busy bees

Yes, we've been busy here in Juneau. My sister arrived a week ago. My daughter's best friends came to town for her baby shower. We had a baby shower and a family gathering. It's been busy! Here's the week in pictures.

Preparations for the baby shower were many. It's all about the details with me.... much to the chagrin of others, especially when it involves them! Here we are dipping pretzel rods in chocolate. Okay, now let me say, it's not as easy as you would think! I found plenty of "how to" recipes on-line and not one of them mentioned that this was not a job for two senior ladies. Not one recipe mentioned that your kitchen would be covered with chocolate--the microwave, the cupboard doors, the refrigerator handle, inside the freezer..... Or that you would have chocolate all over you.... I don't know exactly what we were doing wrong.... but whatever we were doing was not right. Seriously, it took us hours and hours to try to get a couple dozen pretzels dipped in chocolate. We couldn't get the chocolate melted to a thin enough consistency. The white chocolate wouldn't melt at all. Serious. This was the worst of times. I could fill this entire blog today with just the trials and tribulations of dipping pretzel rods, but I'll save you. Despite all the problems we had, they did turn out lovely looking. We rolled them in nuts and sprinkles and tucked them inside a cellophane bag, tied with a little pink ribbon. Too cute. These were favors for the guests.

Here we are decorating sugar cookies.

Jerusalem arrived on Wednesday and the crafting and glittering began! She's too cute. This is Tracy's bestest friend from Arkansas.

"Sweet Baby Girl" banner. Way too cute! Way cuter in person! And the darling little nests....

Safeway saved the day for us. A new shipment of flowers arrived on Wednesday and they were gracious enough to store the flowers in their refrigerator unit until Friday evening. Isn't this a beautiful combination of colors?

At the time we bought them, it didn't seem like so many.... but once we brought them home, it seemed like we would never use all of them! But we got creative, like with this cute cup and saucer idea I found at The ParTea Planner web site.

And we decorated the front porch and the back deck with flowers.

It was a great day and we had so much fun planning and decorating. The amazing part of this whole event was that it wasn't just my shower. Tracy's best friends wanted to help and they did! We had four ladies from four different states with different decorating ideas and yet we pulled it off. It was a beautiful setting for a beautiful day. I'll share more pictures tomorrow!

Have a great day! Nancy