While planning this shower, I realized that the co-ed party would fall during our third annual Clean Program cleanse, which was smack in the middle of our first Whole Life Challenge. Let me lead off by saying that there was not a whole lot of this going on in our house in October:
I will summarize the 8-week Whole Life Challenge experience by saying that we successfully eliminated all sugars, grains, and dairy (and a mess of other things) by eating food like this (along with plenty of lean meats and heaps of fruits and vegetables):
In addition, we exercised and stretched more, drank gallons of water, interacted online daily with our WLC teammates, and practiced other great lifestyle habits like being intentional with our time, reaching out to loved ones more often, and sleeping more. I freakin' loved it.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world ate our share of the Oreos.
And hey, if Oreos bring you this much joy, then who am I to ban them?!
So, this shower was all about celebrating the about-to-be-introduced-to-the-outside-world Baby M.
We decided to have a co-ed poolside light-bites sort of affair, keeping it easy, casual, and fun for all.
The pool kept 4-year old JW occupied. I'm so impressed with her independence in the water!
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| The Coppertone baby is not afraid of the deep end! |
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| She was so trying to get me wet with her dolphin squirt. |
My shower co-captain was in charge of all games, and she came up with some side-splitting doozies.
In fact, the first game we played involved sticking a water balloon between your legs and trying to be the last person standing without your "water breaking".
There are photos. None of them are appropriate.
On to the next game: New Parent Trivia.
It's like the Newlywed Game but focused on parenting topics, with questions like, "Which of the father's traits do you hope your baby does NOT inherit?"
This of course is when all the really important info comes out.
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| In answer to, "What will your child be when he grows up?" |
The next game tested all the guests' ability to deliver baby food to their teammate's mouth, all while blindfolded.
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| WH and NS prepping / strategizing / cracking up. |
I could barely take photos - the intense, messy shoveling / gulping routine was just hysterical.
By the end, everyone was basically falling off their chairs.
Congratulations again to the new parents, whose son is about to arrive any day now! Exciting times ahead!
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| B explaining the "boppy" concept to C. He'll get it, eventually. |
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My sister's wedding was a great excuse to go back to Pennsylvania for about a week for a visit with family and friends that was way overdue. We gave ourselves enough time to see a lot of people, which I used as an excuse to frequent my favorite coffee shop just about every day, all in the name of reunions with friends.
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| Alabaster Coffee is one of Williamsport's treasures. |
Another treasure: My lifelong friend, AJD, who traveled the long highway trip from a neighboring state to hug my neck and let me play with her fantastic kiddos.
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| I must confess to extreme eyelash envy. |
It's not right that I live so far from our goddaughter - a young, beautiful "Elsa" - so I'm extra grateful that we had even a few precious hours with this family while up north.
Later that evening, we did the whole wedding rehearsal routine, which included us meeting my new brother-in-law for the first time ever.
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| Pianists are an instant win for me. |
The groom had a lot of new personalities to process that weekend. When my family all gets together, the craziness gets turned up a notch or two.
In any case, from what I saw, newcomer AF seemed to be a fit.
Another fun celebration while we were home: A double-blind surprise birthday party for N's 30th and his dad's 60th. Both birthday boys thought they were out distracting the other one. Meanwhile, guests arrived for both milestone birthdays.
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| He figured it out in the final hours. He's annoying like that. |
Fortunately, we managed to fake out at least one of the guests of honor.
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| He thought these props were just funny distractions. |
Happy birthday to both of the Smith men!
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| Thanks to the stand-in me, MOD, for making this photo work! |
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I didn't realize how many photos I actually took in October! Let's wrap this up with just a few more from this year's Halloween.
At the moment, we live in a fabulous neighborhood with lots of friends up and down our road, all within walking distance in case you need a clove of garlic or fancy a cup of tea. However, on Halloween, our neighborhood turns into the trick-or-treating mecca of Cayman. Nothing against trick-or-treating or cute little kids in cute little costumes, but I'm just not in that stage of life. So we met up for dinner at Craft while the kids raided the rest of the neighbors.
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| Neighbors / friends / family ...all of the above. |
This was followed by pumpkin carving at J&S', which was pretty much just an excuse for the girls to use sharp tools while the boys watched football.
We came up with three very different concepts...
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| A Stuart minion, a Charlie German Shepherd, and....a very pretty jack-o-lantern. |
By the time we returned home, the mini ghosts and goblins had vacated, and we called a close on the month of October.
Which also closes out this blog post. Whew, we did a lot! Now time to kick back and...oh, wait, here come the holidays!
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| Warning: Violent Laughter Ahead |
I guess this party bus will just keep on rolling.
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