Pink balloons & pantaloons

This past Saturday was my sister-in-law Marj's baby shower, and it was soooo much fun!  I'm thrilled to have another niece and so very excited for my brother- and sister-in-law!!

These are some of the goodies I made for the new baby...

 I am so in love with these little booties!

 squeal, just love 'em!

 sweet little clippie

and a cute heart onesie with coordinating pantaloons...I'm swooning just thinking of Isabelle Kate wearing something like this when she was a baby

close up of the contrasting ruffle...

...and waistband ~ so pretty & feminine

and a sweet pocket on the toosh

I hung onto a couple of onesies so once Baby Girl arrives, I'll applique her name or initials on the front.

I was so happy to make these things, and I sure hope they fit right, ha!

***feel free to stop here if you're visiting from the hops***  :)
...but click on a link below if you want to see some really great things!
Tatertots and Jello 
Bubbly Nature

Just a Girl's Show and Share







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Karen and Kristen, Bill's sister, came over to the house to meet Isabelle and me before noon, and I drove us down to the party.  We aren't usually all in the same car together, so Isabelle was really, really happy about that!  There were a few heavy snow squalls that made me a teensy bit nervous, but they were quick-moving and the roads were pretty clear all the way down.

I was a little nervous about how my sweetie girl would do in the restraint department..all those pretty gifts...but she did great!  I was really proud of her!

such a beautiful little girl!

all smiles with Auntie Kristen

and smiles with Grandma, a co-host for the festivities

drawing lots of pictures and "helping" with the bingo game

Auntie Marj thought she needed some help, and Isabelle was more than happy to oblige

Isabelle pulled all of the tissue paper out of the bag and had handed it over to someone to throw away...with most of the gifts still wrapped loosely inside it, ha!  Thankfully, Marj's friend noticed and gave the "trash" back!

isn't this so cute???

all of our guesses about how big around Marj's belly is, ha!

Some of us really overestimated!  hee hee   :)

The cake was beautiful, and SO good!

I could've licked that icing clean off if I thought no one would notice!

At several points throughout the party, Karen and Marj would ask, "Did Bethany get a picture of... or ...?," and while I was so honored, I was shaky-knees nervous!  That's a lotta pressure for someone who is never quite sure what she's doing with that big girl camera!

Speaking of taking pictures, a few weeks ago I did my first official portrait session with Marj, and I love how they turned out!  (Thank goodness for editing, whew- indoor photos are SO hard!)

These were two of my favorites...and when I saw how beautiful she looked in the dress she wore at her shower, I was thinking of how great some portrait pics would look in that...I may have to take a few more!

Anyhoo, as we were cleaning up after the party, Marj asked if we would all go upstairs and pray over the baby in her room, and I thought that was the most wonderful, amazing thing to do!  I wish I had thought of that so many years ago for my own babies.  Karen snapped some great pics of us, but she hasn't emailed them to me yet.

And then we came home, and not only had Bill played with the boys all day long, he had gone shopping, made dinner, completely cleaned out and organized the basement (mostly ALL my stuff which I just couldn't seem to get a handle on), and cleaned up the kitchen after making said dinner.  I was truly impressed and honored that he had done so much simply to make me happy and relive some of my "burden."

It just so happened that all the way home, I was thinking about celebrating New Year's (yes, a week late!) officially with my family.  It didn't seem right to let something special pass us by without its rightful commemoration, so we opened up the bottle of sparkling cider that had been sitting on the counter forever and toasted in the new year together.  We prayed that we would be a family that honors the Lord in all that we do and say, and that we want to follow wherever He leads us.

So we've been thinking about that...