Jennifer's Baby Shower

Maddyn Marie Gunter is almost here! She is due at the end of November, and today we had the opportunity to shower her momma, Jennifer, with items for her baby GIRL! Jennifer already has two sons, so she was so excited to find out that she and her husband are expecting a little girl. The shower was so much fun, and the hostesses did a fantastic job with the food, games, and decorations! Brittany, one of the hostesses, made an adorable lamb cake and baby buggy fruit bowl. She also had a festive home with lots of cute decorations. My favorite idea was the paint color samples cards that were decorating the tables. Jennifer has been having a hard time deciding on the best shade of pink for Maddyn's room, so Brittany came up with this creative idea to help her out! Brittany also made an adorable picture frame with some of the paint color samples. The picture is above...notice the names of all of the colors...aren't they appropriate??!! Anne, the other hostess, lead a great game! We all had 1 minute to reach in the box and try to identify the baby objects with our hands. Then we had to go in the other room and write down as many items as we could remember. It was so much fun! Lissy, one of Jennifer's closest friends from Louisiana, recently returned from a trip to Africa. She is a photographer and artist, and gave Jennifer a very special gift. When Lissy returned from Africa, she gave Jennifer a handstitched quilt with animal print. This inspired Jennifer to decorate Maddyn's nursery in black and white (with some pink, of course :) Today, Lissy's gift was 5 pictures she took of safari animals in Africa. She framed them all with black, white, and pink so they would coordinate with the baby's room. They were so neat! I am looking forward to meeting little Maddyn!

Columbus Day Weekend

This past weekend was so much fun! Since I work for the federal government, I was fortunate enough to have Columbus Day off! I don't think I ever really thought much about Columbus Day when I was younger, but now that I get off from work for a day, it's wonderful! Since we had a long weekend, our friends Amber, Kurtis, and baby Audrey came to visit. We had a weekend packed full of activities! On Saturday, we dressed up in our OU attire and rooted for the Oklahoma Sooners! Unfortunately, this just wasn't their year to win, but it was still a great game.


Even baby Audrey wore her red and white!
After the OU/TX game, we all traveled up to Flower Mound to watch our niece play soccer. It was a lot of fun to watch the girls play...and they won! Go Speedy Cats!!
On Sunday, we headed to the Texas State Fair. This is a huge fair, and we definitely got our daily exercise in with all of the walking. Don't worry though, we made up for the walking by eating fried foods. I had a Corny Dog (of course), tried the fried pickles, and sampled the "Fire and Ice." This was an innovative creation that involved fried pineapples, frozen strawberries, and whipped cream. I know, it sounds pretty crazy, but it sure was tasty! Although I was curious, I didn't get the chance to try the "Chicken-Fried Bacon." This was the winner of the "Best Taste" award at the fair this year. Oh well...I guess my arteries will remain cleaner for just a little longer now! :)

On Monday, Amber, Audrey, and I went to the Dallas Arboretum for "Autumn at the Arboretum." I generally go there every Spring, but I hadn't ever been in the Fall. The grounds were absolutely beautiful!! There were tons of pumpkins, mums, gourds, and.......STROLLERS! I have never seen such a HUGE number of strollers in my life! I'm pretty sure that every mom in the entire Dallas/Ft. Worth area brought their kids to the Arboretum on Monday to take pictures. They literally needed traffic signals! Although Amber and I had a lot of fun, Audrey was not too impressed with the pumpkin pics we wanted to take. She cooperated for a while, but then decided that being propped up against a pumpkin was not very comfortable. Luckily, after a snack and a small nap, we were able to catch a few of the happier moments. The pic above (with her huge smile) is one of my favs!

Well, although the long weekend is over, I have lots of great memories! Audrey is growing up so fast! Hopefully we will be able to get together with our friends again soon!

BOOMER SOONER!

Tomorrow is the big game: #1 OKLAHOMA SOONERS vs. #5 TEXAS LONGHORNS

Jason's score prediction:
OU 49 TX 26

Lauren's score prediction:
OU 27 TX 21

It should be a great game!

GO SOONERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Photo Website

Hey everyone! I decided to create a Shutterfly website, so that I can have an online archive of all of my photos. I will continue to add my favorite pics to my blog entries, but in case you're interested in seeing ALL of the pics I take for a certain event, I can let you know the website. Just leave a comment to let me know you're interested and I can sent you the URL.

No more computer

Well, the hard drive on my trusty desktop Dell finally crashed. My computer has been acting funny for the last several weeks and running really slow. This morning, I heard a funny noise in my office. When I went in there, I realized it was coming from my computer. The screensaver was still showing on the monitor, but it wouldn't let me click on anything. When I tried to restart the computer, it couldn't find the hard drive! I certainly didn't remove it! The worst part is that I may have lost some pics on there. Luckily I upload most of my pics to Shutterfly, but I was a little behind. The IT person at Texas Tech tried to "rescue" my files, but it was too late. MAKE SURE TO BACK EVERYTHING UP ON A REGULAR BASIS!!! I read somewhere that hard drives are either "dead" or "dying." It is just a matter of time before any hard drive will crash!! Now we have to decide whether or not to get a new computer. For now....Jason will have to share his laptop! :)