Blossoms and Blessings

Beautiful and Bounteous

A bAbY sHoWeR!

This last Saturday, my sisters and I threw a baby shower for our youngest sister, Kristin. My sister, Suzanne, came all the way from Texas just for the event. I LOVED having all of my sisters together. Kristin's the last one to have her first baby, so it was a major event for us. We are so excited for her and know she's going to be an excellent mommy because she is an INCREDIBLE aunt. McKay is going to be a little jealous when the baby arrives.

I'm glad and relieved the event came together mostly as planned. We had a lot of fun planning and decorating, and loved seeing Kristin's reaction to all of it. We based the decor off of the shower invitation.






With her super talent, Suzanne drew (freehand) and painted the characters from the invitation:



The food was delicious! Croissants, chicken salad, seafood salad, Janet's black bean avocado dip (THE hit) and fruit kabobs. Holly made the adorable cake. Can you believe the detail on this teddy bear?



Janet put together the most adorable diaper cake I've ever seen!



We played fun games and had a onesie decorating contest. All the onesies turned out so cute!



Here's Kristin supervising the decorating. She looks a little concerned.


We had Kristin judge and pick the winners.


I think Baby Boy Porter is all set. We are counting down the days to his arrival, which should be in another month.

Snow Fun

Photobook Madness

I've finally completed McKay's first scrapbook!!!! Not his first year though, it just covers the first five months. I started over a year ago but kept getting distracted by other projects. I put together his pages in GIMP by using FREE digital scrapbook kits and quickpages (picture-ready pages). Winkflash.com is having a great deal right now on photobooks. So other than time, the total cost for this 100 page 12x12 book was $36.44 (including shipping). A professional scrapbooker I am not, but I'm happy with it and I hope McKay will like it. If you're interested, you can check out the pages (in backwards order) by clicking here.

Christmas Extraordinaire!

We were a little too excited this year to wait for Christmas to give McKay his presents. So we started before Christmas...like a month and a half. I was actually hoping it would help keep him busy while I got more things done. It helped a little, but not like I'd hoped. At least he was able to enjoy the novelty of a few of his presents in their singularity (guitar, shopping cart, computer) instead of heaping them all on him in one day. Although, he did end up getting quite a load on Christmas anyway...I was a crazy deal seeking mom who couldn't resist a bargain. (I still am.) We spent a quiet, cozy Christmas at home this year. We woke up, and in true Pearson tradition, got dressed and ate breakfast before opening our presents. We had delicious crepes, savory and sweet, made by our in-house gourmet French chef, Nathan. (He did spend two years there. In France, that is.) We let McKay take his time opening his presents. I think we were still opening presents a few days AFTER Christmas. Mckay LOVED his new kitchen: The burners on his stove quit working, so I took it back and bought a different one on clearance from Target. He loves it even more. He was so happy to have his own motorcycle. He still is a little cautious and likes to turn it on its side to "work" on it with a screwdriver more than he likes to ride it. We are very blessed and truly had an extraordinary day...McKay made this year's Christmas the best one yet. We had a relaxed, happy Christmas with our little family. We look forward to making some of the new things we did into traditions in the years to come. (See previous post for Christmas Eve photos.)

Christmas Eve 2009

We joined some friends, the Bensons and the Homers, for a Christmas Eve celebration. We enjoyed a fabulous Christmas dinner with delicious ham, potatoes, rolls and TWELVE layer jello salad. Oh, and cake, lots of cake. We played bells (made out of pipes), had a Nativity reenactment courtesy of adorable kids, and played Yankee Swap. We had SO much fun!

Enjoy these cute pictures of the children's Nativity scene:


Joseph

The Group (Sydney - Wiseman, Hunter - Shepherd, Hannah - Angel, Chloe - Mary)

Photo Editing Magic

Now that the holidays are over and the Christmas cards have been sent out, I can reveal the truth behind our happy looking family. (We are happy...but capturing it on camera can be difficult at times.) Here are what a couple of our pictures looked like before the editing process:

I took McKay's happy face from the second picture and placed it over his sad face in the first picture to get this one:

I almost used that first picture anyway. Here are more pictures from that day's photo shoot:


I am certainly glad for my computer and the ability to manipulate pictures. Yes, I love technology! Thanks to Kristin for her patience and taking these pictures for us.