A Texas Thanksgiving

Soooo, I just came back from my first TX Thanksgiving in several years.  Holiday flights between Chicago and Dallas are HIGHWAY ROBBERY.  People, we are talking $400+.  Every year, I have to choose whether to spend Thanksgiving or Christmas in TX, and Christmas always wins, so I usually spend Thanksgiving in the Chi with friends.

Well, after missing many Thanksgivings, my parents put their feet down and so I was home for Thanksgiving this year.  :D  Meet the fam:

You want to know something funny?  This isn't even everyone.  We're missing a few up there because I couldn't get snaps of everyone in my limited time at home - so... there will be pickup shots come Christmas.  Also, Mr and Mrs Tweets' chick-let is busy being a fetus, so that got in the way of being photographed.

This was the first Thanksgiving in awhile that we all were home at the same time.  Some things hadn't changed:

We own more Volvos than the dealership...And other people came home with VERY BIG TATS!

My sister Ali has been thinking about getting this tat for over four years, and she finally did it!  It's a reproduction of a mother's day card that our grandmother (who is Ali's namesake) gave our great grandmother wayyyyyyyyyy back in the 1930s.  Our "Granny" gave Ali this card when she was tiny, and it's one of her most prized possessions.  I love it!

We had fun in the kitchen...

We ate lots of food and drank tons of fancy cider:

And of course, there was foosball and board games.  And cheating.  Lots and lots of cheating.  We didn't even fight!  Another Christmas miracle!

We had a great Thanksgiving.  How was yours?

Getting Ready for Chicken Little

In case you forgot, this is Wrigley-T and Senor Diamondback...

...And they are having a mini-Diamondback that we all know will be super cute and smart, with a lot of personality.  Baby Diamondback is due in about a month, and the little one is known by a variety of names, sometimes "Chicken Jr" - mostly "Emmett the Otter":

...because that's what he looks like, you know.  :)

This past weekend, our group of friends got together to throw a baby shower for the little guy!  We went with a Chicken Little theme... a grown-up, co-ed evening party.  There were mocktails and cocktails (Hey, we aren't ALL pregnant!)

Goober hosted the party at her house, and Colo and I helped...  See, Mighty Goober's all ready to party!

And she runs for chocolate.

Before the party, several of us had a lil food prep to do... and pre-party wine to drink!  Here's Colo getting the sausage wraps ready for their big debut (recipe to come!)

Chicken Little cupcakes waited in the wings...

Jammie toasts (our favorite!) had to make the menu, too!

Finally, guests began to ring the doorbell.

Goober runs a non-shoe household, which led to an array of fun socks.

We hung out -

We danced -

We ate, drank, and chatted a LOT!

Once we were properly fed and watered, gift time began!

There was lots of laughing...

...and clapping.  We clap a lot.

At the end of the night, we decided to take a group photo since we were all dressed up and shiz. This is our little Chi-family...

...We clean up all right.  :)

In exactly a month, come out Emmett the Otter - so we can meet you and give you kisses!  We love your parents a whole lot, so I bet you'll be pretty awesome, too.

Bees Love Christmas

*Warning: This post is about my WeddingBee friends, and I will likely use vocabulary that will be highly unusual.  Follow the link, and it'll make a little more sense.  :)

Last week, my WeddingBee buddy Mrs. Emerald invited all of the Chicago Bees (Quiche, Mascara, Powder Puff, Stiletto, Nachos, and Parfait) to her home for a ladies-only soiree!  Almost all of the Bees were able to make it to hang at Emerald's lovely condo...  I brought my DSLR because this is likely the only gathering where I can bring my big-booty camera and get laughed at - TOO much....  I have DSLR shame.

We party potluck-style, so we had TONS to eat.  Emerald forced us to take home ziplock bags full of leftovers...  I can't say I blame her - would you want a month's worth of fatty calories staring you down from the fridge every day??

Um yeah, I had about four plates' worth of food throughout the night.  I am making up for all the healthy eating I did while marathon training.  Apparently.  I brought sweet and sour shrimp puffs, which are SO GOOD, and you should totally make them.

Emerald's condo was so lovely and homey - her greyhound Gia was relaxing in the office, and I have to say, we all fell in love with her.  She was so sweet and beautiful!!  We wanted her to come out and play, but I think all the strangers made her nervous so we appreciated her from afar.

Emerald also fed us Kahluha Cake.  With whipped cream.  That's right!  Mah tummy was happy!

Although Emerald, Quiche, Powder Puff, Stiletto, Mascara, and I all know each other, this was my first night to meet Miss Nachos and Miss Parfait!  They are carrying on the tradition of Chicago Bee pride!  We had a fab time talking shop, harmless gossip, and Regretsy - which is a highly hilarious website.  Fo sho. 

Happy holidays, Bee-babes!

Several of the Bees maintain post-wedding blogs - you should check them out!

Sweet Chic Events

Crafts and Cardigans

Bijou Lovely

Growing Kooky Together

Invitation Inspiration: Baby Makes Three

.... Really, baby makes four, as there is also an adorable family pup to take into account!

If you are like me, you love making invitations, cards, anything of the paper variety.  Because our friends are planning a fun bebe shower for friends Wrigley-T and Senor Diamondback, that meant invitations - my favorite!  SO, today I am sharing the invites I created in order to inspire those of you planning showers of your own.

First, the porn - addressed most appropriately to our buddy Dirrrty Nurse:

We are going with a chicken theme to the shower because... Wrigs and Diamondback like to call each other Turkey and Chicken - I know, total weirdos ;) - and they call bebe boy "Chicken, Jr."  See???? Makes total sense now, doesn't it.  :D

These invites were actually super easy to make.  I just drew up and colored the main invite, then printed it out on a normal printer.  Then I affixed mailing labels and envelopes liners and... voila!  All set. 

One note about envelope liners - two big moneysavers to know is that using gift wrap as a liner is usually a big costcutter AND there is no need to line the envelopes all the way to the bottom of the envelope.  Really, you only need about 2" worth of liner to be effective.  Nobody would ever know that you didn't line all the way to the bottom of the envelope unless they checked.  Which would make them hilarious.

Also, I used the lauded Paper Source Envelope Template pack to measure out the width of my liners.  Something obvious (but easy to miss in the heat of crafting!) is that for square flapped envelopes, there is no need to trip off the pointy tip, wasting paper... just turn that sucker around and use the squared off end of the template.

Happy crafting!

INGREDIENTS:

• Stardream lapis A7 envelopes (shop the 'net for the best prices on Stardream)
• Paper Source Curry Dots Decorative Labels $4.95 per set of eight
• Linen Cardstock (I already owned, but you can pick this up cheaply most anywhere)
• A pen and a scanner (if you don't have Adobe Illustrator, you could hand-color and then scan in the finished image) to draw the main invite
• Paper Source White Swirls Gold Dust Vellum ($5 per pack, which can net up to 30 A7 liners)
• Double-stick tape to affix the liners.

EASY PEASY!

Presents for a Very Cute Turkey

I have four very good friends who are currently pregnant - three of them are due within one week of each other!  I am apparently a baby magnet.  If you are not currently looking to get knocked up, then stay far away from me!

I am also talking super good friends of mine... one is Wrigley-T, one is a girlyfriend that I met when I was 14 years old, another is my "The Bachelor"-watching buddy (that show has seriously gone downhill, btw), and the last - due first - is my friend Mags, with whom I lived for six years! 

Mags and her hubby J-Mags are expecting their very first Wee One, whom they've named "Turkey."  I find it interesting that my friends name their children varying forms of birds, between the Turkey and Wrigley-T's Chicken, Jr.  They must be in the mood for poultry.  :)

Mags' sisters recently threw her a baby shower WAY OUT in the suburbs.  OK, not really, it was only an hour away, but I was having massive flashbacks of that Sex and the City episode where the four ladies trucked out to a baby shower and felt like the witches of Eastwick, dressed all in black!  I actually pulled a black dress out of the closet that morning and put it right back, so I could avoid the City Witch effect. However, I DID bring my Starbucks thankyouverymuch.  Put me in the middle of beautiful trees and grass, and the world spins!!!

Hmmm, now that I think about it, we kind of fit the bill... two of my friends and I all drove out together, we all had Starbucks, my sinuses were rejecting the plethora of nature, and one of us even had a giant gift basket, a la Charlotte but more awesome.  Whoops.  However, none of us were drunk!  Yet.  J/k.  Mostly.  MOSTLY.

The story is better told in pictures!  (Isn't everything?)

First, so you know the players... me on the left, J-Rock, Mags, and Spence on the far right.  That's Turkey and mini-Spence in the lower half of the photo.  :)

We started off the day by meeting at Spence's house to then car pool together.  I was feeling pretty good about my present until I saw J-Rock's... you'll understand why later!  She also had run 16 miles already that morning, so my day started off with serious blows to my self-esteem!  Oh well, sometimes you just feel bad about yourself.  (I am totally kidding.  Calm down, Dove Police.)  We had a really fun time catching up in the car on our drive out to the land of trees and flowers.

The shower was held at a bee-youtiful golf course... this was our view: (!)

Mags had TONS of presents coming to her...

And we had TONS of food coming to us!

Mmmm, bacon.

Mmmm, Omelette Station of my dreams.

Clearly, we partook!

Yum to cupcakes!

 Everything was so pretty...  one of Mags' sister MADE these fortune cookies for everyone.  They were damn tasty, too!

Mags does flower design, and she created the centerpieces, also lovely...  I know people increasingly use fake flowers, but I really don't think you can beat a real, living, breathing flower (regardless of the fact that they make snot roll down my face uncontrollably.)

We played games, which I lost continually! 

Um yeah, this was J-Rock's gift basket.  Self-esteem squasher!  She thought about things that Turkey might need through the first year, and then built the basket around that.  I think it's a great idea that you should steal imitate.  :)  So adorable.

We had a great time, and it was so nice to have good hang-out time and celebrate the coming day of Turkey!!!  Mags is an avid crafter, so this is definitely her greatest crafting project ever.  I can't wait to meet the new little one! 

There's me and my boobs taking pictures in the reflection. (sigh)