The Hostess with Mostess

Maddie and I had THE best weekend!! Our very dear and special friends in McDonough have a wedding come up, and I offered to help host a wedding shower for sweet Anna and Cody. We've known Anna since she was a young teenager and have watched her grow into a beautiful young woman with such a heart for God, and her fiancé, Cody, is such an awesome guy! He met Matthew not too long ago and took a special interest in him, so of course that endeared him to me even more. :-) Anna's mom, Carol, is one of my dearest and closest friends, so on the day I went with her wedding dress shopping (for the mother of the bride dress), I asked her if I could help throw a shower. Plans got set into motion, and the date was set for April 27. On a side note, Matthew and Maddie are SO excited about this wedding! They both talk about it and can't wait to go. Carol said it would be great to bring Maddie to the shower, too, and I knew Maddie would love that! So, the Friday night before the shower, Maddie and I start cooking and making preparations. Our contribution to the menu was two Pampered Chef Broccoli Braids and a batch of carrot cake cupcakes. Maddie had a softball game first, so we didn't even get home and start cooking until about 8. My initial thought was to let her stay up until about 9, but before 9 I changed my mind. We were having THE BEST TIME in the kitchen together! We were laughing and chopping and chatting - and she was a HUGE help! I gave her the option to stay up until we were finished, and she was ecstatic. I just made her promise she wouldn't be grumpy the next day (or to at least fake being happy if she was). We stayed up until 11:30, and it was so awesome! She grated the carrots, scooped the cupcake batter into the cups, grated the cheese, and the list goes on. I was amazed, really, at how much REAL, BONIFIED help she was! She helps cook a good bit, so I don't know why I was surprised, but she just seemed to take it to another level. While we were making the cupcakes, she asked me if I'd ever put chocolate chips in my carrot cake... and I said no, but that maybe next time we do cupcakes, we can put chocolate chips in a few of them. She said, and I quote: "That's how I come up with new recipes. I take things I like - things that are good, and make them better. You know, that's like life... in life, you should take what's good, and make it better!" ummmm.... how old are you? The next day, we got to the Vernon's house around 11am so we could help set up (and mainly enjoy some time together), and Maddie, once again, was such a HUGE help! She was so sweet and polite, and so helpful. I was so proud of her. She helped Mrs. Lucy (Carol's mom) with setting out silverware, candies, you name it. I'm soooo glad we were able to do this together! It was a great day - and my gift was a hit!! I was so excited! I was worried about getting something they didn't register for, but I stumbled on this COOL thing at costco: an over-the-sink cutting board with a silicone collapsable colander -- talk about cool! I love to by shower/wedding gifts that I would love to have, so I grabbed it... turns out it was one of the hits of the shower! Second only to the bucket of cleaning supplies with personalized notes on each item... I've got to get a copy of that -- it was THE COOLEST THING!!