The Baby Shower

Sorry for not being about the last few days, but we had the baby shower on Saturday and I was busy in the lead up to the shower and plain bloody exhausted the day after!!!

Anyhow it went off without a hitch and dd loved it.  The theme of the shower was "Sugar and Spice."

Dd  mother-in-law is the Principal of a private school so we used one of the rooms at the school.  Here is a photo of the food.

Dd best friend who was the creative genius behind the shower, also made the cake.  I did most of the sweet things, and dd mother-in-law did most of the savory things.

Dd best friend also made the three diaper cakes.  They were stunning.  On this table also was the Wishes for Baby cards and book.

This is the "wishes for baby" cards that you fill in and they go into the pink book above.  Its a lovely keepsake and the pages were made using a Cricut.

Here is the table with the favours on it.

Inside the boxes were a sugar cookie (you can sort of see a couple at the side of the photo) which dd best friend made, along with Butter Chicken spice mix and recipe for the butter chicken.  Hence the sugar and spice theme. Our little Princess' mother put the spice mix together and we used her recipe for the chicken.  I should post the recipe as everyone loves it........well except me as I don't like anything with spice in it.

On this table you can see three of the prizes.  Also the Price is Right game, where you had to guess the total price of the various items.  Ds girlfriend won that game.

Here we had the diaper changing game.  The doll on the far right is Annabelle and she will be 47 years old next March; yes she is my doll.  My cousin's daughter got second prize in that game.  My step-mother won another of the prizes and my niece won another prize......and no it wasn't fixed!!!

In the centre of the tables were these flower arrangements along with two dishes of candy.  For the spice red hot tamales, and for the sugar chocolates.

This was another of the interesting facts that was framed on some of the tables.

Dd got so many gifts it was over whelming I think.  The baby will not need any clothes for the first six months of her life.  She is a very lucky little girl.  We had around 40 people there which was nice and I think from what I could gather everyone had a good time.  So all we have to do now is wait for our little Sweet pea to pop out and pray and hope she is a she, otherwise if she is a he, he is going to be wearing a lot of pink and purple things for the first six months of his life!!!!

I did manage to get the quilt finished.

I also got a pillow made out of the scraps.

I still have the crib skirt to do and a tab top valance for the nursery.  Does anyone have a link to an easy pattern for a tab top valance?

Not all work, some play also......

Dh is on vacation this week.  We have been busy doing odds and ends.  Dh was feeling sore after some of the jobs he has been doing, so we took the morning off and ran some errands.  We ended up going to Stayner for lunch.  I took this photo of the main street when we were in the car.  It has some pretty decorative old buildings.  There are a number of businesses closing down or have closed down.  It's such a shame. 

The day was gorgeous and the wispy clouds in the sky were lovely despite the power lines.

When we got home, it was back to normal.  We cleaned out the shed and dh took a truck load of garbage to the dump, while I cut some grass.  We're having a day outside again today to get more outside jobs done while the weather is nice.

What are you up to today?

Couple of funny things that happened on Tuesday...........

We were stopped at a police check point, as they were trying to catch people drinking and driving......not a problem........though it was only 10:30 am!  The expressions on our face I bet said it all: "Who the heck will be drunk at that time of the morning?"

Went into the Mall and they have moved everything around again........either that or I am getting even more senile!!  Am I the only one that can go to the mall or shopping centre and never find the stores in the same place as you can remember?

 Bloody Hockey season has started, or at least the friendly games.  Baseball season hasn't even ended yet?  Can't stand either sport.  However I wanted to show you how far I will go to support the Toronto Maple Leafs...............I will buy and eat their donut at Tim Horton's along with the $1 Latte, no sugar please!!

Nerves of steel, not Superman...

My dh.  He has another week off work, so this week it's getting those Fall jobs done that need doing.  

Dh has been stripping down the wood burning stove as there was a few issues with the fan.  He is now painting it all as it had some rust spots on it.  Hoping he has it all done before the end of the week, as it's getting cooler on a night.

Then the other job that needed doing was the attic dormer window needed re-caulked on the sides as there were holes in it.  As you can see it's very high.

Dh was the brave one to get on the roof.

I sat in the attic on the window seat and passed things to dh.  Looking at that photo I need to clean the windows inside soon!

An hour later it was all done, and we both lived to tell the tale.

Here's hoping it's not to do again for a while!

Lots of photos.......

We had the kids over on Sunday as they were taking us out for lunch.  Gave dd the clothes I bought for our Little Sweetpea while we were away.  I love Carter's clothes as they are very good value for money I found.

Her Baby's First Christmas outfit, I actually got that at Cracker Barrel as I couldn't find one small enough anywhere else.

 Her first swimsuit....

 Tights, shoes and headbands.

 A gorgeous smocked dress from Jack and Janie.

 We went to the Mono Cliffs Inn for our lunch.  The girls had butter chicken each.  It was very mild, as I had a taste and I actually liked it.

 The guys had a bison burger each.

 I had Lamb Bolognase with Goat Cheese and penne pasta and yes it was yummy.

 Bought around 3 1/2 lbs of ground/minced beef.  I browned some off with some veggies, to add to spaghetti sauce and the rest I browned off with onions.  Ended up with five bags of meat and that will make a minimum of ten meals for the two of us.  I will cook once and make enough leftovers for at least another meal with each bag of meat.

My goal for this week is to get the binding hand sewn on the baby quilt, as the baby shower is this coming Saturday. The time is certainly flying by for dd pregnancy.  She only has another ten weeks to go and she is looking good.

When you're eyes are greedier than your stomach,,,,,,,,

You end up being sick all day the next day!!!  It was dh's birthday on Friday, so we went out to dinner at night to a place called Bistro Seven Seven.  The kids had given us a gift card at Christmas for $50 so we decided to use it towards the meal.  The photos are dark as we were sat in a corner and the lighting was "mood" lighting so you could hardly see a thing.

We had an amuse bouche of a goats cheese croquette with honey and pheasant with mushrooms and shaved parmigiano on a piece of toast.  Both were good.

The appetiser dh had was Hearts of Romaine, Garlic Emulsion, Buttered Croutons, Shaved Parmigiano or more commonly known as Cesar Salad.  He said it was good.

I had the soup of the day which was butternut squash and sweet potato.  It was really good, but I don't remember what else was in it.

They then brought us a small ball of mixed fruit sorbet to cleanse our palette.  Dh had the special of the night which was a spicy fillet of salmon with various veggies.  Again I can't remember what exactly the sauce was but it did have a kick to it he said.  The veggies were potatoes, mushrooms, parsnip, turnip and red cabbage.  He really enjoyed it.

I had hand-cut Herbed Gnocchi, Mushrooms, Wild Boar Bacon Cream Sauce with a balsamic reduction.  The gnocchi were super light and delicious.

Now this is where the "eyes are greedier than our stomach" saying comes in.  Despite being stuffed full we had desert.  Dh had goats cheese Cheesecake with a caramel drizzle, it was a lighter cheesecake, not a heavy New York type.

I had Banoffee Bread Pudding with caramel sauce, and yes it was as good as it looked!!

To finish we had a square of lemon fudge, homemade of course!  It cost us another $75 on top of the $50 gift card but was well worth it.  You could tell the quality of the ingredients used and the service was impeccable.

Now due to all that rich food I suffered greatly overnight and all day Saturday with heart burn.  Wouldn't be so bad but the kids are taking us out for lunch today for their dad's birthday. Just have to remember how much I suffered all day Saturday, and order something light!!!

You might think I am daft, but I thought this thing was scary

We went to Lowes the other day and this display was outside. Even from a distance I wasn't impressed with that big black thing.

Closer up I didn't feel any better.  Do you think it's supposed to be the grim reaper?  I personally wouldn't go any where near it.

This is more my thing, this display that was parked outside of Sobeys.  Very fall like and not scary!!!

There are a couple of good deals at Sobey's this week.  When you buy this participating Quaker products you get a free 4 litre bag of Natrel milk.  Also when you buy Chapmans frozen yogurt, you get a box of frozen yogurt treats free.  Also have you seen the Jamie Oliver products in store?  I am saving the stamps for them, as I like them; click on the link to see them here.  I want the small bowls as they will be handy.

Got to get dh to make one of these, just too funny!!!

 and will provide hours of entertainment for both humans and squirrels!!!!

Oops..........

The photos don't show you how steep this bank is, but the top one does show you that the back right tire is off the ground.  I turned the tractor too late and went partially over the bank.  How I never rolled the tractor with me on it is a mystery.  Someone was obviously looking out for me.  Yes it shook me up and I had to get my neighbour to help me push it up, as dh was out.

Back to gutting grass today got the field and Kamikaze Hill to cut.  Fingers crossed no more incidents while doing it!!

Museum of Appalachia (photo heavy!).......

Thanks to Rose for mentioning this last week, on Saturday we went to the Museum of Appalachia. It was a good hour's drive from Pigeon Forge and we had a super time.  Also on that day there was a big Antiques Show, so we paid $20 to get in rather than $18 each.  The Antiques part of the place was a bust; not our kind of thing, we "didn't get" the type of stuff they were selling.  However the museum part of the day was great and really interesting.  

As I have a lot of photos I will split them up over a couple of days.

The Overhang or Cantilever Barn, seen an example of this up at Cades Cove as well, you can read more about them here.

Saw Mill 

We watched these guys for ages. 

 This guy was a delight to watch, he was the "Boss," look at the cigar hanging out of his mouth.

An "Out House," I wasn't going to inspect it further! 

 One of the many peacocks to be found in the park

 Big Tater Valley School House; there is a Youtube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90x3POi4jZ8

Irwin's Chapel Church 

 A  Bee Tree, there is more info about them here.

 Turkey and chickens

 Mark Twain's Parents House, you can read more about that here.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to name all the houses, but I went and threw out the directory from the place.  All in all lots of great things to see.