Dear Sweet Pea:

I can't wait to one day bring you home and become a forever family. As I daydream of what our life will be like together, I can't help but imagine all of the special moments that we are sure to have.

I can't wait to hold you in my arms for the first time.

I can't wait for our home to be filled with the sound of your unique cry.

I can't wait to rock you to sleep.

I can't wait to see your daddy snuggle with you.

I can't wait to watch you learn how to crawl.

I can't wait for you to learn how to say "mama."

I can't wait for the day that you take your first step.

I can't wait to put a band-aid on your first owie.

I can't wait for daddy to teach you how to ride a bike.

I can't wait to see you wear a backpack on your first day of school.

I can't wait to teach you right from wrong.

I can't wait to watch you learn & grow to become the person that you're meant to be.

I want you to know, my sweet pea, that you will be coming to our home in a very special way. You will be loved more than most babies because you will have two mommies - me and the special mommy that brought you here to earth. She loves you more than you could possibly know and she wants you to have the best life possible. I can't wait for the day that we'll get to meet your special mommy and she'll tell us that she wants us to be your parents.

My first gift to you is your very own room, designed with only you in my heart. I'm so excited for the day that we get to bring you home from the hospital and lay you in your crib for the first time. I love you, my sweet pea!

Love,
Mommy

Nursery Teaser

A few weeks ago, I came up with the fun idea of hanging paper lanterns. We went over to Zurcher's and they had lanterns in all of our colors... it must've been fate! We found the cute little turquoise table for sale on KSL classifieds and I just HAD to have it. With this corner of the room completed, the nursery is almost totally finished! Just a few more touches and I'll post the completed room! As James and I have watched the room come to life, we are giddy with excitement to one day bring a baby home to it!!!

Tis the Season

Since I haven't posted in almost 2 weeks, I'll try to cover everything in this one post! We have been CRAZY busy lately - which is always the case this time of the year! As soon as I finished with our tree for the Festival of Trees, it was time to switch my mode to our house! I love decorating our home for Christmas!

Our Christmas Tree

Once our home was finished with it's holiday transformation, it was time to move my efforts over to work. This time of year I'm super busy with interior design jobs. I have several clients who hire me to design their Christmas trees and so far I've decorated a total of 9 trees. It is definitely one of my favorite things to do as an interior designer!

My next big project was to do the centerpieces for the Ward Christmas Party. I came up with the idea of making the centerpieces edible, by filling them with the dessert. I pitched the idea to my parents (my dad is in charge of the activities for his ward) and they loved the idea! My mom and I got to work and quickly found out that we had bit off a little more than we could chew. After making all of the goodies and assembling one centerpiece, we saw how darling they were and decided that it was worth the effort! My mom basically moved in with me and we worked on them straight for 5 days - 420 treats in total! The work paid off because they were a hit, especially with all of the kids!

Our next Holiday adventure was super exciting. This year, the Dickens Christmas Festival came back to Salt Lake City! I had the awesome opportunity of being in the plays when I was younger and it was a total blast!

The play "Oliver"
The play "Scrooge"

This is the infamous mouse lady! It's been 12 or 13 years since the Dickens Festival was in Salt Lake, but I can totally remember this mouse lady! She makes these little finger puppets of mice - weird, I know! They are actually really darling so we had to buy one for our little nephew Taylor! Going to the Dickens Festival brought back so many memories for me and I'm so excited that it's back in Salt Lake! I hope it comes back for the holidays permanently so that I can share it with our kids one day! As the holidays get under way, I promise to do a better job of posting more frequently!!!

Festival of Trees

Every year my mom and I decorate a Christmas tree to donate to the Festival of Trees. This year, we named our tree "Soda Shoppe Rock!" and we had a blast with it! It's hard to tell from the pictures, but we used 3 different sized trees and filled them with all kinds of fun ornaments: mini pink Chevy's, ice cream sodas, fuzzy dice, and of course records! We added a fun soda bar complete with a jukebox! We also had fun laying out a checkerboard floor to complete our design!!!

The Festival of Trees in an amazing event! In addition to the large trees, people also donate small trees, gingerbread houses, and Christmas wreaths. Everything is auctioned off to the highest bidder and ALL of the proceeds go to Primary Children's Medical Center. The Festival usually raises over a million dollars each year! It's always fun for us decorators to see who buys our tree each year! My mom and I start working on our tree in January and we work on it all year long. It's hard work, but really rewarding because it's for such a great cause! Many people dedicate their tree to a loved one who has passed away. This year, we dedicated our tree to James' awesome mom, Carolyn. It was an incredible opportunity to really reflect on her life and the amazing person that she was! James and his sisters helped us prepare and even came on decorating day to lend a hand! The Festival asks us to write a little story to be placed by our tree so that spectators can read more about it if they so choose. We asked James to write it this year and this was his story:

Take a walk with us down memory lane to a time when our mom and friend, Carolyn, celebrated her teenage years - a time of sock hops, poodle skirts, and soda shoppes! Carolyn loved the music of the 50's and instilled that love of music in each of her 8 children. Carolyn passed away surrounded by her family in March 2010, due to liver failure. We hope you enjoy this tree that was decorated with love in her memory.

We miss you, Mom!

Halloween - Part Two

On Halloween night, we had all of Heather's family over for a fun filled spooky party! The kids had a blast!

The Creepy Specimen Jars Our house was overtaken by mice on Halloween night!

Costumes - take 3!
Heather = cave woman / James = La-Z-Boy (aka... too lazy to wear a costume!)
Heather's Nephew's in their trick-or-treating get ups
A heated game of Bingo
Eating worm filled dirt cups
Musical Chairs set to "Monster Mash"
Decorating Pumpkins
The finished products
The party was super fun and afterward, the kids hit the streets of our neighborhood for some serious trick-or-treating! Same time, next year?




Costumes - Take 4!
Our last party of Halloween 2010 meant one last set of costumes and now our costume box is locked up and put away until 2011! See ya next year on All Hallows Eve!

Halloween - Part One

We went to an adoption mini-class last week and we were in charge of bringing the treats. I had fun making these pumpkin chocolate chip cupcakes and they turned out super yummy!
The first Halloween party of the season was held at our neighbor's house, the Walter's. In case you can't tell from the picture, we went as salt and pepper shakers. You should have seen the looks we got as we were trying out the different colanders on our heads at Wal-mart!
We divided into boys vs. girls for a heated game of Pictionary! The party was a blast and we feel lucky to have such awesome neighbors!
The second party of the season was held at our church and boy did I get a ton of comments. All of the kids kept asking me if that was my real hair!

Halloween week isn't over yet, so we'll add more pics of the festivities soon!

♪ I Can Hear The Bells ♪

Last Saturday, James' Dad got re-married! We're excited for the happy couple and we can't wait to get to know Sherry and welcome her into our family.

These are the centerpieces that Sherry asked me to make for her "autumn" themed wedding luncheon.
This is our cute nephew Curtis posing for the camera at his Grandpy's wedding... he looks darling in this pic so I just had to include it with this blog post!

Love Is Sweet

Any excuse to throw a party and I get so excited! I love party planning and I think that I must have been a party planner in another life! My little brother Chris is getting married on November 11th and I wanted to throw a bridal shower for my cute soon-to-be sis, Karen. For party favors, the guests filled their own treat bags.

The sign next to the treat jars said:

LOVE is SWEET please take a TREAT!

My mom helped me to throw this shower and we had a blast color coordinating all of the yummy food! We made yummy sparkling lemonade and even decorated the water bottles! I decorated our dining room chandelier to match our theme and designed the food table around it. We loved our cupcake centerpiece!
As guests were either coming or going, we asked them to take a minute and write Karen a little note - just another fun way to personalize the shower!
This is cute Karen! I'm so excited for her to join our family and I hope she had fun at her shower!

Happy Haunting

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. Something wicked this way comes!

I'd turn back if I were you!

The residents of this haunted hollow!

"Welcome," said the spider, "Come right in.

I'm so glad to have you, I feel mighty thin."
"Rest your weary bones, put down your pack;
The time has now come to have a snack!"