My baby shower was way back on November 7, 2009. It took a little time to get the photos and by the time I did I was too ill with the pregnancy to think about blogging very much. And then Jane was born and it has just gotten later and later, so I promised myself that I would post about the shower before her first birthday. So I'm going to leave this post here at the top of my blog for a week or so, and then I'll file it back in November '09.
It's really a shame that I haven't written about it until now, because it was totally awesome. My family went to so much work to make it special for me because they were all so excited about my first child and because they love me a lot, and I really felt that from everything they did.
My mom hosted the shower, and everyone contributed totally yummy food. This was especially nice because I hardly ever had good food when I was pregnant and it was such a relief to not have to make it myself! There was a big beautiful fruit salad, and a strawberry-spinach salad (my favorite kind), rolls, two kinds of soup, and chocolate cupcakes.
My sister Jacque made this incredible fondant cake! The real kicker is that she had never heard of fondant before, this was her first time! I love fondant cakes, I think they are so beautiful (we actually had a fondant cake at our wedding). And the ribbons and bows on top, amazing!
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| Jacque |
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| Erika |
My sister Lauren planned the games for the shower. She had the classic "cut the yarn as long as you think Breanne's belly is," which may or may not have been flattering. =) And she passed around baby food jars and we all had to guess which food it was by smelling it (I was not very good at that one!). There was also a memory game where she showed us baby items on a tray for 20 seconds and then we had to write down everything we could remember. I got to keep the baby stuff at the end (and it all really came in handy)! The last game she did was a word matching game:Each card had baby-related words on it, and if you matched two of the cards, then Lauren gave you a candy bar that was a funny spin of the word on the card! For instance, if you found both "Daddy" cards, you got a Big Hunk! I think "twins" was a Twix bar, and "preemies" got you a box of Runts. Half the fun was just trying to guess what candy bar it would be! I wish I could remember some of the other pairings.
She made all of the party favors, including sugar cookies frosted like alphabet blocks, pink chocolate suckers in the shape of teddy bears, and pretzels drizzled with white, brown, and pink chocolate.
Nikki also did all of the decorations at my mom's house, with balloons and streamers and all things baby-shower-ish. She had a black and pink theme going which I think was tres chic!
The most amazing thing was a gift from everyone that Nikki put together. It's a book of advice and warm wishes from all of my family, including people who couldn't be there that night like relatives in California, Michael's family, nieces and nephews, and she even emailed friends of mine on Facebook and got quotes from them to include in the book! The book also has photos of all of these people that I love and quotes from famous people (like Mr. Rogers and the Cookie Monster) on bringing up children and family. It was beautiful!
It was great to have many family and friends near enough to come to the shower. I'm not sure if we got a picture of everyone, but we got quite a few people:
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| On the left, Michael's grandma Bonnie (baby Jane's great-grandma) and on the right, Penny P, a very close family friend of Michael's |
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| Michael's mom, Carrie |
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| Carrie's sister Sherren on the left and on the right my good friend Adrienne from high school and college (she was pregnant herself!) |
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| Mom on the left and my good friend Jessie and her son Jonah. Jessie was also pregnant! |
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| My good friend from high school, Heather, on the right. |
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| Lots of us eating the yummy food! You can see my niece Cameron in the lower left, she was so helpful that day! Also, in the background you can see hanging flowers and paper cranes that Nikki decorated with. I took those home and put them in front of the window in Jane's room and they have been hanging there ever since! |
And then it was time for presents! I got so many adorable outfits for Jane, most of which you have probably seen on her blog by now. I got lots of 3-month outfits which was great because she fit into those for SO LONG!
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| Jane got so many frog-related items! Her mom loooves frogs. |
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| This was a hilarious "how-to" baby book reminding you of things like don't let the play with sharp objects |
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| This was a way cute "baby-gami" book, on different ways that you can wrap up the baby. |
All in all, it was pretty awesome. I left the shower with my friend Jessie, and the first thing she said in the car was, "That was probably the best shower I have ever been to." It's true! I was actually a little overwhelmed with how much was done for me, I didn't realize people would work so hard to make it special. Even my very good friend, Amy, who couldn't be there sent me an awesome package that was like a mini-shower in itself! Thanks to everyone who came and for the gifts and thanks for making me feel so loved!
p.s. - sorry if I forgot to mention something that someone did. Honestly I'd like to include everything so if I'm forgetting something please send me an email.
p.s. - sorry if I forgot to mention something that someone did. Honestly I'd like to include everything so if I'm forgetting something please send me an email.
