Once Upon A Time...

Yesterday was pretty cool.  I got up really early (6:30 is early for me!), and made a breakfast casserole.  Kurtis helped.  I guess he likes spending time with me even though he could have just stayed in bed.  He grated cheese for me and cut up some mushrooms.  While it baked, I got ready for the day.
All last week, I was working really hard on making invitations and some cute decorations for my soon to be sister-in-law's wedding shower.  Her family was really, really crazy busy, so my mom conned me into throwing a shower for her.  I didn't mind.  Especially because my mom got my aunt to let us have it at her house.  My house is still "under-construction" and so it's not ready for so much excitement yet.  Having it at my aunt's house took the biggest load of stress off of my mind.  I hate trying to make my house clean enough for people to come over.  Any way.  I also put together a few games to play that were a lot of fun.
First we ate yummy breakfast casserole and then we played some games.  The first game we played was Guess the Herb.  I had eight different herbs and I put them in some containers.  The ladies smelled them and guessed what they were.  One of Lili's nieces got them all right and her prize was two Tobelerone candy bars.  Yum!  I love those.  Then we played Bridal Pictionary.  That was fun.  Then I asked Lili some questions that I had asked Michael earlier in the week (I recorded him answering, too), and she had to guess what Michael said.  It was soooo funny.  Mainly because a lot of the questions, she got the answers of what Michael said word for word.  Too funny.  Every time she got one wrong, she had to eat some Sour Patch Kids.  I was going for the sour face effect, but it didn't really work.  It was fun to listen to Michael give his answers, and to see her reaction, though.  Then she opened her presents.  It was such a fun shower!  It was so great to get to meet her mom and her sisters.  They're good people, and seem like they are a lot of fun.  Her mom was really funny.  She got Michael and Lili a wedding present, and decided that for her shower, she would give her more of a gag gift.  It was a golden statue of a pioneer-type girl.  Like Little House on the Prairie.  Lili said that they would prominently display it in their home whenever she was coming to visit.  So funny! :)  Yes, I took pictures!

 Lili has a really big family.  Like way, way big.  I made 60 invitations, but it turned out I only needed to make 50.  ;)

 Front and Back of the invitation.  I do them post card-style, so you can get more invites out of your pack of card stock (from Stampin' Up!).

 I made three rosettes that went with my sort of fairy tale theme for the shower.

So this is Michael.  All alone with no one to love.

 Then he and Lili meet and birds sing and the world feels right again!

 And this is Lili.  Or something like that. If you want to get all symbolic about it. ;)

 I also made some smaller rosettes into a garland.  It spelled out "Michael & Lili"

 I put a girl in between "Michael &" and then a boy face between "& Lili" to break up the words and make them easier to read.

 This is the finished garland.  Yeah, I know I need to take down my St. Patrick's Day decoration.  I just haven't really thought about it much until I took the picture.  I still haven't taken it down.

 These are the containers for the herb game.  I decorated them, too.

 Look what I got in the mail Friday!  I was so excited!

 Playing Pictionary.  This is also the girl who won the herb game.

 We had about 20 people or so come.  Those are the rosettes from above hanging from my aunt's ceiling fan.

 I won't bore you with too many pictures of Lili opening presents, but these are the ones that my mom, and brothers and sisters went in on, so I think they would like to see them. They couldn't make it to the shower.  :)

 My brother Ryan couldn't help pitch in with the gift, so he made her some "Commitment Perfume".  It smelled like mouthwash.  Lili said, "It smells like...blue!"  :)

 So we got her the cutting board set (shown above) and this knife set.  She said, "Now we can cut things!"

Love it! :)

 Okay, so maybe the statue was a little more on the Victorian side.

"I'd like to thank the academy..."  Yes, she really did say that. :D

Her sister got her this cool crock pot, and I promised her I would put this picture on my blog.  She's too much fun.  I love hanging out with her.  Oh, and she loved the decorations so much, she wants to use them at the reception and open house.  Awesome! :)