Baby Shower Update!

So my baby shower was this past weekend and it was very surreal to realize how far I'd come in this pregnancy. I loved my shower. Great food. Great friends. Great family. I really loved every minute of it.

I know traditionally the person who is being "showered" stays out of the planning. But my best friend (Kristen) and I are both foodies, planners and hostesses to the core so the idea that I wouldn't be involved at all was pretty far-fetched. (And I'm sure that my girl Kristen will be just as involved in her own shower . . . which we've already started planning even though she's not pregnant . . . YET!!)

So we put our heads together and came up with the concept, the decorations, favors, MENU (the food is my favorite part of any party) and games. Kris kept a few surprises under wraps and definitely bore the brunt of the prepping and planning but I appreciate her keeping me in the loop because I really enjoyed being involved in the design and planning. Anyway, I wanted to share a few pics from the shower:

We had the shower in the clubhouse of my mom's complex (YAY for not sticking someone with the cleaning!) This is one of the first tables you saw when you walked in. In the back, lined up, are the prizes for the winners of the shower games. And in front were the favors that each guest received. And the "centerpiece" was the cupcake tower, which I requested rather than a cake.

Yummy cupcake tower. Chocolate cupcakes and peanut butter frosting, another special request from me because, really, who can get enough of the chocolate/peanut butter combo? Oh, and that's a strawberry whopper on top to add a touch of pink! ;-)

And these might have been my favorite thing at the shower. My best friend is an amazing artist and she created these blocks as "topper" for the cupcake tower. They are the baby's initials and I think they are so cute and unique and seriously love everything about them!

She made the initials in script and block letters and filled the rest of the sides with images of things that start with that letter. For "P" there was a purse, pacifier, pig and penguin. For "K" there was lips for kiss, a kite, kangaroo and kitten. Adorable!

This is where the thank you card envelopes were placed. Guests were asked to fill in their own address (YAY for less work for me!) and then an envelope was drawn at the end of the shower and that guest received a prize.

This was the next table guests saw as they entered the clubhouse.

An adorable basket Kristen filled for me that was also used in one of the shower games . . . as a decoy! Guests were told to pay attention to me as I walked around the room showing them the basket. Then I walked out of the room and they were asked questions about me! What was I wearing? How far along was I? How was my hair fixed? I thought this was a fun trick to play on them! ;-)

Another shower game. The very popular shower game where you can't say "baby!"

This was the guest book. Since I love little written notes, I thought it would be nice if guests jotted down a few words that I could cut out and put in a scrapbook with some ultrasound pictures, a baby shower invitation, pictures from the shower, etc.

And here are the favors! We had a few of these set up around the room kind of acting as decoration and "centerpieces."

Because I'm a huge foodie I wanted to make something people could eat/drink. So I decided on a jarred favor and since the shower was in November, I settled on hot cocoa. I designed, printed and made the tags for the favors. On one side was a "thank you" with the baby's name and due date and on the other side were instructions for how to make the cocoa.

Again, to add a splash of pink, I had an idea to make this "strawberry hot cocoa". We layered homemade cocoa mix (Alton Brown's recipe, YUM!) with Nestle Strawberry Quik and added mini-marshmallows at the top. So it really tied in well with the pink/brown/white color scheme.

And, finally, the most important part, THE FOOD! And the people, of course! From left to right, that's Jan, my mother-in-law, Kristen (best friend/shower host) and Kristen's step-mom, Donna. And next to them is all the yummy food. Kris and I had a blast designing the menu for the shower and couldn't wait to dig into the all the yummy treats we made!

And here is the menu that Kristen created that listed all the yummy food.

And one of the prettiest and yummiest treats there was this fruit bruschetta. To. Die. For!! Although the pink punch that Kris made was also amazing. It was white-cranberry juice, Diet Cherry 7-up and scoops of floating raspberry sherbet. It was fizzy and so good and even turned out this gorgeous shimmery pink color. I wish I had a pic of it!

As you can see, there wasn't really a "theme." Just coordinating colors and patterns. We tried to tie in pink/brown/white color scheme with geometric shapes (mostly stripes, squares and polka dots) in subtle, cute ways where we could without going overboard. Kris used the brown and pink polka dot ribbon we found to accent all the table cards and menus and jars around the room. And I added it to some chocolate brown cardstock to create a "placemat" of sorts for our hot cocoa favor centerpieces.

Another thing we tried to incorporate was the baby's name, especially her initials. Since we haven't decided if/when we will share her name on a public blog, I have (so far) decided to hide her name in the pics. But I did decide to show her initials so that we could share all the cute details of the shower. In case you didn't notice in the pics, they will be KAP. We used her name/initials on the favor tags, wooden blocks, and menu. Kristen also sliced up some puff pastry and decorated the top of the baked brie with "KP." How cute! It was really fun seeing her name everywhere and hearing everyone calling her by name at the shower. It made it seem so real!

~Layne

PS: Strange but true: I'm actually having another shower in a couple of weeks on December 4th. My mother-in-law and her good friends insisted on throwing me a separate shower. I don't get it but who am I to refuse?!? This little girl is already getting spoiled!