Week 115

May 11-17

This week was fun because my friend Lindsay and I threw a baby shower for a very special girl Angi. :) It was a pleasure to throw the shower for her because she is seriously one of the sweetest, nicest people you will ever meet. Lindsay was gracious enough to hold the event at her house and did most of the work. I did vacuum though. :) Haha!

Just for a little background on how I know Angi-as you all know I work in the Emergency Department as a nurse. Angi works in the Radiology Department and we actually first met when I still worked on the Pediatrics floor. When I first got the job I was going back to work after I had Jack. One day I had a kid who needed procedure done and didn't have a parent with them so I decided to go with them down to Radiology. As I was waiting for the patient to complete all of his testing I started talking to Angi who revealed that she had just had a baby as well. We figured out that our kids were less than 2 months apart! We chatted for a bit, then I took my patient back up to the floor.

I don't think we saw each other for months and months, which is sad. Somehow or another we crossed paths again almost a year later and finally went on a play date together! The babies were a little over a year old at the time. Since then we have been on a few play dates together. We also see each other at work all the time now that I work in the E.D. Long story short we have become great friends and now we are pregnant together at the same time!

So for this baby shower Lindsay and I decided to do jungle animals since that is the theme for Baby Jackson's nursery. This baby is Angi's 3rd kid, but her 1st boy!!!!! To prepare for the shower I decided to try the cookies I made for Jack's party. They made super cute favors...and they actually taste good too! I found a giant box of animal cookie cutters at the craft store and decided to narrow it down to 5 animals for the shower to keep things simple. Trust me, I had about 10 animals I wanted to try. :)

I baked the cookies a few days before the shower so that I ensured that they cool off completely and harden before frosting them. For this particular recipe the frosting is actually "painted" on with a brush...at least the base coat is. The frosting actually hardens onto the cookie into a glazed effect. For the details of whatever animal/thing/whatever that I am trying to achieve, I use the same recipe, but thicken it a bit and then color the frosting to whatever I want. I had actually bought frosting bags and tips for these cookies, but ended up using my oldie but goodie trick that I learned from my MIL...plastic baggies with teeny tiny holes in the end. :) They work GREAT! Here are some pictures of the process.

So the shower was amazing. There was a nice turnout of people from work, mostly the radiology department. Angi got some awesome presents from everyone! The food was WONDERFUL. Lindsay's friend is a caterer and she spotted us some of her delicious treats to feed the guests. There were games, but just a few simple ones. Everyone seemed to have a nice time. By far, one of the best baby showers I have ever been to, for one of the nicest girls I know.