Show and Tell with the Takalas

This past week, Lucas has been off for vacation. Vacations when you're eight months pregnant are a little bit different than normal vacations, mainly because you really aren't supposed to leave town. So, we stayed here. Also, my doctor had me on modified bed rest until my BP was re-checked, so we couldn't really even leave the house to do much in the way of local activities. That basically leaves two things to do if you want to get out of the house: movies and going out to eat. So far this week we've seen Bridesmaids and Cars 2. I realize those are kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum. Bridesmaids was hilarious, although probably not the most appropriate movie ever. Cars 2 was somewhat of a special movie to see together because we saw Cars on our first date five years ago. Little did I know that in five years, I'd be sitting in a movie theatre, extremely pregnant, with the very same man. :) We went to Esparza's in Grapevine for dinner after Cars 2, which is always fun. Last night, we headed to Rudy's BBQ to attempt to satisfy one of my rare cravings. It wasn't quite Betty Roses' potato salad, but it was still yummy!

Even though I'm clear as far as bed rest goes, I'm still trying to take it easy. Yesterday my mom and I went all over the place and also worked on the nursery, so I'm going to be as lazy as possible for the rest of the weekend. (That means we'll limit it to a couple hours of shopping rather than an entire day.) We still have a couple more movies we want to see, though, so today we're going to see Super 8 with Abby and Chuck and then to eat at Edohana, a Japanese Hibachi place. This is for Lucas. If you know me, you know Asian food is NOT my thing. Tomorrow we're going to see Larry Crowne with my parents. I hope the people in the theatre won't mind that I'll probably be quoting lines from You've Got Mail throughout alot of the movie. Seeing Tom Hanks (or Meg Ryan or Greg Kinnear or Steve Zahn or golden retrievers or bookstores or computers or bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils) just brings out that bad habit that I typically suppress as to not alienate all others around me.

Now that you've heard about our super awesome vacation and weekend plans, I'll leave you with a little tutorial for fun hostess gifts. I decided to do a gift bag of some of my favorite things for the sweet girls that hosted my last shower. Each item I included in the bag had a tag attached to it with a cute little description of the item. This gift absolutely screamed me from the wrapping all the way down to the smallest detail. I only ended up spending somewhere around $15 per bag total (including wrapping) due to some great sales I happened upon.

The gift wrap- black handled paper bags, hot pink and leopard print tissue paper, hot pink tulle, black raffia, gold resin initial letters ($2 each half price at Hobby Lobby,) and thank you notes.

The goodies that went inside each bag.

Chocolate bars- $.70 each at Target.

Frames ($1 at Dollar Tree) with my favorite bible verse- Zephaniah 3:17
I designed and printed the verses at home.

CO Bigelow lip gloss ($2 each on sale- reg $7.50 each) from Bath and Body Works

CD of my favorite songs by my favorite worship band- Hillsong United

Hand Sanitizer (about $.75 each) from B&BW

Tyler Candles- Diva scent ($2.25 each at Sample House)

Kitchen Lemon hand soap from B&BW ($3 each on sale)
I'm a bit obsessive about hand washing. :)

Pedicure sets ($1 each at Dollar Tree)

The whole set

The finished product!

Other great items for this bag would be gift cards for favorite restaurants/stores or a favorite book. These are the things I would've added if I had unlimited funds. Enjoy and feel free to use this idea!