a floral baby shower

My sweet sister-in-law, Bailey, is expecting a little girl in just about a month.

We wanted the shower to be really girly, so we went with a floral theme.

This spring wasn't really cooperating with our plans, 

but thankfully my aunt has a remarkable green thumb 

(we joked that her house is essentially a greenhouse), 

so flowers were not in short supply! 

Thank you so much to Manda, Caitlin & Victoria with your planning help,

Aunt Lynnie for hosting, and all the family members who contributed delicious treats.

I feel so blessed to be part of a family who loves celebrating life together -

we are so happy to call Bailey family now as well,

and we're overjoyed to welcome another little family member in June!!

All pictures property of The Merrythought.
More pictures & details on their site!

sweet 16

Today my baby sister turns 16.

She's currently at the State Fair, so we celebrated on Tuesday night.

It's the first family party we hosted at our new house!

We got Chinese food & ate out on our back porch.

I made a peach cake... and didn't have any candles.

So we lit a twig.

The cake was really good. (The batter was also divine, just saying...)

Happy birthday, Jay Beth.

We love you!

a country cottage shower

Yesterday we had a shower for my future sister-in-law, Bailey.

Bailey & Robert will be living in North Dakota on a beef ranch,

[well, Robert's already there, but Bailey will be joining him after the wedding!]

so we thought it would be fun to incorporate some of that into the shower.

 Unfortunately, I was slacking on pics [again] and didn't get a picture of the food before it was gone. 

The shower was at Bailey's Aunt Jen's cottage on Lake Ontario - such a beautiful home & setting!

Bailey's sister Katie, my mom, dad, Victoria and I all made different jams for favors.

We kept the decor really simple - just ball jars with zinnias from the garden 

& wildflowers from the field across from the cottage! 

Seriously - what a view!

Part of the dessert table - lovely cake made by the one & only Manda.

I heard it was scrumptious - sadly I didn't get a piece! 

That just means you have to make another one, Mand!

Drinks & desserts - what's not to love?!

The beautiful bride-to-be opening gifts.

My sweet sisters, taking advantage of having control of the camera! 

The bridal party, L-R:

Jayne, me, Emily, Bay, Betsy, Martha & Katie

[sidenote: I think this was the only picture with all our eyes open!]

Bannister Babes, minus Mom:

& one more to get Mom in the picture with us.

So blessed that my brother has found such a wonderful girl to spend his life with!

Love our growing family!

Thanks to the Hartway-Wilson clan for all their help in throwing such a fun party!

We love you, Bailey & we're so excited for the big day!

a milk n' cookies shower

This past weekend, my friend Ellie and I threw a shower for Patti and her sweet son Caleb!

We did a milk n' cookies theme, with some help from good ole Pinterest.

We figured that the "milk" part might be a little juvenile for grown-ups, 

so we did a coffee, tea and hot chocolate bar as well.

Got the idea for chocolate-dipped mallows here and adapted it a bit for the party.

They were super easy & cute - I definitely want to make the peppermint ones later this winter!

We had some delectable cookies - chocolate chip, chocolate crinkle, chocolate mint,

English matrimonials, lemon shortbread and peanut butter blossoms.

I, of course, sampled all of them.

Yum.

In light of the holiday season, rather than play a shower game,

we decided to decorate cookies!

And our favors were sprinkles in cute little jars.

Overall, I was so happy with how everything turned out

and we had such a fun afternoon!

Congrats, Patti! We sure love your family!!