busy week...

And this is why: I decided to host a ladies night/diaper shower for a friend who had a baby boy about a month ago. This week was a flurry of preparation, planning, baking, and decorating. And of course, the whole family was under the weather. Again.

I decided to divide everything that needed to be done up over 4 or 5 days, and that actually made things much easier (imagine that). I spent one whole afternoon doing decorations, which was really enjoyable (the house cleaning day...not so much) I made my first diaper cake, which involved a lot of diaper rolling and rubber bands, but turned out looking...delicious...or so my son said :)

These tissue paper pom-poms were something I'd wanted to try after seeing them at another baby shower a couple months ago. I found this tutorial on Martha Stewart's website (I'm sure she came up with the idea herself...) I tried making two following the instructions exactly and got fairly frustrated with the results. So then I tried cutting the folded tissue paper in half to make smaller pom-poms, which looked much better, in my opinion.

I found the baby clothesline idea on several blogs, none of which I can remember. So I raided Noah's drawers and hung some onesies and swaddling blankets on kitchen twine with clothespins. So cute...and so easy.

We did a dessert buffet for food, and everyone brought lovely delicious treats. My contribution was some punch...

...and monkey bread, the deliciousness of which I was reminded of a few weeks ago when Deb at Smitten Kitchen posted her version. If you don't know what monkey bread is, she has an apt description:

They [are] like cinnamon rolls and doughnut holes got together and made beautiful dough monkeys.

I love Deb. She is wicked funny :)

Anyway, I didn't make the cream cheese glaze, mostly for lack of time, but I'm sure it would make it that much more sinful...er...delicious. I made the dough in my breadmaker (on the dough setting), using the recipe for cinnamon roll dough that came with my machine. I rolled the little balls of dough in a mixture of white/turbinado sugar and cinnamon and put them in a bundt pan, letting them rise for about an hour. Then I mixed about a stick of melted butter with 1/2 cup of brown sugar, poured it over the contents of the bundt pan and baked it at 325 for about 25 minutes.

It was good.

The shower was wonderful. It is always good to get together with other ladies and have good food, good conversation, and stay up past my bedtime. Almost every one of us had a baby (all boys!) in arms most of the time...and we all enjoyed seeing each other's beautiful children. Poor Mr. Gardner took my two eldest out to a playland somewhere for most of the shower even though he was feeling sick. Bless him.

One last picture from the shower...