jessica's wedding shower

after months of planning, jessica's wedding shower finally happened yesterday, july 19, 2008.
myself, jenn, tina (all bridesmaids) and carrie bettinger all threw jessica the shower which we were able to have at her church, northridge, in plymouth.
to allow people to still have most of their saturday, we decided to have a breakfast shower at 10am. well over 80 invitations went out in the mail (many being from out of state) and we had about 50 people attend, so it was a really good sized shower. from what i've heard, most people really enjoyed the shower and the food which consisted of bagels, danish, croissants, scones, muffins, coffeecake and the dessert table filled with assorted cheesecakes and 2 cakes.
ok. here's the story of the cake. if you see the pictures and think....wow, those are pretty ugly cakes...there is a story behind it. a week before the shower i had ordered a half sheet cake from costco. i simply wanted some flowers on it and then i wanted them to write J & J in the middle. we pick it up on friday and the writing is horrible. really, really small. apparently even the check out guy said something about it, "wow...what are those guys doing back there?! i could do better then that!" so we decided to just fix it ourselves when we got to the church in the morning.
cut to the morning of the shower. about 6:45am. i get a phone call from jenn asking what kind of filling i had gotten. vanilla cheesecake, just as we had discussed....why? well, apparently when jenn walked down the stairs that morning she saw the cake sitting on the table with the side of the box clearly stating "KEEP REFRIGERATED." awesome. now, if it was just me? i'd totally eat it. nothing that bad can happen to you, right? you leave normal cakes out with frosting made of eggs and milk, right? but, it's a shower for 50 people so we aren't about to serve them that cake.
carrie was going to be going to a grocery store to have them fill some balloons a little later in the morning anyway so we'd just have her pick up a cake. we knew we'd have plenty with all of the cheesecakes, but it was jessica's shower...she needed a cake.
and those were the cakes that we wound up with. sorry jess :( i know you're wedding cake will make up for it 1000 times over!
jessica actually helped me make the centerpieces which were vases filled with glass pieces or stones and then we put "sticks" more or less in them. very jessica. dave didn't like them, but everyone else did. we had a little photo book on each table with a rhyme game in it where you would read the verse and then pass it to the person the verse would be talking about. the last person holding the book was able to take the photo book home as well as the centerpiece.
jenn made candy bar wrappers with j&j and 8.30.08 on them and put them at each place. there was one with a heart sticker on the back and that person won a gift box with hair product and a free haircut from tina.
then, while jessica was opening her gifts, we set a timer for every few minutes and the person's present she was opening at the time the timer went off got to pick a prize.
all of jessica's friends and family were so generous that jessica got just about everything that they have to have to start their new home together.
unfortunately, justin is off on tour right now so jessica tried to get him on the computer so he could somewhat attend, but i don't think that ever happened. he was either sleeping, or the connection was bad. but i know she filled him in on the day and that there are plenty of pictures he'll be able to see.
so now the shower is over with and we only have a little over a month before the wedding. everything seems to be going really well and i'm just so excited for this wedding. it's going to be completely jessica and justin and just BEAUTIFUL. they have put a lot into it and i know they are just counting down the days until they get married....and especially until they can finally be together for more than a week at a time!
thanks to everyone for all of your love, support and gifts you gave to jessica. thank you melanie for making such a beautiful bow bouquet that jessica might just carry down the isle for the wedding. thank you to mom, jenn, tina, carrie, and jessica for helping to throw this shower and to everyone that attended and made it such a wonderful day!

i know it's blurry, but it's the only one i have. i'm sure jenn has a much better one, so you can check out her blog....but these were the candy bars:
the tables:
hayden and jessica before the festivities began:
they have arrived:

the breakfast table:

the dessert table:

the drink table:

jessica and carrie:
eatin' time:

gift time:





the goods:

jessica thanking her fans:
my bff, melanie, the beautiful bow bouquet she made and, oh yeah, jessica again:
jessica and jenn:
the family. jessica, jenn, mom, dad, me:
natalie kaltz and jessica. apparently i used to beat them with jump ropes when they were little, i remember no such thing:
rainah and jenn:
talan with his gigantic feet and a balloon tied to his pants:
jessica and carrie:
nancy, jessica and....someone i don't know the name of. although i feel like if i say kelly, kristie or carrie, i'll be right:
carrie bettinger, jenn petersen, jessica kellogg, jillian skiver, tina taylor:

opening week

it's been a weird summer here in michigan. we had some warm days, but then a cool front came through where there were some evening's it was actually cold (for summer that is).
when it wasn't too cold, it was raining. if it wasn't cold or raining, we were busy. we haven't been able to break the pool out until this week!
i saw that we were going to be in the 90's this week and we didn't have too many plans, so on tuesday i set up the pools (the big one for hayden and a small one for talan) and we were out there for the past 3 days.
talan didn't really want to get in his pool even though it had less water in it then the bathtub that he just LOVES. but he did enjoy running around the yard and occassionaly splashing in the pool.
hayden was excited to get into a pool and practice his swimming. he's gotten pretty good at swimming under water now, but we're still working on floating on his back.
the pools have been put away and the rain is coming in, but i'm now nice and tan which is all i really wanted.

he's been doing great swimming under water:

but has not mastered floating on his back yet:
"i dived!" which often times sounds like he's saying "i died!":



he once made it almost all the way to the top:
doin' laps:
this is about all he wanted to do in the pool...and he didn't even do very much of this:
talan loves to push stuff:
sharing is caring:
a duck?! i LOVE ducks!!!:
he's a bathing suit runway model:
he ran through the sprinkler about 4 times, but the pool is way better:

i'm old

on july 10th dave planned a little birthday bash for me. jenn and rainah came into town and don was even able to make the dinner portion of the evening.
the family all headed to mongolian bbq for some dinner and then headed to paradise park. dave decided we would all putt-putt since he assumed it was something mom and dad would do too. but, as old as i am, they are even older and they refused to play. LAME.
i wondered if hayden would want to hurry with the game so he could move on to the trampoline and go-karts, but he ended up LOVING it. he has asked me, almost every day since, if he can go back and play more putt-putt.
after the game (dave won with jessica coming in second, me in third...despite my hole in one, jenn fourth and hayden last) we let hayden (and rainah!) jump on the trampoline. and right before it started to rain, hayden was able to drive his very own go-kart as they just opened the little kid track. he did a GREAT job and was heard trash talking the little girl that was on the track with him. at one point, when trying to beat her, he got all the way over to the inside of the track. dave said between going on the go-karts with us and playing all the racing video games he does, he knows how it works. he made his mama proud.
right when his time was up, it started pouring. we all headed back to our place where tina joined us for some cake and ice cream.
i hate having birthdays, but technically, it wasn't really my birthday. and we all had fun anyway.

this is how you golf, right?:
nice job, jessica!:
actually taking a little direction:
and not doing too bad:
rainah (now somehow almost as blond as talan) taunting talan:
a quick session of drivers ed:
and he's off:
where are the windshield wipers on this thing?!: