Double your Pleasure, Double your Balloons

A week after our mini-gender reveal, on October 13th, my dear friend Jenn G, had her gender reveal.  Jenn is pregnant with TWINS and she's due the day after me.  It's really nice to have a friend going through the exact same thing as you are so that you can compare notes.  When you have those annoying should-my-stomach-be-making-that-noise kinds of questions, it's reassuring to have someone just a text away to ask.  It's especially great with Jenn because she has a precious older son, Noah, so this isn't her first rodeo.

Of course, I couldn't miss her gender reveal!  Ryan & Brendan had to work, so Jen and I hit the road for for the shindig as single ladies.  The fiesta was at Jenn's parents' beautiful home in Clear Lake.  The set up was mind blowingly impressive.  From a beautiful table of sushi, crab, vegetables and fruit to a dessert spread complete with festive cookies and cupcakes - it was evident no detail was spared.  I plan to enlist them to decorate for my next party.

Mmmm... crab.

Beautimous dessert spread.

 Pink or blue - everyone wins with cupcakes.

Jenn & Taylor opted for the balloon gender reveal, which I LOVE.  It makes for such fun photos.  (Editors note: by fun photos I mean if you have someone who knows what they're doing with cameras.  I don't fall into that category, so let's not look below with any expectations of prize-winning photography, mmk?)  Around 8:00 pm we all filed into the front yard to see if Noah would be a big brother to two princes, two princesses or one of each.  By the light of the street lamps we all found out that the Gartz crew will be welcoming....

The guests of honor!

Moment of truth... 

Baby A is a... little lady!

Baby B unveiling... Also a she... I apparently missed the boat on capturing the second set of pink balloons.  Doh.

 First family photo.  :c) 

Two little girls!  I'm so excited for all of them.  They'll make such a perfect little family.  I can't wait to meet Anniston & Blakely, and I'm sure our own little bean can't either.  Congratulations Jenn, Taylor & Noah!  We love you.

Viva la Sumerlins: The Pre-party

As many of you may be aware, Ryan & I were recently in Mexico for Shawna & Austin's wedding/the best vacation ever.  I have taken a while to get around to posting about this because it's actually a fairly daunting task for my organized, type-A-to-a-fault little brain.  How do you organize 5 days of vacation-, wedding-, and friend-time-fabulousness into 1 succinct post (especially when color-coding is not an option)?!  So, my ultimate conclusion was that you can not.  Thus, Shaustin: The Wedding will be brought to you by the letter S (did anyone catch that Seasame Street ref?) in 3 installments.  Today's post will cover the Rehearsal Dinner.  Annnnd.... go!

Austin's sweet parents generously threw a "Welcome to Cabo" party on Thursday, January 12th for everyone who was lucky enough to duck out of work early enough to arrive in paradise a few days before the wedding.  We were all treated to the most delicious Mexican smorgasbord my stomach has ever, or will ever, see in its lifetime, a photo montage of Austin, Shawna and the various squirrels (Tupac, Skeelo & Dena) they grew up with, touching words of wisdom from the proud parents of the groom, and excellent company.  It was a truly wonderful evening. 

Of course, when you're in paradise and your BFFs are getting married- the party never ends, it only takes a nap or migrates.  So, of course, after the party it was the hotel lobby (bar), where we repaid the resort's hospitality by bursting into inappropriate song, toasting to male anatomy with parentals and creating general chaos.  When the lobby bar closed for the evening, we all headed to Desires (affectionately deemed "Desiree's") where we continued to astound resort staffers with our artistic ability - this time in the form of dancing.  After all, the gang doesn't believe in hiding our light under a bushel- only shaking our groove thing on top of one.  As I'm sure the pictures below will demonstrate, the evening was an absolute blast and one that neither I, nor the Dreams resort, will ever forget.  Thank you to the gracious hosts and to all participants!

I believe this translates to: VIP.

Just beautiful.

Just seeing this makes me crave ceviche.

Some of this fajita steak would also do.

The guests of honor.

Austin's parents, Austin, Austin's hilariously wonderful grandmother, Shawna's sweet grandmother, Shawna & Shawna's parents.  With these genes, I predict that Shawna & Austin give birth to the first travelling band/baseball team.

Rindy & Mike imparting the secrets to a happy marriage, or maybe just celebrating the fact that somehow all 3 of their "kids" (Jimmer, Austin & Ryan) found women to put up with them.

If 1 finger is good for finger pointing, 2 must be great.  Matt is definitely a visionary.

David's smile is because he's thinking about how many pieces of cake he wants to order from room service later.

Jen is an incredible artistic photo director.

A small sampling of the beautiful Florida ladies- and the most handsome of Florida men

"What should I do?"

20 plus years of AOL exploits, riding bikes into pools, Ebay purchases and beer cans under beds.

Adorable Gartz clan.

Beth has a secret.  She has a husband.  And a short dress.

Melanie, Yo, Jules, Jen & Brianna

Obviously not natives, no matter how fantastic our Spanish is.

You know how I know these men are classy?  2 words: red wine.

A toast to the after party!

Getting the dance party staaaaarted.

Inevitably coming up with genius inventions.

The beginning of a beautiful love affair.

David, how do you say CHEERS?!

Break-dancing.  Duh.

Black Swan goes to Cabo.  But less weird.  And ballet-y.

Showing us how it's done.

Blue Steel meets blue shot.

Nothing says good night like getting Night at the Roxbury-ed by your husband and his friends.

Brunch Season: The Triumphant Return

As you all may have gathered from my lack of posting as of late- I've been a little tied up.  Brunch season got pushed to the wayside because of all kinds of things like... going to Canada, celebrating the joining of lives and a week long bout of whooping cough (which the Dr referred to as an "upper respirtatory infection"... I stand by my baseless self diagnosis though).  Consequently, the weekend before this past one was the first in a while that some of our schedules lined up.  We decided to celebrate with a revival of brunch season.

This time we took our thirst for mimosas and adorable baby buddy to Farrago.  I've been to this establishment on several occassions and highly recommend it.  Aside from delicious crab cakes and excellent fruity to go candies (sometimes mints just dont sound good)- they offer bottomless mimosas in red wine glasses.  They take the "bottomless" portion of that statement very seriously too.  If you don't have a solid 3 hours to devote to a nap afterwards, this is not the place for your brunch bidness. 

As always, we had a fantastic time.  Thank you, anonymous waiter, for sharing way too much of your thoughts with the audience.  Thank you, Dena, for decking us all out in pink teenager bracelets.  Thank you all for your partcipation.  Smooches!

Noah and his beautiful mama

Dena & Jamie

New brunch friends.  Who hang out with Ryan Reynolds lookalikes.  No biggie.

Noah, Jenn, Shawna & I

Dena & Noah.  He's also shocked by the size of the mimosas.

Sexy Dexy's Homecoming

This past Saturday, on Noah's one week birthday, Austin, Shawna, Dena, Matt, Caitlin, Jonathan, Brianna, Jen, Ryan and I drove down to Clear Lake to see Jenn & Taylor's new house and to meet precious little Noah Dexter.  Noah's proud papa has already given him a nickname - Sexy Dexy.  I'm sure Jenn will grow to love that one. 

We dined on cupcakes and pizza, watched SportsCenter and Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (guess who was in charge of the remote), hung out by their beautiful pool and took turns holding the little man. 

Thanks for having us over Jenn and Taylor and welcome to the crew, Mr. Noah!

Jenn & Taylor did such a fabulous job- how cute is this?

Noah has more clothes than I do.  Dena is shocked.

Caitlin, Shawna & Noah

Caitlin & Noah

Shawna & sleepy Noah

Transitioning is hard.

Dena & Noah

Austin, Noah & Taylor

Noah & his beautiful Mother

Jen & Noah

Me & Noah

Look at those big blue eyes

So precious.