Mikey & Ellie's Book Shower

I hosted a baby shower for my brother and sister-in-law a few weeks ago.  I loved every minute of planning, decorating, and hosting.  It was such a blessing to get to shower them with love and share in the excitement as they await the arrival of Mikey and Ellie.  

Since they are having a boy and a girl I decided it would be fun to do a book themed baby shower.  

Savannah's Memories, a cute little etsy shop, made the invitations for me.  I loved how they turned out.  She also made a diaper raffle card to mail out with the invitations.

I kept the decoration simple and made most of them myself.  I did buy the confetti  used on the tables and the book banner from etsy shops.  

I made the fans from old children's books.

I ordered a personalized book from I See Me for a guest book.

I was able to get LOTS of books at a local consignment shop. Seth and Melissa got to take home all the books so that Mikey and Ellie can have a full library. 

We served lunch to everyone.  The menu was based on different books.

They had a great turn out.  Lots of family and friends came to celebrate with them.

 This is my cousin's little boy.  I was so impressed by his reading skills.  He loved all the books.

Lots of sweet baby gifts and a few things for the parents to be as well.

After they finished opening presents I read a little story to my sweet niece and nephew.  I wanted to read the book that everyone signed and share just how much we all love Mikey and Ellie.

I hope Melissa & Seth felt just how much we all love them too.  

I cannot wait to meet those precious babies and watch Melissa and Seth tackle this next adventure in their lives.

Our Home Study Party Two

Last Tuesday we had the second part of our final home study.  

We let her meet the Lbs this time. After all they are part of our family.    We weren't two minutes into the meeting when she decided they were spoiled rotten.  We couldn't deny the fact.

Andrew and I sat down in different rooms to fill out a questionnaire that was 4 or 5 pages long.

Will the paper work ever end?

These questions were a little more personal than those she asked us in the first meeting.

I found this sample of the questionnaire online if you are interested in knowing what type of questions we were answering.

After we both finished answering these questions the three of sat down together to go over our answers.

We also gave her a quick tour of the house.

It really was pretty simple.

I can't believe it was our last step.

This process has felt incredibly long and really fast all at the same time.

Now we just wait for her to write up our home study so that we can be put into the system.  

Once we are in the system we will be an open home, meaning we can be matched with a sibling group.  We can either wait on the database to match us and for someone to call us or we can call about a sibling group.

We plan to call about a sibling group as soon as we are open.  

In just a few short months we could be meeting our children for the first time.