Megan Milbradt

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baby shower!

Two of our very best friends are expecting a little one just a few weeks before Baby Brother is due. This past weekend I hosted a baby shower for Jenny.  A funny side story about Jenny...of course we all know that Rory is obsessed with Cinderella.  One day, I was explaining to her that Jenny is her Godmother.  Rory thought about it for a couple seconds, made a funny face, and said to me, "Jenny's not magic!"  LOL!  Godmother does not equal fairy godmother, and Jenny does not have the ability to turn pumpkins into a carriage.

Anyway...here are some of the details from the shower.  We all know how much I love hosting parties, and I had lots of fun with this.

The invitation

  

I had this cute banner made from an etsy seller, who I'm too lazy to link right now, but I did mention her in a ten on tuesday post awhile back.

 

Everyone signed this book with a little message for the mommy and baby.

 

Name tags for the guests.  One lucky person had a surprise "poopy" in their diaper, and they won a prize!

 

A diaper cake.  I loved how this turned out!

 

I adored those orange gerbera daisies!

 

Oreo truffles disguised as cupcakes!  YUM!

 

Jenny said one of her cravings were gummy worms, so those were given as favors.  I figured they went well with the birdy theme!

 

It was a fun little party!  Now I can't wait to snuggle that little baby when he or she is born!

my sunshine

We've all been sick for over a week now, so I've been doing the bare minimum, which means I haven't done anything to any photos from Easter or the last week or two.

But here's The Jeans being all sweet and goofy after bath doing her thing.  She has been on a kick with this song lately, and I just had to catch it on video.

little girl big bed

Rory has been sleeping in her big girl bed for over a week now, and she has done great!  She loves it, and hasn't had any problems with going to sleep in there.  And she hasn't even fallen out {yet}!   Even though we tell her that she is such a big girl, she just looks so tiny in that bed! 

The best thing about her sleeping in a big girl bed...now, after almost three years, I can finally reach my sleeping baby big girl to give her kisses when she is sleeping!  I am taking full advantage of that.

I had to sort of lie to her to get her to even let me take a picture.  And while I adore the color of the walls in her room, I hate taking photos in there because the blue makes it difficult.  So, what you see is what you get!

  

Yummy nummy goodness

Also known as cinnamon rolls...

 

I made these for the church bake sale this weekend, and they are a must make!  Seriously, so good, and they would be perfect for Easter weekend!  I love the Pioneer Woman, and I am never afraid to try one of her recipes.  I mean, her motto is "butter is the fifth food group."  How could you go wrong?

What else would you expect?

Of course it's more princess pictures!  This weekend, Rory's friends had a princess/super hero party.  It was so fun seeing all those kids dressed up.  They all had so much fun!  As I said last week, Rory has been dressing up like a princess at home for months, but I broke down and got her an actual princess dress for the occasion.  I don't think I could have given the kid anything that would make her any more excited.  She was so sweet when I gave it to her, and she repeatedly told me, "THANK YOU, MOM!" all weekend.  {Disclaimer:  These are photos that a mom took, not a photographer!}

 

 

After the princess party, I took Rory to McDonald's for some chicken nuggets, and she wouldn't take the outfit off.  The reaction of every kid in there was, "Look!  A princess!"  Funny.

We came home to a brand new big girl bed set up in Rory's room!  She wanted to go to bed right away.  More on that to come.  I need to get some photos.

My wonderful husband also accomplished a ton of stuff in our basement over the weekend, and we were finally able to get things put back into storage.  That is a relief.  He had spent the last week finishing the laundry room, which meant we had no washer or dryer for over a week.  I had to go buy him new underwear because there were no clean pairs in the house!  So I spent a ton of time trying to catch up on washing clothes, bedding, rugs, etc.

It was an exciting weekend at our house.  I love busy and fun weekends, but unfortunately that only makes the weekend go by way too quickly.  And we woke up Monday morning to more snow; 17 inches total.  I am refusing to look at the forecast, but I heard it is supposed to get nice again this weekend.  We can't even be excited about that because that only means that everything will start flooding again.  Wonderful.

Fargo Flood Fight 2009

Make sure you listen to the music.

"It's a bad bad storm"

That's what Rory has been saying for the last few days.  Bad is an understatement.

Much of our state and parts of Minnesota are experiencing severe flooding due to rising waters of nearly every river and creek.  Entire towns are being evacuated, and only adding salt to the wound, a major snow storm passed through, causing impossible travel conditions and dropping up to two feet of snow in some areas earlier this week.

Please keep everyone affected in your prayers.  There is so much more ahead, and I just pray that everyone stays safe.

Thank you everyone who has emailed me asking if we are okay.  We live far away from all of the flooding that has occurred in Bismarck, so all is well for our family.

10 on Tuesday

1.  This weather stinks.  Flooding, rain, blizzards, 50 mph winds...this state has seen it all in the last few days.  I just hope everyone stays safe.

2.  I spent the entire day Sunday going through the stuff we have had in storage since we moved to our house.  I got everything organized and cleaned up, and wow does it feel great!  Now as soon as Josey finishes up the storage room, we can get it all put away, and hopefully the basement won't be such a mess!

3.  I went through all of the stuff my mom had saved for me throughout the years.  Boy, did I find some gems in there!  Apparently, there was about a four year span where I really didn't get along with my brother Adam very well!  Some of the stuff that I had written for school projects:

"I love my mom because she takes me to town and not Adam." and "My biggest pet peeve is Adam."

Hilarious!  Funny thing is, I don't remember disliking him so much.  I kind of felt bad looking back at that!  I'm sure that's what Rory is going to be saying about Baby Brother in about five years, though.

4.Speaking of Rory, she has been killing me with some of her comments lately.  A couple nights ago, as she was getting ready for bed, she heard the wind howling outside.  Right away she said it was a "bad, bad storm."  Since she is always saying she's scared of storms, we told her that no, it wasn't a storm, just the wind, and it's not scary at all.

Well, the next day, which was yesterday, I walked into Carole's to pick her up, and told Rory that the weather was bad, and we were going to get a storm.  Right away she scolded me saying, "I TOLD you!"

How does she remember these things?

5.  It's been four months since I first posted that Rory had renamed herself Cinderella.  And even when I wrote that, it had been going on for a couple months.  Well, guess what...that phase has not ended yet.  For more hours of the day than not, she is decked out in her crown, glass slippers, princess gloves (aka her socks on her hands), and pretty dress (aka her blanket tied around her torso).  With a drinking straw as my wand, and a quick bippity boppity boo, she is transformed.  She spins, acts surprised and exclaims, "What a wonderful dream come true!"

It is dramatic, let me tell you.  And pretty much word for word from the movie.  Josey just loves it! :o)

 

6.  Those of you who have not discovered etsy, you need to ASAP.  Of course, I have mentioned my friend Jenn at Sweet Birdie before (here and here), and there are so many more talented people with shops over there.  Some of the many things I'm lusting for lately:

I have to find some way to use this in Baby Brother's nursery, plus I can't wait to get some cute hats for newborn photos.  And I've enlisted the help of Mary Had A Little Party to make a cute banner for Jenny's baby shower!

7.  Has any body else been watching American Idol?  We all love this show, and I think there are some pretty good guys on there this year!  I am cheering for Danny and Matt.  Adam down right scares me!  I felt like I needed to go to church after watching his song last week.

8.  My most recent pregnancy craving...Capri Sun.  I am addicted to those things!  I bring them to work, and hope that nobody sees me sucking out of that little pouch like an 8 year old.

9.  We got Rory a big girl bed.  We just have to go find a matress and get it all set up!  I think she's really excited about it because she keeps asking me about it!  One day, she tried to convince me that Baby Brother was going to sleep in there with her.  When I told her that he was going to be sleeping in the crib, she was fine with that.  She would just sleep in the crib with him, then.  She's a little confused!

10.  I'm going to be participating in an online photography workshop starting at the beginning of April!  I am so super excited; you have no idea.  I am hoping to not only learn a lot from photographers I truly admire, but I am really hoping that it gives me the motivation and inspiration I need to pick up my camera some more.  I have had a hard time with that in the last few months.  I am tired of shooting indoors, and Rory keeps giving me a scowl every time I try to take a picture of her.

Art

I've seen this video on a few blogs now, but I wanted to share.  Because I am constantly asking myself these questions.

Art, art I want you.  Art you make it pretty hard not to.  And my heart is trying hard here to follow you, but I can't always tell if I ought to.

How could I spend so much time in my life trying to perfect a technical, mathematical, scientific way of thinking, but still want to express a completely different creative, artistic side?  Can I?  Do I even have that in me?  If I do, would anyone even like it or care?

But the truth is, my art, my photography, is for me.  I do it because it makes me happy.  It makes me feel satisfied.  Who cares if anyone else likes it?

But I do care...it's complicated, I guess.