Baby Shower Marathon

Last Saturday I literally had a marathon of baby showers - three in one day! Luckily they were at different times so I was able to attend all three!

10:30am - Jordan

Jordan and I used to work together at SJC. We were both on the corporate side, she in HR and me in Accounting. Fun times! Jordan is having a baby boy, name to be announced upon arrival. Her five (yes five!) sisters threw her the shower, it was so nice to meet all of them and to catch up with Jordan! She just exudes cuteness!

12:00pm - Amy

I feel like I've known Amy forever. We met while working at Hogan & Slovececk and then she became my boss at SJC. I have since left but she's still trekking! Amy is always smiling, she's one of those people that continues to laugh even if she's having a bad day! She should be an inspiration to us all! This is baby #3 for Amy, Baby Boy Alex. Alex is being welcomed by big sisters Marlena and Paris. Our friend Monica thought it would be nice to have a little shower for Alex so he can have some boy stuff.

2:00pm - Rachael

Rachael works with AB and the shower was hosted by another of their co-workers, Rebecca. It seems like Rachael just returned from London where she spent 2 years on an International Exchange with the firm. (I'm very jealous of this - I've been trying to talk Andy into the program for years to no avail!) Now she is having a baby, sex unknown. I think it's so fun not to find out the sex!

Point and Shoot Part II

Shawnna and I finished our photography class...oh two weeks ago and I'm just getting around to posting about round two. In our second and final class we learned about metering mode (exposure based on brightness/color of central point) and taking pictures in thirds instead of having your subject be directly in the middle of your shot. This thirds thing is going to take some getting used to and lots of practice. I am lucky to have a grid on my camera screen but I'm still having a hard time not centering things in the center of the grid. Here are some practice shots I took of my trust worthy assistant.

All in all I thought it was a good class. When I have more free time I would like to see what else Jenks Community Education has to offer.

Mind Reading

Do you ever wish your husband was a mind reader? This is a common issue in my marriage – my husband just isn’t able to read my mind. Does anyone else have this issue? I guess I thought the day we said “I Do” meant we were one and he totally knew what was going on inside of my head. For instance, I thought when he heard me making a ruckus while loading 2 card tables and 8 chairs into my Jeep by myself he would come running or when he enters the room and I am putting new sheets on our bed that would drum up a sympathy offer to help, but this is not always the case. I tend to get upset when he doesn’t read my mind which then causes a disagreement because he expects me to actually ASK for help. What? This isn’t what I signed up for – hello, what happened to my very own Miss Cleo?

I realize it is ludicrous for me to expect him to read my mind but a girl can dream can’t she? I also need to give my husband some credit, he does a LOT and when I mean a lot, if I told you all that he does you would probably wonder what in the heck I do around here ;)

Lack of Focus

I’m lacking focus these days. Not really in the home or work department but definitely in the study department. I’ve been trying the walk/run thing to clear my head but lets face it there are only so many hours in the day and I don’t always have time to fit that in. My study buddy’s lack of motivation isn’t helping me either. I'm pretty sure the only thing that motivates her is food.

I’m using study materials from Becker (all of you CPAs know about Becker). I’m thinking about writing to them and suggesting they redo their study materials to read more like US Weekly. I seem to soak up useless celebrity information like a sponge. Maybe if my study materials used examples like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were not legally married at the end of 2010 but they lived together for the entire year, which filing status can they use? Which one of them can claim their six kids as exemptions? How much can they deduct for each of their 10 vacation homes? How much money do they have to report for foreign income earned? It would be much more interesting to learn in that type of format don’t you think? I would have this stuff down in no time! For now I’ve got to get back to my mind-numbing study materials before AB disowns me.

Baby Shower Mania

AB and I used to attend what seemed like a wedding a weekend. In recent years we have graduated from weddings to baby showers. In the past couple of months I’ve hosted two and attended one. Next weekend I have a baby shower marathon with three in one day! This past Friday we hosted a couple’s for our good friends Brian and Alisha.

Please note this pic of the expectant couple is from another shower, I am very frustrated with myself because I took absolutely no pictures of this event! I’ll just have to give you the gist of it and you can use your imagination. Baby T’s nursery is pink and green so I decided to go with a pink and green theme. I sent out these cute invites from Tiny Prints.

My friend Addie made a super cute diaper cake that I used as a centerpiece for my dining table. I was lucky to find these pink and green gems at Sam’s and I put them out on my mantle and the other tables I had set up for guests to sit at.

I also adorned the mantle with a banner my friend Katie and I made that spelled out Brian and Alisha’s last name and had their baby pictures on it.

For dinner we went with an Italian theme and served tomato vodka pasta, salad, bruschetta, a savory cheesecake and garlic bread. For dessert I had my MIL’s famous chocolate chip walnut cookies and pink and green cupcakes. The drink list included a pink martini and too keep it cold I added frozen green grapes (the frozen fruit trick is great because it doesn't water down your drink like ice). Everything turned out so cute, I'm just kicking myself for not taking any pics!! I also want to take this opportunity to give a shout out to my MIL Melissa who drove to Tulsa to help me out, I couldn't have done it without her!

Since I don’t have any pics of Brian & Alisha's shower, I will share some from the baby shower my friend Addie and I threw for our friend Liz back in August. Liz is having a baby boy in October.

Addie took the pics with my dream camera, they look like they’re from a magazine! We had a brunch shower and served mini quiche, mango salsa and potato casserole. We also set up a yogurt bar and had these super cute donuts made at OK Country Donut Shoppe.

My MIL bought this super cute punch bowl for me a few months ago and I was so excited to have an opportunity to use it!

Addie also made this diaper cake so you can envision what the other one looked like. She is a woman of many talents!

I'm kind of on a roll here so I'll go ahead and share a few pics from the girls shower my friend Shonda and Karla threw for Alisha. Here is a pic of the hottie hostesses :)

Look at this spread! Shonda did the flowers herself, aren't they gorgeous? Talk about another woman of many talents!

Shonda always has funny napkins at her parties and this one was no exception.

Here is a pic of the four of us. Karla and Shonda put on a great shower, it was lots of fun! I look forward to the one they'll be throwing for me someday...(maybe ha ha)!







Note to self: never put pics Addie has taken with pics I have taken in the same post, mine sort of pale in comparison!

Point and Shoot Part I

Last night my SIL, Shawnna, and I started a two-part photography class. We are taking it through Jenks Community Education. They offer lots of great classes and the best part is the classes are inexpensive. Our class is teaching us how to optimize the use of a point and shoot camera. Although I long to have an SLR camera, for the time being I am making the most with what I have. I currently own a Sony Cyber-shot, it's a great camera and I would highly recommend it to anyone. Last night our instructor taught us about shooting in manual mode. This makes for the best pictures because you can select settings based on your surroundings and the subject you are photographing. We learned about aperture, shutter speed and white balance. A lot of cameras allow you to set the aperture and then the camera figures out the shutter speed but my camera is full manual mode where I have to set both so it's going to take a lot of practice for me to get good at it. Last night I came home and got right to work on my favorite test subject.

Tavia makes a great model because she stays still for long periods of time :)

Channeling Flo-Jo

I’ve decided to take up running jogging again. In case you are wondering, by definition jogging is trotting at a leisurely pace and running is a fast paced jog. Anywho, I’ve been having a hard time coming home from a busy day at work and hitting the books so I thought it would be a good idea to jog or walk for 20-30 minutes to help clear my head. Although I didn’t work today, while eating breakfast I got sucked into these Librarian movies with Noah Wylie and little did I know there are multiple. When the 3rd one came on I decided to turn off the TV and activate my plan because I had a lot of studying to get done. As I was jogging along at a tortoise pace I began wondering what makes a person extremely fast? I doubt this is something that has ever crossed your mind but for some reason sprinters really amaze me. I used to be an avid runner, but I’ve always preferred long distance, sprinting has never been my forte. I always enjoy watching the track events of The Summer Olympics. Those runners have like super human speed and on top of that they are wearing 10 lbs of bling! Some of the women have quite a bit of junk in the trunk too (and mind you none of it is fat). Maybe that’s my problem, I have the figure of a prepubescent boy with absolutely no junk and no muscle anywhere! I just think it would be cool to be able to drop into conversation things like have I mentioned I can run 100 meters in 10.49 seconds? People will think you’re like Wonder Woman! For now I will accept the fact that I will never be fast and that’s ok because when would I have time to fit in training for The Olympics?

Get Out of the Road!

Today AB and I almost witnessed a catastrophe. As we were driving down Riverside a large truck swerved off the road to miss hitting a squirrel. I know they’re cute but they’re just rodents with a puffy tail, definitely not worth risking your life for! My sweet husband said “I wish they wouldn’t do that. You’d think after watching several of their friends and relatives die they wouldn’t want to run into the road.” I didn’t really have the heart to tell him that squirrels don’t exactly have the same intellect we do.

Before we witnessed the near catastrophic event, AB and I breakfasted at Dilly Deli. If you work downtown you may have eaten there for lunch but if you haven’t tried their breakfast it’s a must! It is so good and they serve breakfast all day on the weekend.