Sports Theme Baby Shower, Yard Sales, and Bridemaid Dresses

So I had a pretty productive weekend.

First on the list...

We're planning my cousin's baby shower! You all know I love to plan a good party and this time is no different. My cousin and his wife, who got married back in October, are expecting their first baby at the end of November. We're planning a Sports-Themed Jack-and-Jill baby shower for them in September. It was kind of a last minute decision, so we're just now getting the invitations out (which we designed ourselves).

We made the invitations to look like a sporting event ticket. Originally, we wanted to create a team logo using the baby's initials, but they haven't settled on a name yet. However, they are decorating the nursery in a monkey/jungle theme. The mom-to-be's favorite football team is the NY Giants, so we went with blue and red as our main colors. All of the tickets have a different Sec/Row/Seat number because during the shower we are having a free throw contest and the players will be chosen by drawing their S/R/S number.



We're also including a registry card with the invitation. We designed it to look like a baseball card.



So the invitations will go out tomorrow and then we start planning the food, favors, and games.

Next...

Our annual Hawaii yard sale is this weekend, so we're busy getting ready for that. Every year the profits of our family yard sale are put into a high-interest savings account, so that someday we can all go to Hawaii.

Things got a little hectic this year. We hold the yard sale at my grandparents' house because they are in prime yard sale territory. However, we prefer to have it while they are out of town. Now, you know I love my grandma, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have her faults. One of which includes not understanding how a yard sale works. She does not understand why we sell a $500 suit for $20 or less. And when we do this, we hear about it.

She also does not like clutter, of any kind, at any time. So Friday after the yard sale, she wants us to move everything into the basement and put it away and then unpack it again Saturday morning. Um, no. We prefer to just pile it all into the garage and then just pull it back out on Saturday.

Well, they left for Florida last Thursday and originally, they were not supposed to come home until August 23. We were going to have the yard on August 21-22, so we would have 2 weeks to get things ready. We found out last week they are coming home on the 21st. Immediately, we changed the date to this coming weekend to save our sanity...and also my grandma's.

And finally...

We have bridesmaid dresses! On Saturday we traipsed on over to a shop that had let my sister order 3 different dresses WITHOUT the requirement to buy. (Pretty much all wedding stores require you to buy any dress that they special order for you, so you have to pay for the dress before you even see it or try it on.)

The first dress we tried on was a no-go. I have tig ol' bitties as it is and the first dress added about three sizes. Plus, the color, which was the color we would have gone with, was hideous. The second dress was PERFECT. I'm a curvy gal and the other bridesmaid is stick straight and this dress looked gorgeous on us both. Score! We got it in Wisteria (which is a dusty purple) with gold trim. The trim under the bust ties into a bow in the back. We're cutting the bow off and using the extra gold ribbon as straps.



My mom also bought her Mother-of-the-Bride dress. She got it in Royal Blue.



Unfortunately, the only good thing about the dress shop we went to was there special order policy. Other than that, it was a terrible experience. There were 2 or 3 other bridal parties in the store and the owner was helping all of us at the same time. It was so frustrating because we kept having to wait while she flitted around. She was also incredible scatter-brained. She asked my sister at least 4 times where something was: Where's your wedding information ticket? Where are the straps to the dress? Do you know how much this dress costs? Umm, it's your store and you work here, shouldn't you know the answers to these questions? And I'm not even going to go into the price issues we had.

My dress needed to be altered, so I had to pay for it in full then and there. Well, like I mentioned there were price issues that really rubbed me wrong, so after we paid I was like, "I'm taking my dress with me and getting it altered somewhere else. I'm so fed up with this place, I don't want to have to give them another dime." So, that's what we all did. We're taking them to the same place Meg got her dress and giving them our business. If we hadn't had to put down a $50 deposit to be used on any dress when we special ordered, I would have gone to another store entirely to purchase the dress.

But anyway...one more thing to check off the wedding to-do list.

So that was my weekend. Not the most exciting, but I got alot accomplished.