kaya and the big, not-so-bad woofs

On our trip home, Kaya got to meet both of our childhood puppies. It was her first-ever encounter with dogs, and I think it’s safe to say that she LOVES them!

Scrappy is 12.5 years old now and has seen quite a few babies. He’s a gentle giant. (Jeff also gave him a bath while we were there)!

Kaya wasn’t at all scared.

Socks is quite the opposite of Scrappy. He is wild, crazy, loud, and barks at everything.

And he has NEVER seen a baby, but he somehow knew how to act around Kaya. He kissed her gently, and would lay near her to be sure she was okay. If she cried, he would bark to let everyone know.

I’m so excited to see her interact with animals when she gets a little bit older. Maybe we’ll even be riding buddies!

double thanksgiving

We actually celebrated Thanksgiving on both Thursday AND Friday! It was great to be able to see both sides of our family (and stuff our faces full of food twice… what?!).

Our little “Baby Bird” (yep… that’s her official nickname these days) had her first Turkey Day! I just had to make her a special outfit to wear for this special occasion, and thanks to some Pinterest inspiration, Kaya looked pretty cute! (But who am I kidding? She’s my kid, so she’s cute to me no matter what she’s wearing… even if it’s puke, poop, or her birthday suit)…

And yeah, she barfed about 0.3 nanoseconds after I snapped this shot.

The original version of the onesie had those plastic googly eyes on it, because I figured they would stay on for the one day she was going to wear it.  WRONG! Do not put plastic eyes on your kids’ clothes. They WILL come off and you’ll feel like the worst parent ever because that’s a safety issue. (Not to mention your disappointment because your kid is wearing a shirt with a blind turkey on it…). So, she pretty much just wore it like this for the pictures, and I later replaced the eyes with fabric ones.

We celebrated at my parents’ house on Thursday. My mom always outdoes herself and makes so much delicious food.

Dessert with my family is just as big a deal as dinner. I made these Mrs. Field’s Recipe chocolate-chip cookies… and they were heavenly! It’s my new go-to chocolate chip recipe.

Friday was spent with Michael’s family. So much fun, as usual!

birthday surprise!

We had a few crazy hours between Lelia’s shower and my Auntie Carol’s birthday party, during which I had to both feed my baby and decorate a cake to bring as a surprise! Actually, the cake wasn’t the only surprise- my aunt didn’t even know we were there, so she was so excited when we walked through her front door!

Auntie Carol adopted a new puppy a couple months back, so I thought I’d try something completely new and attempt to make a model of her dog for the cake. I’d never made anything out of fondant before (can you see where this is going?), but as usual, I took my crazy idea and made an attempt. And, as usual when I try something new and end up in a panic because it doesn’t work out the way I’d hoped… well… it DIDN’T work out how I’d hoped. Charlie (the dog) is actually a little black terrier mix, but dyeing a big wad of fondant black was trickier than it seemed (unless you’re aiming to make a green dog, because that’s what it looked like).

I took the easy way out and made a dalmatian dog! No dye-incorporating required.

Not bad for my first fondant creation (well, besides one ugly practice dog before this little guy)!

The rest of the cake was a whole other story. My mom said she had icing tips at her house, and I assumed they were the same Wilton ones I have at home. But when I opened them up to decorate the cake, they most definitely were not! Mrs. Betty Crocker makes a weird decorating set, and I couldn’t figure it out. So Michael iced the cake for me and I wrote the words on with a ziplock bag. Yup. Not my best work. I think the puppy redeems the rest of it… hopefully.

She still loved it.

Everyone was also sooo excited to meet Kaya! It was her first visit with her Grandpa and Great Aunts on my side of the family, and they just can’t get enough of her.

Getting ready to blow out the candles…

Between the rich chocolate cake and sweet frosting, I think we all (okay, maybe it was mostly me) got a little sugar-high by the end of the night. Alan, Auntie Carol’s boyfriend, had gotten her Hello Kitty-themed decorations, including these little party horn things (is that what they’re called?). We all went crazy with them, and since they didn’t make any noise, we provided our own.

Michael is the epitome of party horn popping.

What a birthday bash! Happy Birthday Auntie Carol!

lelia’s bridal shower

We went back home to visit with our families last week, so the next few blog posts are going to backtrack over all the fun stuff we did!

Lelia’s shower was at her aunt’s house on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. It was actually the reason we spent the whole week away- I really wanted to be there, but it didn’t make sense to go back home for just a couple days, drive back here to go back to work, and then have Thanksgiving by ourselves (we wouldn’t have made the relatively long drive twice in one week).

It feels like just yesterday when Lelia and Jeff spilled the beans about their pending engagement, so it was hard to believe that it was already time for the bridal shower! These crazy kids have fewer than 4 weeks until they’re old married folk!

It’s almost like she can’t believe it either!

Lelia was the star of the show…

… and Kaya was probably the second most popular person there.

There was a whole lot of delicious food. I was a little over-excited about the cheese and crackers (I actually ate cheese and crackers three times during the week we were home…  just because my pregnancy is over doesn’t mean my cravings are! Haha).

We also had a wedding-themed Pictionary competition! My word was “cake topper”. My cake was a little lopsided and my team didn’t win, but it was still a good time.

Jeff proposed with a message in a bottle, hence the sign. It was so cute!

Lelia and her Mama were cute beautiful too 🙂

I just had to have a picture with both my “Baby Dinosaur” (Lelia’s nickname as our “adopted” daughter when she lived with us last fall), and my baby Kaya. We three girls are going to get into trouble this winter for sure!

I’m so grateful that I was able to go to Lelia’s shower and share this special time with her, and I am really looking forward to getting her as my forever sister when they get married this month!