Last Sunday, we observed our annual tradition of making a gingerbread house! Mio was fascinated and loved watching the process of the house coming together.
Mio’s been obsessed with the gingerbread house all week, saying “Ginger house! Candy!” We fear that it will not survive until Christmas…
(See more gingerbread house fun from last year and the year before!)
A couple weekends ago, a couple of my dearest friends threw me the most beautiful baby shower for our second baby. After all the baby shower love we had received when we were expecting Mio, I really didn’t expect any sort of shower or celebration this time around, and I’d even read that it’s bad form to have a baby shower for subsequent babies beyond your first child. But my best friend Debbie insisted that she wanted to plan an intimate get-together on a small scale to celebrate the arrival of baby #2, especially since she wasn’t able to plan one for Mio’s birth (since we were in California at the time). She enlisted the help of one of my other closest friends, Hanna, and together they threw me a truly lovely storybook-themed baby shower! Everything was so beautiful and had so much detail and thought put into it, but at the same time the pace and tone of the shower was really cozy and relaxed, which I loved. Here are some snapshots from the celebration!
Hanna, who I became close friends with while we were both studying graphic design in college, designed the lovely invitations and the printed decorations/labels for the shower.
There was no shortage of delicious food! Both Debbie and Hanna are amazing in the kitchen, and the refreshments and desserts they prepared were both beautiful and mouthwatering…
After the crafting fun, it was time to open gifts! Dan and I really didn’t need anything this time around, since we already have most of our baby gear and all the baby clothes from Mio (especially since we’re having another girl — the perks of having children of the same gender!), and knowing this, my girlfriends gifted us books for the baby. Such a great idea, since you can never have enough books! I love that we now have so many more books to add to the girls’ library.
Thank you Debbie and Hanna for planning and hosting such a beautiful baby shower! I’ll remember it always. Our second baby is so lucky that she got to have such a lovely celebration of her own to welcome her into the world. I’m so blessed to have friends like you in my life, along with all the ladies that attended the shower. (Special thanks to Dan, too, for staying home and watching Mio so that I could have a relaxing time at the party!)
On Tuesday evening, after all of Mio and Dan’s hard work making their snowman, we went out for a little family froyo date before dinner. 🙂
Following this winter’s first snowfall on Sunday, we got about five more inches of snow on Tuesday morning! Dan worked a partial day from home, and in the afternoon, we got to have some fun playing out in the snow in the backyard. (Mio’s preschool was cancelled both Monday and Tuesday, so she got to stay home too.)
We spotted a fox frolicking around in our backyard from the window this morning, and we tried to show Mio. Much to our chagrin, whenever Mio says the word “fox,” it comes out sounding more like a four-letter word that also starts with “f”… Oh dear.
She also often has the same problem with the word “frog”… hopefully she’ll start pronouncing them a little more accurately soon! We can’t help but cringe when she excitedly yells “fox” or “frog” in the middle of the grocery store or in a restaurant… (It has happened, and it has drawn stares.)