

 

This is the first thing I made.  My printer came with some vinyl to start and I had this glass dish from something, so this was what I made to try my printer out!  I now use it to hold my Cameo tools.

 

Personalized a sand bucket for a birthday present

 

I wanted to try the heat transfer vinyl so I made some shirts for the girls!

 

It will also cut out things, like these tags for my parent volunteer gifts.  It's a little hard to see but the border is Ric-rak style and the printer cut it out for me!

 

Also part of my parent volunteer gifts, I personalized some tumblers for my parents!

We celebrated Mother's Day with my mother-in-law the week after and combined it with a birthday celebration for my father-in-law.  We went out to a brunch buffet that was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! They had these enormous raw oysters, which I loved and probably ate everyone's share.  Then we went back to their house for cupcakes and playtime with the girls.

 

Noelle

 

Natalie

 

Noelle & Aunt Chessie

 

The girls' newest thing is stairs...they LOVE to climb stairs!  They can go up no problem, we're working on how to go down the stairs now.

So a very laid back Mother's Day, which was perfect!

First Trip to the Zoo

I had off school this past Tuesday for Election Day.  Where I live/work, they use the schools as polling places.  It was supposed to be a beautiful day so I asked my friend Kayla if she wanted to go to the zoo with us!  For Christmas, the girls got a year membership to the zoo.  Kids under 2 are free so it was basically a membership for me and a guest, haha!  I have tried to go since March but it's either rained or been too cold or we've just been busy.  So we finally got to go!  Besides waiting in line for over an hour for lunch (that's another story) we had a really great time!  It was hot but there was a really nice breeze that made it tolerable and the zoo had lots of shady places.  The girls did pretty well, especially for missing nap time and having to stay in the stroller.  Their reward was Dip and Dots!  They both enjoyed watching the animals.  Noelle especially liked the giraffes.  She kept point to them and laughing!  At the zoo you can feed the giraffes for $2 so I can't wait to let them feed the giraffes next time we go!  The giraffe feeding station was a bit crowded this time.

 

 

Got our sunscreen on...we're ready!

 

Trying to get to the giraffes!

 

Trying to hold two squirmy, sweaty babies for a picture! And not drop any body in the process.

 

We all wanted to jump in with the penguins...the water looked so refreshing!

After the zoo we headed home to drop Kayla off and then headed to school to vote!  It was the girls' first Election Day and we were lucky that there weren't any lines.  They each got a sticker for being so good!


This past weekend the girls and I (sort of) did a 5K.  The PTA at my school hosts an annual 5K fundraiser each year and this year I participated with the girls, meaning I pushed them in the stroller...which was really difficult now that they're getting big!  I say we sort of did it because part of the course was around the elementary and middle school, meaning through the fields and I could not push the stroller through the grass.  So we did more like a 3.5K and walked all of it.  Regardless it was fun to see some of my students and get some exercise in.  I'm now nursing some shin splints but other than that we did pretty well!

 

(Not so) patiently waiting for the race to start.

 

Mile 2 marker!  Then we hit the fields, which we skipped.

 

So we took a snack break instead!

Hope you had a great weekend!