Oh Baby!

Happy parents-to-be.

What a day! I think the baby shower was a success. We had a great team pulling everything together. I finished the party favors this morning...I was fairly pleased with the way they turned out even if everyone wasn't sure what to do with them. :)

I put a package of daisy seeds (Jennifer's favorite flower) and a package of sunflower seeds in an "envelope" made of cardstock. I crimped the ends of the envelope and then tied a ribbon around it. The baby shower had a garden theme...hence the flower seeds. Here's a picture of the final product.

For prizes, I bought some small garden tools and put them in a clay pot along with more flower seeds and fertilizer spikes. I put a cute ribbon around the clay pot and used spanish moss as filler for the pots. Here's a picture of the prizes.

The decorations and food were awesome. Everything looked really great and the weather was amazing (the baby shower was outside in our prayer garden at church). Emma's arrival is only a month away. I think her parents received a lot of great gifts today to help them prepare for her arrival. More than that...they received a lot of love and support from their family, church family, and friends. Here are a few more pictures of the baby shower. I'll get the rest uploaded to Flickr soon (hopefully tomorrow). Big round of thanks to Amber, Caroline, Carolyn, Jeanette, Tiffani, Beverly, and Caryn (in no particular order - well actually, in alphabetical order by last name) for everything they did. Today was truly a joint effort. We are blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful people.

Mmm...lollipop garden cake.

It's a butterfly!

It's Emma Ruth!

Butt paste!

Future Astros fan!

Happy Anniversary!

It's a couple of days late but...Happy Anniversary to us. Twelve years! This is the first year in a long time that we didn't take a trip for our anniversary. We didn't officially take a trip last year. But we did leave the house and stay at a swanky hotel (last year). This year, we stayed home. No trip. No swanky hotel. We're saving our money for the deductible(s). Two deductibles. Both are for our windstorm coverage. Homeowners insurance won't cover anything associated with hurricanes.

The insurance adjuster was out last week. He said it will take about three weeks to hear anything final. He did say we should replace the garage door now. It was bent during Hurricane Ike but still worked. Of all mornings, the garage door broke the morning the adjuster was here. He actually stayed to help me get my car out so I could go to work after he left. :) Overall, it went well. Most of the repairs will be in the garage (new garage door, replacing sheetrock, repainting, etc.) and repairing/replacing the fence. He wants us to repair most of the fence. I think it would be easier to replace it. We have to replace some shingles but it sounds like the ridge vents are in good shape. Our leaks in the house came from the ridge vents. Not sure about the office yet. We already fixed the trees. So now, it's time to start getting estimates. We have to get three estimates before getting anything fixed. If you know of any reputable roofers, fencers, garage door repairmen, or sheetrock repairmen in the Pearland area...let me know.

What did we get for our anniversary, you ask? We're buying a new garage door! I've always asked for power tools for Christmas. Why not a garage door for our anniversary. :) It's not exactly the traditional gift of silk, the modern gift of linen, or the alternate modern gift of pearls but hey it's our anniversary, our rules. I do like pearls, though (for future reference).

~T

Craftiness Abounds

Craftiness - the quality of being crafty

(not the quality of being disingenuous and lacking candor)

This is the invitation I made for Jennifer & Matt's baby shower. Click on the picture to get a better view. I got the idea from a gift bag we made at Jennifer's house. Carolyn came over, I told her my idea, and we got to work. We got everything done in a few hours over a weekend with the exception of the printing. There were some issues with the date/time that had to be worked out. Once that was settled, I printed the text on vellum, cut them down, punched the border, and attached them to the cardstock with ribbon. I think they turned out pretty good. I really like the stamp set. It might be my new favorite. The party favors were just delivered this week. I need to decide how I'm going to dress them up. I bought everything for the prizes and just need to put them together. I will post pictures of the party favors and prizes later. I can't tell you what they are just yet....don't want to spoil the fun.

~T

Broken Links

Apparently some of the links I set up weren't working. They should be fixed now. Click away.

Brandon Backe Arrested

My favorite Astros player was arrested! I'm sure it's all a misunderstanding. The baseball he autographed is displayed on my dresser. I hope it doesn't become a Brandon Backe autographed baseball, pre-conviction. The article says a FEMA coordinator was also arrested. This all took place on Galveston Island at the San Luis Resort. Tasers, pepper spray, oh my. What has Hurricane Ike created?

Update 10/7/08:

Here's the latest article on Brandon Backe's arrest. It sounds like the Galveston PD has some explaining to do...

Post Hurricane Ike

Things are pretty much back to normal for us post Hurricane Ike. We're both back to work...I missed two days of work post Ike, Jeremy missed two weeks! His school was without power until the 27th or 28th. My office, a whole five minutes from Jeremy's school, either never lost power or regained power by the 14th. Lucky me. :P We're finally able to purchase gas without waiting in line. We're even able to buy bread, milk, and eggs again. It's wonderful. The windstorm adjuster is scheduled to come look at the damages next week. I'll be glad to move forward and make final repairs, especially the fence. It has already fallen over once since Ike. Thankfully, we haven't had any rain since Ike so no more leaks. I just hope the rain holds off for another week or so. The trees are holding up fairly well. Not quite vertical but at least they are still alive. We may try to straighten them a little more but when we straightened them the first time, I got smacked in the mouth with one of the metal stakes. That left a nice cut on my lip. Not fun.

It's been a busy few weeks. I made programs for Jeremy's musical (Birds of Paradise), invitations for Jennifer & Matt's baby shower, and a couple of important birthday cards. Happy Birthday Dad! Happy Birthday Jean! Tonight, I made about 20 Christmas cards. My goal is to actually send out Christmas cards this year. Send me your address, I'll send you a card. :) At least leave a comment, so I know someone's still reading this blog. October resolution...blog more.