the weekend before easter, i attended my lovely friend flo’s baby shower <3 it was a beautiful saturday afternoon in concord and flo's sister janina and good friend lynn turned her backyard into the perfect garden setting for the tea party-themed shower. the centerpieces and other decor were très adorable!

and don’t get me started on the food! i could have eaten the entire plate of those fried bananas. luckily i restrained myself … the shower was very intimate and i’m sure more than one person would have noticed ;)

after eating, sipping iced tea and socializing, it was time for games. shower games are always fun, but they usually frustrate me because i often get SO close to winning i deserve a prize but i don’t get one because, hello, second place! i’ve gone to so many showers and gotten second place in so many games it’s kind of become a syndrome. argh!

but flo’s was the shower that changed everything (thank you, baby trapp)! i didn’t come in first place in just one game … i came in first in TWO GAMES! ok, there was a tie-breaker for one of them, but i won! two games! april 16th will go down in history as the day i became a winner :D

first we played my new favorite baby shower game, one i’d never played before. we were each given cut-outs of different parts of flo and brian’s faces and were told to put together a single face made up of the features each parent hopes the baby will have.

i didn’t win (i didn’t even come in second, awww), but i did guess several of the features right and it was the most hilarious game ever. notice claire’s incredible attention to detail with the bow in the hair (third from right, below). baby trapp is a girl, after all :)

we also played how big is mommy? and the price is right game where you have to guess the cost of specific baby items, but i sucked horribly at both of those per usual :)

and now, since you’re dying to know, the games i did win: guess how many stars and the don’t say baby clothespin game. i couldn’t believe i won the guessing game because i’m usually terrible at those. i *always* guess a number at least 100 over. it’s embarrassing. so when janina said 108 and i realized the number i had guessed was 108, i almost peed myself! ok, not really. but i was pretty excited. i had just won my first baby shower game EVER!

the second game i won came down to a tie between me and the incredible mandy. we each had a whopping 11 clothespins. for those who don’t know the game, each guest starts out with five clothespins. if you say the word “baby” and someone calls you out, you have to give them one of yours. the person with the most clothespins at the end of the shower is the winner.

luckily janina had a few questions ready in case of a tie. the tie-breaker? what is the most number of times flo has gone to the bathroom in one day since she’s been pregnant? i won’t share the answer out of respect for the privacy of flo’s bladder ;)

mandy guessed six less than the correct answer and i guessed two more. i was closer, so i won (it probably wasn’t completely fair since i’ve gone through a pregnancy and remember how often i had to go to the bathroom, but mandy graciously accepted second place and i wondered incredulously at the fact that i had won first place in not one shower game, but two)!

after gift-opening, picture-taking and a little more socializing, it was time to call it an afternoon … and a truly enjoyable one, at that. we came, we saw, we ate, we drank, we played, we laughed and we showered the mommy-to-be with love and well-wishes.

thank you for including me in your special day, miss flo! i had an amazing time with you and your lovely friends, no wine necessary :) what a lucky little girl your daughter is to have you as her momma <3

last week i joined the amador mothers club, a club for tri-valley moms of kids under the age of five, and i figured since we’ll likely be tri-valley residents at SOME point (soon? maybe? we hope? yes?), why not join? plus, tara’s a member, and now michelle and i are, too :) hooray for mom things.

so last tuesday we went on our first outing as official members to mountain mike’s pizza in livermore to get a tour of the kitchen and let the kids make their own pizzas. fun!

first we got set up in a party room in the back and the kids colored and stamped and played for a few minutes before the first group of us got to go back to the kitchen. there we saw a man turn the dough into little circles for the kids’ individual pizzas, and then we watched a lady put tomato sauce on them. then we took them back to the party room and decorated them with cheese, pepperoni and olives (for those of us willing to eat them).

the girls did a great job putting their toppings on. jenna was more into eating her pepperoni than she was putting it on her pizza, while ellie wasn’t interested in the pepperoni at all. she did sneak a few bites of cheese, though :)

audrey, on the other hand, was kind of bored by the whole thing ;) here’s a picture of ellie enjoying the fruits of her labor.

once we were done at mountain mike’s, tara’s sweet tooth proclaimed it needed cupcakes, so we drove down the street to a cute little cake shop called let ‘em eat cake. tara, michelle and the girls enjoyed cupcakes while i sipped water because head was so stuffed i couldn’t taste anything. why waste the calories?

so tara and michelle’s obsession with chocolate extended our fun that day :) thanks for the fun outing, amc!

it’s almost wedding season! which means we’re smack dab in the middle of shower season, and with her wedding less than two months away, last weekend was maria’s turn to be celebrated :)

i didn’t know anyone there besides the bride herself, but i had a lovely time nonetheless. the weather was gorgeous, which made for a nice time of enjoying food outside, and all of maria’s girlfriends are so open and friendly i never felt awkward, not even for a moment.

and now i must showcase my amazingly gorgeous (somewhat brain-like) cheese ball (the first one i’ve ever made, which is why it’s such a big deal). also note the loveliest spring wrapping paper ever. thank you, papyrus, you are my fave <3

all the food, games, gifts and guests were fabulous, and while it may have had *just* a little to do with the fact that i got to leave ellie home with ryan, i had a really relaxing, wonderful time.

thank you so much for including me, maria! i’m honored that ellie is going to be your flower girl, and i can’t wait to bawl my eyes out while i watch you and jon exchange vows next month <3

last week we got four mommy friends together and had a playdate at jenna’s house. it was me, tara, michelle, jamee and the kiddos: baby kate (<1), ellie, jenna, audrey and paulo (2), jocelyn (4) and grace (6).

first, we wreaked havoc in the playroom.

“doctor elinor lack” has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

then we moved out to the back patio for lunch. pizza, fruit, chips and salad. delish! tara provided the pizza, chips and drinks, and jamee brought the fruit and salad. neither michelle nor i brought anything edible because we are terrible, selfish, thoughtless mothers ;) (next time we’ll plan better…)

then we played around in the backyard for awhile, paulo stepped in dog poop so there was a bit of time spent cleaning up, and we ended the morning’s events with a little time in the playhouse.

thanks for hosting a fabulous playdate, tara! <3

last week we decided to become members of the oakland zoo. a family membership gets you free admission for two adults and four children, free parking, coupons for free rides and ten percent off at the gift shop, among other discounts and benefits. best of all, it supports the zoo <3

ellie's BFF jenna and her family belong, too, so we can all go together as often as we want, and it's just like going to the park except with animals :)

we decided to put our new membership to use for the first time last wednesday with jenna, jocelyn and tara, and our other gymboree friends michelle, audrey and baby kate.

we made our usual trek past the giraffes and elephants, zebras and meerkats, birds and monkeys. the 2-year-olds did a great job keeping up (because when you’re two, you NEVER ride in the stroller when you can walk!) and everyone was having a grand old time until we sat down by the children’s zoo to eat lunch. that’s when jocelyn started complaining that she didn’t feel well … and then she threw up right there on the grass! poor thing :( and she had been so happy earlier.

so tara did as best she could to clean up and left with her girls to avoid spreading any germs to ours. it was a good thing she did because jocelyn had a temperature of 103! luckily she felt better in a day or two, no one else caught her stomach bug (except her sister who’s all better now) and we’ll be making plans to return to the zoo when the rain lets up.

hooray for zoo membership!

the three of us were driving down the embarcadero yesterday afternoon when we realized it was ellie’s first time in san francisco. she slept through a drive on our way home from the marin headlands once when she was about five months old, but that totally doesn’t count. yesterday was a momentous occasion!

we were on our way to meet kevin and amy at the wattle creek tasting room to pick up our shipment and do a quick tasting. we arrived a few minutes early and thought we’d celebrate ellie’s first visit with a cupcake from kara’s.

peanut butter milk chocolate ganache, kara’s karrot and vanilla chocolate. as dora would say, “¡delicioso!”

then we went next door for our tasting. ellie was kind of a handful, but can you blame her? it’s not like we were doing a juice tasting ;) so it wasn’t long before we wrapped it up and headed over to amy’s adorable pacific heights apartment. check out the view from her living room, it’s so san francisco.

ellie liked it, too!

it was so nice of our hosts to cook for us, we weren’t expecting them to provide entertainment for ellie, too! she had a fabulous time scribbling all over amy’s table coloring in her favorite disney characters with her fancy new markers. thank you, uncle kevin and auntie amy!

dinner was a wonderful concoction of macaroni & cheese, bacon, chicken and veggies, brainstormed by kevin and brought to fruition by amy. i forgot to snap a picture of the dish right out of the oven, so here’s what was left over.

it was as delicious as kara’s cupcakes, if not more <3 thank you, kevin and amy, for being such gracious and accommodating hosts. we love you and we can’t wait to impose on you again! …perhaps next time just the adults ;)