Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Success!

So, here we are in 2012! We had a great time on New Year's. Last year, we went to a bar with my friend Katie. We had fun, but we decided that night that we were going to stay home every December 31st going forward. Approaching the big day, we had no plans except to stay home with our girls and hang out. Trevor got home from work a few days before and mentioned having a game night with the family. By New Year's Eve, we were expecting 9 people plus ourselves at our house. My mother in law made several different kinds of super delicious stuffed mushrooms, spinach dip, pepperoni bread, cheese bread, and a veggie tray. My mom brought some yummy homemade guacamole and for dessert, Nicole brought a chocolate cake. We played Mad Gab with 2 teams. Ava was on one team and she held the cards for someone and later took a shot making up her own phrase which was "peanut butter peanut butter jelly peanut butter jelly on my nose". Not sure where the "on my nose" came from but if you've ever played the game, you'll understand why she was repeating the same thing over again. It was a hilarious game so we did nothing but laugh the entire time. Nicole was a master and got almost every single answer within seconds so naturally, her team won. At midnight, we were all together to toast to a new year including Little Miss Ava who soldiered through the night and wouldn't go to bed until almost 2 am (which she made up for the next morning by sleeping until 11 am with the rest of the house).

January 1st meant it was time to really get moving. In just 6 days, I was hosting a surprise baby shower at my house for my sister in law Trinna. She's due February 3rd with a little boy she's naming Jordan. This will be my second nephew but this is the first boy on Trevor's side of the family so it's exciting! With the help of her best friend Mo, we spent the week preparing for the big day. Trevor and his dad had a big plan of a Sixer's game to get her here. She thought she was stopping at our house to pick up the tickets with her dad. Having it here, however, had one obstacle - parking. Our development is 1 court - nothing else, so hiding cars here is impossible. It does back up to another development though so my wonderful husband valeted and chauffeured people into the next development and hid every car including one of ours since she thought we weren't home. When Trinna finally arrived, there were almost 50 people hiding in my kitchen while she stood outside of the front door looking through her keys trying to figure out which one opened our door. When she finally came in, she looked at the living room with a look of confusion on her face for a second or 2 until everyone screamed surprise! She said she genuinely had no idea what she was walking into so that's the reason for the blog title "Success!" We did it! And the shower turned out better than I hoped it would. Trinna received lots of gifts for baby Jordan and got to see lots of friends and family. My cousin Laura made the most amazing cake to match our jungle theme. Here are some pictures...






There was a vanilla chocolate chip cake on top and 3 dozen cupcakes below. The cupcakes were 3 different flavors: banana chocolate chip with peanut butter chocolate chunk filling and peanut butter frosting, lemon cake with raspberry cream cheese frosting, and red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. Besides the incredible detail, the flavor of her cakes are unlike anything I've had before. They are the most delicious cakes and cupcakes I've ever eaten, hands down and not just because she's family. Everyone at the party couldn't stop eating them so if you're reading this and you're in the NJ area and need a cake, get in touch with her! For favors, we had 3 chocolate covered oreos - 2 drizzled to look like zebra print and 1 with an animal face on it - again made by Laura. Here's what they looked like:




Check out my invitation company page, Avatation Paper Company to see the invitation and some of the decor I made for the shower!

Now it's time to work hard on projects - some new and some old. We have a lot we'd like to accomplish this year so there's no time for relaxing! We've been waking up at 5 am (although the past couple of days it hasn't worked out for me...oops!) to get things done before the girls wake up. Trevor leaves for work between 9 and 10 am and then it's just the girls and me. We tried to put a schedule together, but since he can't guarantee he'll be home at any specific time, I just have to work as hard as possible to get things done with two kids attached to me or beating each other up and then hide in my office when Trevor gets home to get the rest of my work done. It's non stop from 5-7 am until 10-11 pm so it's pretty exhausting and hectic. This weekend, we're taking our dads and step moms out to dinner and my dad and stepmom are keeping the girls for the weekend. Saturday, we're headed to North Jersey to celebrate our good friends Dan and Kerri's engagement! We don't get to see each other much these days so I'm really looking forward to spending the weekend together. I'll be back with another update soon!