Is that not the most beautiful cake you've ever seen? It was equally delicious, trust me!
A week ago, we had our first baby shower for sweet Crew. It was given by two couples from our "Couples Group" at church. (One couple being Amanda and Tyler...it was also at their beautiful home!) It is so amazing to think that just one year ago we didn't know any of these people we now call great friends. God is so good and we are so thankful he led us to ICC where we would meet and fall in love with so many amazing people.
Our hosts know us so well....a Mexican food bar! YUM!
I'll try not to bore you with too many gift pictures, but I'll just say that we got some great things! Have I mentioned that we are blessed?!
(And you can see sweet Bentley, co-star of The Sequined Spaniel, in the background)
The cutest jeans and suspenders EVER. I can't wait for Crew to wear these!
(Bella, co-star of The Sequined Spaniel, loved assisting with the gift-opening process)
My youngest brother's girlfriend, Ashley, (seen in the photo right behind me....with my ecstatic and happy-to-be-there baby brother) made this amazing quilt for Crew. Even the stitching was in the shape of giraffes! I can't even say how special this is! I know she spent so much time on it and we can't wait for Crew to be here to put it to good use!
Camo booty!
Mint booties and a newborn hat from the mint-lover herself (Amanda)
I think Bentley is a little unsure how to sit with a giant belly in the way...
We had a great night celebrating Crew with some great friends. We can't wait for him to meet all of them!!
We had such a great weekend. I feel like it was our first "normal" weekend in a long time because of Will's recent world traveling!
I had two Craigslist jackpots this weekend. I picked up these two chairs for $10. Yes, they need a lot of work, but they were too unique/retro/awesome to pass up. A little elbow grease and spray paint and they'll be good as new!
Our second Craigslist find was on a dresser for Crew's nursery! Yay! I am so, so excited about finally finding a major piece of furniture for him. If you remember what I've said before, the crib is the only item that we're buying "new" (& probably the glider too). Everything else will be refurbished furniture. The dressers that I had been seeing on CL in the style I was wanting were ranging anywhere from $200-$400 and we scooped this one up for $70! Woohoo! I am so excited to be making progress on the nursery. Now I'm giving myself to Wednesday to make the final decision on the paint color. I'll post a pic of the dresser soon!
My most recent craving (besides anything sweet) has been purple cows. Have you ever had one or even heard of them? I'm not sure if this is just a southern thing or not. It's just like a coke float but with grape soda. Will had never had one and hated it at first, but since he's been sneaking bites each night I have one I think it's growing on him. He said I'm brainwashing him.
This is what I woke up to on Saturday morning. Sheesh.
My dad came over to do a little more work on our new closet Saturday morning. It's making progress and almost done!! He and Will also had to replace a bunch of rusted out pipes under our house that day. Our kitchen drain got majorly clogged last week (thanks to me) which led to Dad finding leaky and rusted cast iron pipes under our old house that needed to be replaced anyway....at least that's what I'm telling myself. Oops. Note to self: next time just throw away the pork tenderloin instead of throwing it down the disposal. Thanks, Dad!
After church on Sunday we came home and rested for a few hours. I slept terribly on Saturday night (which actually led to me organizing Crew's closet at 2am) and was so tired. Later that afternoon we went over to a friend's house to go through some boys baby clothes she was getting rid of. She has 3 boys so there were plenty of clothes to go through and I am so excited!
Our loot
Remi must think he's a parrot perched on my shoulder or something? Either that or he's just run out of room sitting on my lap.
Last night we went to Tyler & Amanda'sfor a delicious dinner. BBQ pork, grilled corn on the cob, mac 'n cheese, rolls....is your mouth watering yet? This was all followed by a homemade fudge pie (YUM!) and another dessert called sweet crust (I think that's the name...). I had never heard of it, but it was full of blueberries and so delicious. I can't wait to get that recipe from Amanda and try it out! All of the dessert of course was accompanied by some vanilla ice cream. It was heaven for my sweet tooth, pregnant self.
Sweet (and usually shy) Bentley finally warmed up to us and cuddled up to me and Crew for a few minutes.
My car is in the shop so we borrowed Will's dad's Jeep this weekend...his lifted Jeep that I've needed a lot of assistance getting in and out of too. Will was dying to put the top down last night because it felt so great out and he snapped this pic of my very wind-blown hair on the way home. Needless to say, getting a brush through that tangled mess was not an easy task.
Well, I finally have this post ready. Better late than never, right? I had some SD card issues, but it's fixed now!
Will got ordained last Sunday, June 23rd at Faith Baptist Church in Bartlett, TN. This is the church where we both grew up and where we met! It meant a lot to us to be able to have our "home" pastor and our current pastor be a part of Will's ordination. We also had most of our small group from ICC come to Faith that night. It was just such a special night!
Barrett (our current pastor) praying for us.
Our home pastor
We are so grateful to everyone who came to celebrate Will's ordination with us!
We had such a fun weekend with friends! Some of our best friends have a house at 'the bay' in Maddox Bay, AR (a run-off of the White River). We haven't been able to go in 3-4 summers so we were excited about continuing the bay tradition this past weekend.
Fisher's first time on the jet ski!
It was also Roxanna's birthday weekend! Happy Birthday!!
I got this tankini top off eBay last week. I wore a bikini the first day, but thought I'd try out the new suit on Sunday. It fit good, but made me SO. HOT. The water was still soooo cold after all the recent rain. I only got in once on Saturday to cool off...and didn't stay in long either! The water hurt it was so cold! (23 weeks preggo)
I feel like I should also mention the two bald spots on Will's chest...haha. He went for a check-up/physical a few weeks ago in preparation for his upcoming trips to Africa and China and they decided to do an EKG. I guess the sticky pads wouldn't stick so the nurse solved that problem! Poor Will!
Our babies stayed at my parents house this weekend and came back exhausted. Remi LOVES my parents' big backyard and just runs nonstop while he's there. It'll take him a few days to recover!
I'm telling you right now that this post is long. There's just so much from this party that I loved. It was such a great day and I've been reliving it since then!
desserts || decorations || mason jar cups || tulle poms that Amanda helped me make
Baby Kassner banner that I made || choose your necklace! || chalk for voting board || close-up of delicious rosette cake made by Bad Ash Bakery
pink & blue punch || shrimp cocktail || mason jar centerpiece in kitchen || food!
Getting in some practice with Harrison!
The beginning votes
And here's where I need to explain what's going on...
First things first: My amazing friend Kelly Ginn (yes, the same one I always rant over because of her lovely photography) was so helpful in planning the gender reveal surprise. I ordered a 3-ft. black balloon from itzwhimzeycal on Etsy, cut up a trillion pieces of pink/blue confetti and added colored sequins to two separate bags (with the help of Amanda again). Last Thursday after our appointment, we took the balloon, 2 bags of confetti and THE envelope over to Kelly's. She would be the FIRST person to know Baby K's gender until we popped the balloon on Saturday. Being a photographer, she had to document what was inside the envelope and I'm SO glad she did! Here's her photo...
I wrote the first part and the sonographer filled in the important part!
Also from Kelly
We LOVE the picture of Baby K waving! My brother noticed that it's exactly how Will waves and IT IS! Too funny!
Another dilemma I was having was how to do the name reveal. I had been telling our families from the very beginning that we would tell the Baby's name once we knew what we were having. And honestly, last week I was regretting saying that! We had been set on a girl name basically since we got married. The boy name was the one giving us some issues. We LOVE the name Crew, but just hadn't decided if we were going to include William in the name or go with something different. We made our decision on Friday...just in time! Kelly had offered to write the name on this super cute chalkboard that she had and we could reveal it like that. It was perfect. If you know Kelly, you know she has adorable handwriting so I trusted whatever she did! I gave her our girl name and boy name and she planned accordingly. So THAT'S how the surprise worked. A lot of people at the party assumed we knew beforehand because of the name reveal, but we didn't. 100% surprised thanks to Kelly!
The chalkboard - all covered and ready to go!
I got these pictures from Kelly after she went and got the helium in the balloon on Friday. Don't pop, don't pop, don't pop!
Now, my mom had been saying for weeks that she was terrified that the balloon would pop before the party and the surprised would be ruined. I agreed with her, but didn't actually think it would happen. When Kelly delivered the balloon to my parents house on Friday, they put it upstairs in a closed room by itself. Just. in. case. We kept it up in the room until it was TIME on Saturday. Everyone (60+ people) gathered in the kitchen/sunroom and we waited on my dad and brother to go get the balloon from upstairs. It was pretty loud in there until we hear this loud POP coming from the front of the house. Instant silence. And cue these faces...
(p.s.-thanks Sarah for capturing this moment!)
No one could see where my dad and Cody were so we didn't know what had happened. A million things were going through my mind. Mostly, I was trying to decide if I should make a mad dash to the front of the house to see what color confetti had just popped out of the giant balloon. But...I stood there frozen. All of the sudden I hear people start saying, "Courtney, your dad wants you." And then I see Dad making his way to where we are standing and I walk to meet him. His has something light blue in his hand and that's when I lost it. I couldn't stop crying. I just kept thinking, "At least we can still reveal the baby's name." At first I thought he was handing me blue confetti that had just come out of the balloon, but it was actually a light blue tack to pop the REAL balloon with! Real funny, Dad! It actually is pretty funny now. When it happened, not so much.
From what I understand, here's how the conversation went between Cody and my dad:
Cody's walking down the stairs with the real balloon.
Dad's standing at the bottom of the steps with a blown up Ziploc bag.
Cody: You know she's going to cry, right?
Dad: I don't know if it will even be loud enough.
Cody: Well make sure you hit it hard.
So I had to control my crying before we could do the real thing.
Still teary-eyed!!
IT'S A BOY!!
If you watch the video you'll see that I didn't actually get to pop the balloon. Will's excitement took over and he popped it right before "1." My arm just jabbed into air..and confetti!
And more tears...from Will too! I don't know if I even screamed or anything. There were just instant tears. Probably because I had to push PAUSE on the tears two seconds before!
So happy for a baby boy! We had been saying all along that it was a boy. (Except for about a week or two at the beginning I thought girl) I don't know why, but after our past two ultrasounds and seeing him move around so much we just knew it was a boy. This probably isn't a good thing, but we had been calling the baby Remi, Jr. (after our dog) because they seem so alike! Ha! Both so full of energy!!
I'm not too sure why Will has his tongue out here? Catching snowflakes?
We love our ICC family!
So thankful for all of Amanda's help for this party!
My dad giving me a hard time about his hilarious joke. And yes, I typed that with sarcasm.
Still talking about "the joke."
I love my baby brothers! And I know they're excited about another hunting buddy!
We feel so incredibly blessed after this party. Over 60 of our closest friends and family came to celebrate Crew with us. He is already loved by so many and we are so thankful for that! I'm so excited to start planning for this sweet boy!
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