Oh baby...

Nope - not pregnant.

BUT, one of my dear friends is just weeks away from having a baby boy and a few of us hosted a shower to celebrate! This is the same baby boy that Cindy and I organized a gender reveal party for so we have been throwing this kid parties for a while. Teach 'em young, I say! :)

Amber's good friends, Meredith and Christen, also served as hostesses with the mostesses and they did an over-the-top amazing job. Amber and Julian are decorating Alex's room in gray, yellow, and navy and are using elephants throughout, so we centered the shower around the same theme and it turned out lovely. 

Meredith made those great signs to be displayed in Alex's room which served as the perfect way to greet guests. We also used "The Saggy Baggy Elephant" book as the sign-in which I thought was adorable.

 Christen made all those cupcake toppers AND the cupcakes. Amazing. And as you can see, I'm still in-love with these giant streamers. Next time you have a party, please just make these. Great way to add some fun and color for a very little cost and effort! Amber got to take the "Welcome Alex" sign home to hang in her hospital room and when the little man makes his way home.

The shower was at 4:30 - so not quite dinner time. We stuck with fruit, cheese, crackers, dips and pinwheels for guests. Christen also made those adorable onesies to hang over the gift area. 

 We also kept with the photobooth theme from the gender reveal and used the same props for the guests at the shower. Please note that Jillian (center pic) is holding up a clown nose and top hat. Profo toddler picture taker. :)

We had to throw a few games in the mix for it to be an "official baby shower". And although I'm not the biggest fan of this particular game - I must say that you would be surprised at what you will smell when you become a parent! 

Then it was time for gifts! Amber and Julian were showered with everything from homemade lovies, "monthday" signs, and gift cards for those nights when Amber they don't feel like cooking to the "essentials" of mommyhood. I love that J insisted  on opening the gift on the bottom left. Amber's laughter was clearly not suppressed. 

While the big kids were having fun inside, the little kids were having a blast in our backyard. Ryan was on "kid duty" and did a fantastic job! 

We had a great time celebrating baby #2. I am so excited to watch Amber, Julian, and Jillian become a family of 4 and can not wait to squeeze their newest bundle of joy!

Please don't go girl you got the right stuff...

As soon as the "soccer celebration" was over on Friday, I jumped flew torpedoed myself got into Ryan's car and headed to Waco to pick up Jenni so we could drive to Dallas for the ultimate GNO at "The Package" tour. Y'all. I was more giggly than that time I secretly held Craig's hand in the library during reading time in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade. 

This was going to be EPIC.

Ten, yes TEN, of us girls from the good ol' class of 1997 were meeting up for some fun. 

(Can we pause and reflect on that? How awesome is it, that we are all still friends after all this time? Some of us talk and see each other more often than others, but we have friendships that have lasted for 30 years. And we are barely even 30 (ok, maybe not barely anymore). I am SO incredibly thankful for the blessing of a small town childhood. A place that is just as much home today as it was the day I left for college. A place that brings love and laughter into my life to this day.)

Katy, Jenni and I met up at Amy's to get ready before heading out to meet the rest of the girls for some dinner first.

We gobbled up some delicious grub, drank some bubbly beverages and filled the first part of our evening with silly stories and laughs. 

One quick group photo and then we were off...

And as soon as we entered American Airlines Center my heart was flooded with memories that I didn't even know I had. Boyz II Men was seriously killing it and I.Was.GIDDY. Like stupid happy. Like a giant kool aid smile on my face. 

Amy got us great seats (and if I would have brought the 300mm lens like I wanted I could have taken some much better pics, but size did matter in this case and no one wanted to lug that sucker around). They sounded amazing and had the whole house swooning and singing to their greatest hits.

We couldn't stop laughing at ourselves. Jenni and Kellie really couldn't stop laughing at me. I may or may not love to sing (loudly) but could potentially be slightly tone deaf.

All too quickly B2Men had to say goodbye - and that is always so hard for them.

(get it?)

Then there was this part in the middle that we like to pretend never happened where Nick Lachey, Brother Drew and two other guys that I don't know their names came out, danced a little, sang some songs and then brought a pregnant woman on the stage, sat her on a stool and proceeded to dance around her in ways that married men should never dance to a woman who is WITH CHILD. 

Or the part where we all realized we were 30(ish). 

So we paused to take a group pic instead.

(We missed you Niki!!)

And then it happened.

My 5th-7th grade dreams FINALLY came true.

They arrived.

NKOTB!!!

And for the next two hours proceeded to put on a great show! They sang all our favorites and sounded great! They also added some parts that I don't remember from 5th grade, like stripping - and while we were all too mature to buy-in to that, we had fun watching the women around us go crazy.

All 15,000 of them!

;)

Jordan still loved the spotlight and could strangely still sing as high as when he was 17, Joey was still adorable, Donnie was still the bad boy, Danny was still the one that no one noticed and poor Jonathan just looked miserable. 

We still knew all the words to all the songs, sang them loudly and only paused once or twice to sit down...

 (well some of us more than others).

:)

It was seriously an AWESOME night spent with some of the greatest women around. 

(this is me. Hanging Tough).

:)

Soccer celebrations...

Friday was Radley's last day of soccer which included a "celebration ceremony" at the end. (More on that later). We got the girls dressed and ready to go cheer on big brother. By 9:45am it was already 100 degrees so this is the biggest smile she would give me.

Radley's team finally got to wear the "pennies" that day which he had been asking about all week. Clearly the moment he put one on, he wanted to take it off. Something about it being too big and looking like a dress and male soccer players obviously don't wear dresses.

:)

He had a full audience on Friday and I thoroughly enjoyed watching Ryan keep his mouth shut.

Two hours is a long time for these kids to be out in the sun, but they all had smiles on their faces and each attempted to play as hard as they could all week.

And clearly made time for Gatorade.

10:45 finally rolled around and it was time for the "celebration ceremony" which consisted of each Coach holding a microphone and calling out their campers names. Unless they forgot one because they didn't bring a piece of paper with them and yes, that happened to some poor little 5 year old girls. 

What you were expecting something more? Me too.

Radley's team tried to play it cool when it was their turn.

And just like that, his first official sports camp was over. We realized on the last day that he was actually in a group with 6-year-olds who each had been playing for a year longer than him, so way to go, Rad!

He LOVED his Coach and had a lot of fun - the two goals that Coach G had set at the beginning of the week.

He has been practicing all the "tricks" he learned since Friday - you know those skills that weren't really "playing soccer, Mommy".  He keeps telling me that this is what he is going to do in the fall and I can't wait to see it!