Memorial Day Weekend 2016

Happy Memorial Day! I cannot even begin to express my gratitude for the men and women who gave up their freedom for mine! Thank you for your service and sacrifice!

My weekend began on Friday where I spent as much time soaking up the moments with my sweet Brayden!

I have exactly one week left off work and I want to cherish my time with him as much as possible!

On Saturday morning, my mother-in-law came by to watch Brayden so Heather and I could go for a run! We had a great time in beautiful weather. More about the run in Friday's workout recap!

As a post-run breakfast, I had an English muffin "sandwich" and coffee in my Vero Beach mug. Two years ago, we spent our Memorial Day Weekend at Vero Beach and had a ton of fun. I would love to go back and spend a bit more time there...it was SO relaxing and peaceful!

During the afternoon, I dropped Brayden back off with my in-laws then headed over to Painting With A Twist for a Disney themed Bridal Shower!

I loved all of the Disney-esque details!

My button was the Rapunzel one! I thought this was such a cute touch!

Our class began with a blank canvas and lots of different colors....

This was my fourth painting to do with painting with a twist and turned out to be my favorite by far!

• Take 1
• Take 2
• Take 3

Bridesmaids!

Midway through the painting, we took a break for dessert!

I loved the adorable Mickey and Minnie touches!
 

Bride!

Here's my finished product! I couldn't help but include a little hidden Mickey in there! Melissa did the same!

Hi Mickey!

All of the Bridesmaids with the Bride!

Our class

After painting, we went to see Alice Through the Looking Glass. I loved it!!

On Sunday morning before church, I introduced Brayden to his Mickey lovie. I think he likes it! :)

My dad and his buddy during lunch after church on Sunday...

Last but not least, this is a picture my grandmother-in-law gave to me and I love it! The young girl in the picture is my mother-in-law as a senior in high school and the ones surrounding her are my family. The man in the middle is my grandfather who passed away a few years ago (if you read my blog then, you know how close I was to him). This is definitely a picture I will cherish forever! As for the reason my family was hanging with my mother-in-law...well, let's just say our family has a long standing history and it's just an interesting fact that Jason and I got married! 

Today, we've been invited to a BBQ at a friend's house in honor of Memorial Day! I hope you all have a great day as well!

What are your Memorial Day plans? 

Wonderland Themed Bridal Shower

This past weekend, we threw a friend of mine a Wonderland/Mad-Hatter themed Bridal Shower and it was adorable! So much so in fact, I had to share with you here! :)

Let me also start off by saying that this bridal party was incredibly creative and had a lot of input on this shower...so everything you see here was a collaborative effort!  

The bride's wedding colors are green with bright Gerber daisy flowers...so that's where we started our planning process. The themed colors for this shower ranged from hot pink, teal blue, and lime green to orange and yellow. As a Disney fan and lover of all things bright and colorful, this shower was right up the bride's alley! 

The room we utilized for the shower was the Glass Foyer of my church. It's a large room that fits plenty of people and has a ton of space. The only downfall - it has a ton of space which means we had to be creative with the decor.

We gathered all of our ideas from Pinterest and decided on two table centerpieces:

The clock centerpieces were set to the time of the shower and the time of the actual wedding. I liked that touch!

I also loved the added detail!

Instead of the traditional guestbook alone, we also added a teapot for everyone to sign.

The favors were bags of tea!

A friend of one of the bridesmaids had an Alice in Wonderland themed birthday party for her child and let us borrow some of her extra decorations! See...the roses are red and we didn't even have to paint them that way! :)

My BRF also let me borrow some of the decor from parties she's thrown in the past...lucky for us, it all worked!

This was probably my favorite area of the entire room!

Loved this sign! 

The bride and groom have dated for four years and were engaged at WDW, so these pictures represent their relationship over the course of time. There's also one picture of each bridesmaid with the bride in there as well! (A few hidden Mickeys are scattered throughout the tree as well, but you can't see them from this picture!)

 Another fun touch was the photo booth!

Guests of the shower had a great time taking pictures here!

One of our games was the ring game...and some women were out for blood! It was hysterical!

We had a wide assortment of food, but these were my favorite...

The ideas here were also found on Pinterest, by the way! 

This hostess was incredible! I asked her to make sandwiches and we would arrange them at the shower. She asked what I was thinking so I sent her a picture and she made it happen!!  Thank goodness for creative people! :)

This was a super delicious sandwich "cake"...it had chicken salad inside which I'm not usually a fan of, but it was good!

Last but not least, the cake....oh the cake!

My friend (and fellow bridesmaid) Mackenzie made the cake and did an INCREDIBLE job! This was her first topsy turvy cake and it was adorable!  

The bride loved it!

After the bride broke a bow, I informed her of the old joke...the amount of bows you break is the amount of kids you'll have...

She took extra care from then on! Teehee!

I was laughing at her here because she was carefully ripping the paper around the bow so she wouldn't break it!

Overall, the shower went off without any issues and we all had a great time! This shower was completely different from anything I've ever helped with in the past and I loved it!!

Have you ever helped to host a shower? Do you enjoy throwing parties for people?