Baby Boy Bell Shower and Working on Santa Paintings......Saturday and Sunday

This has been such a good weekend - chock full of celebrations and FUN!! 

We all need a bit of FUN in our lives!

Friday afternoon we arrived at the Bell's home for a shower for a Bell Baby Boy!

When I told Louis Dean where we going and what we were doing, he asked, "Since when did MEN go to a baby shower??" Things change and this was a real par-TAY!!

The host and hostess!

Amber and Mike joined forces with Mike's brother and sister in law - Chris and Whitney.

They arrived on Friday to help set up and get ready and the grands were so excited to see their cousins!

They don't get to hang out much together since Chris and Whitney live in Indiana.

These two gals can sure put a party together!

All the Bell Grands with one on the way!

Hailey there in the back is the first born grand for Jim and Lynn.

Here I am with Mark and Brittany!

He is one tall guy and I love him dearly and am so happy he found Brittany!

Everything was decorated so pretty!!!

Lots of good food and lots of guests!

I think there were about 50 or so!

We nibbled our way through the first hour and then settled down to a real meal!

You can catch a glimpse of Whitney here in the kitchen.

She's the pretty red head in the center of the photo with Mike's mom in the coral blouse.

There were groups of people in every room - their house is just PERFECT for a party the way it's laid out.

The patio was set up with two tables for the kids.

Hailey is movie star beautiful and looks just like her mother!

Miss Trystan and Logan with Kailey opting to sit with the boys and Harper.

Here I am looking all happy with Louis Dean looking like a deer in the headlights.

Miss Harper had her little guinea pig, Beverly.

I wasn't thinking when I asked if it was male or female and Harper said, "We don't really know!"

Time to open gifts!

I made a small pillow to go with the quilt and sewed a pocket on it.

Talk about a Tooth Fairy Pocket!

That thing's going to hold a lifetime of teeth!

I wasn't thinking tooth fairy but maybe a toy pocket.

In the future, I'll be sewing one of those tiny denim pockets on a pillow.

I knew Mark would love the crib quilt because I made a much larger one for him when he graduated Texas A & M several years ago.

I went out to check on Cash and Kona.

They had been kept in their kennel which was relocated to the guest room before they were let out in the back yard.

Poor Cash!

He's recovering nicely after eating rocks a pink sock and a surgery to take the sock out!

They just wanted to go in and party with all the people!

Sweet baby dogs!

This just squeezed my heart!

All too soon people were leaving and Harper and Logan stood at the door handing out special pumpkin cookies as party favors.

I forgot to mention the games.

Amber and Whitney had two and they were pretty cool but the prizes were even better -

Starbuck gift cards!

NOT like the baby showers of days gone by!

I did another cheat for Jack #15

You can't see it in this pic Amber took but after all the lights were out, I'm sure the jack-o-lantern was smiling out into the darkness waiting for someone to come along and smile back.

This Sunday morning I watched Fellowship Church online.

Louis Dean got his flu shot and had started coughing - a dry cough more in line of one with allergies.

He didn't sleep well last night so he slept in.

I got dressed and drove up to McKinney to watch the girls hockey game.

While they didn't win, I did get to see them play and Kailey and Trystan each make a goal!

From there I went on to Trader Joe's - which is such a happy place for me.

It was bustling and I bought up some more pumpkins - 16 more to carve this month but I only bought 3.

Plus we love their frozen Chinese things like Orange chicken and eggrolls and vegetable fried rice and such.

Saturday afternoon I decided to quit fighting my palette and start a new one, so I scraped all the pliable paint from the old one and started fresh.

Much better!

Then tonight I worked on it some more.

This was the second session with one more remaining.

The first one was basing in.

Second session - filling it in.

Next session will be putting in all the finishing touches and fixing anything that doesn't look right.

Each session is about an hour so a good sized painting can be done in 3 hours or so.

I'm a little distracted here tonight as I'm watching the Cowboys game with the Philadelphia Eagles.

We are down 17-20 but if I pay attention and cheer hard enough - maybe I can pull out a win!!!

Then, I have to go outside and carve pumpkin #16 and drive somewhere in the dead dark of night to place him. I'm thinking of up in a tree....