june was june-ing

the little miss had received so many cute new clothes at the shower, so the old lady asked me if i could make something to help keep them all organized.  i remembered a file i’d bought a long time ago for the embroidery machine to make dividers like the ones you might see in a department store, so i pulled out the ol’ supply basket and busted these out:

they worked perfectly.

with her maternity leave looming near, she offered to get me into disneyland at least one more time.  you know i’m not gonna turn that down.

graduation season always brings me at least a few cookie orders.

the hub told me and the bean to save a date on our calendar for an outing with him, and we were pretty excited when the surprise took us to dodger stadium for pride night.

i was even more excited when we got to our seats and i spotted a familiar face on the field getting ready to make the “it’s time for dodger baseball!” announcement:  lance bass, from the best boy band to ever boy band.

right after the announcement, we watched him walk off the field and i figured that was that.  but then the bean pointed to the section just below us and there he was, taking a seat just rows away.

the bean poked at me and said “just go down there and say hi!” but i was kind of frozen in place.  plus he was having a great time chatting with his friends and i didn’t want to impose.  oh well.

we got to take a fun road trip to vegas with the hub for a weekend, and while he played in the world series of poker (spoiler: he got knocked out after two days) the bean and i were free to run amok up and down the strip.

we browsed through the shops at caesar’s:

and stopped in at the m&m store.

and while they definitely gave me the stink eye when i asked, they stopped to recreate an old photo for me.

but i think all was forgiven when i said yes to waiting in the hour-long line for the bacchanal buffet, which they’d seen on instagram.  i gotta say, everything was delicious and the selection was pretty amazing.  

the old man has a december birthday - like the week before christmas.  we definitely celebrate the day, but this last year he kind of got lost in the shuffle because they were literally moving on his actual birthday. so i’d told the old lady that we’d make him a cake on his half birthday - even better because he wouldn’t be expecting it.  sure enough, it was a total surprise.

when the little miss arrived, i got to spend a couple of days with stevie and june.  they were confused when i walked through the door, but while stevie got his wiggles out and went potty, june grabbed her blanket out of her crate to bring to me as a present.

we visited the little family in the hospital every day that they were gone.

after the last visit, the bean and i finally got to go to chubby cattle, a japanese bbq restaurant we’d been wanting to try forever.  between the wagyu and the unlimited milk tea bar - well, let’s just say it was totally worth the wait.

we’d signed the bean up for a summer program at UCLA that focused on scenic design - creating sets and props for film and tv production.  it was a two-week program and the start date was right around the old lady’s original due date, so my plan had been to just commute with the bean so that i could be close by should i be needed for anything.  but since the little miss decided to join us early, we booked a room at hotel angeleno, less than ten minutes away from  the UCLA campus.

after we checked in, we headed out to sawtelle to check it out.  the bean wanted to have some uni pasta at a restaurant they’d seen on instagram (of course, heh) and so we had dinner here:

afterwards, we took a stroll up and down the street to see what else there was.  we stopped for filipino dessert here:

and the next morning, i dropped them off here:

i got to spend the next few days just kind of wandering around west l.a. - shopping at century city mall, walking through the grove, browsing through the shops at 3rd street promenade in santa monica.  the hub even came out to see me one day for lunch. 

it was really fun being a temporary resident on the west side, but i was happy to go home at the end of the week.  i’d missed my family, and my own bed, and not having to fight traffic to get anywhere, and not paying for parking everywhere.

i guess i really am built for the suburbs.

a “berry sweet” afternoon indeed

helping to plan the old lady’s baby shower was so much fun because it was being thrown by rock-ell and the bean.  rock-ell had a lot of great ideas, and with the mommy-to-be’s stamp of approval on the “berry sweet” strawberries theme, we went to town on figuring out all the party details.

i was more than happy to provide the cookies for the favors, of course.

for the centerpieces, the old man’s mom volunteered to assemble little berry baskets filled with flowers.  the vision involved placing three of those baskets on each table and then using tall clear vases filled with those clear water beads and fake strawberries.  the beads would give the illusion of the berries floating in air.  we managed to find some at michaels to do a test run and see if it would actually work (it did), and then ordered more beads in bulk from amazon.  when they arrived, the beads were tiny - smaller than a grain of rice - and the instructions said to hydrate small amounts of them in a gallon of water.

i knew we needed at least ten vases of them and really had no idea how many beads we’d need, so i just kind of winged it and filled a bunch of random containers.

it didn’t take very long for those beads to suck up the water and expand to their full size, and i definitely ended up with far more beads than we needed.  oops.

but we were super excited when we assembled a sample and added some childhood photos of the parents-to-be.  it turned out pretty much exactly as we’d been picturing, so yay!

no special occasion is complete without a cake from our favorite bakery.  look how cute it turned out:

walgreens to the rescue for the welcome sign that we placed at the entrance.

i’d seen an ad somewhere for a really cute guest book idea - they send you an OG rotary phone to place on a table.  guests pick up the handset, wait for the tone, leave a voice mail message and then hang up.  after the party, you send the phone back and the company transfers those messages onto a flash drive, with an option to have them pressed onto a vinyl record.  super cute, right?

there was a table to collect diapers that guests brought for the diaper raffle.

and we’d had a fun outing to l.a. earlier in the week to pick out candy in bulk for the candy bar.  because is it a party without a candy bar?  i think not.

the gift table was set up nearby.

and next to that, the balloon arch and backdrop.  gotta have a photo op, amirite?

we’d printed out all of the materials for the games we were going to play, and to save time we went ahead and placed it all at each table setting along with a cute pink pen and the cookie favors.

with a good amount of time to spare, we finished the setup and the mommy-to-be finally got to see it all.  i knew she was probably feeling some anxiety because she’s really not one for being the center of attention.  she’d opted for a co-ed shower though, so at least the old man would be there to take some of the pressure off.  she was more than happy to share the spotlight with him.

guests started arriving not too long after that, and it was nice to see everyone come out to celebrate the new family.  i was happy that i’d been allowed to invite my friends, who are all super excited to be aunties.  or maybe they’re grannies, heh.

i was super amused watching everyone play the silly games we’d set up, and my friend trish absolutely dominated the candy bar diaper game, winning a gift card to taco bell.

even funnier was the blindfolded diapering game.  it was total madness in there.

and then in an effort to keep everyone interested during the typically boring gift opening segment of the party, we put out baby shower bingo cards to play.  

it was a really lovely party, and they received lots of awesome, useful gifts for the little miss.  we’re so grateful to everyone for coming out to celebrate with us, and for their generosity and thoughtfulness.