Baby Shower

A couple of months ago my daughter informed me that I would be hosting her baby shower. Okay... Isn't that normally something one of her friends would do? No matter, we have plenty of room here and I really didn't mind. I thought it might even be kind of fun.

Fortunately for me she was a very hands on participant and actually did quite a bit of the work herself. One thing I didn't even think about were favor bags for the guests that showed up. She bought the bags, we split the candies, and I bought the cute little pink magnet poodles that were attached to the outside.

The favor bags.

Another thing I didn't want to think about were the games. I remember going to baby showers and that was the one thing I pretty much dreaded the most. My philosophy about showers was open the gifts, eat cake, and leave. I never claimed to be a social butterfly, after all.

And speaking of cake, Carli brought me a picture of a cake she thought she might like for her shower. I took the picture and went to the bakery that made my wedding cake almost 28 years ago. I was a little too late. They had closed just the week before I got there. So I looked in the phone book and picked out a nice bakery not too far away. When I showed the girl the picture she said they couldn't make cakes like that (they didn't make layered cakes or work with fondant). But one of the girls that worked there might, as she made cakes as a side business, not related to the bakery. She was called to the front, I showed her the picture, and she said she could make it.

The picture of the cake off the internet...
The cake the cake girl made for us (she did a great job!).

I filled out all the invitations by hand, but managed to figure out how to do the addresses onto labels with the computer. That saved me a bit of work and was more fun for me than doing it all by hand.

We figured out a menu, since it was to be held at lunch time. We tend to go a little overboard when it comes to food in this family. When I was one week away from the party date I made a daily "to do" list. I quickly figured out that it would be easier and much less stressful for me if I bought most of the food.

The cake table with the main door prize (guess how many jelly beans in the bottle--160).

One thing that was beyond my control was the weather. We had planned to use the backyard, but the weather reports were not promising. All week long it was beautiful and sunny, with temperatures in the upper 70's. Saturday was forecast to be 68 degrees, with a 30% chance of showers. Sunday's forecast was back to the upper 70's, etc. Great. Our plan was to set the rented tables and chairs up on the lawn and if it started to rain we'd move everything to under the patio cover. It would be a bit cramped, but it could work. We kept our fingers crossed.

The yard and tables are decorated.

Saturday morning was very dark and overcast but we dressed the yard and tables anyway. The party was supposed to start at 12:30, and with just an hour to go, the clouds started breaking up and the sun started peaking through. The angels had heard my pleas!!

I made two trips to pick up food. While I was gone on one trip the cake was delivered. Everything was turning out perfect. The guests started trickling in and the gift table started overflowing. That's a good kind of overflowing.

The food (cevapcici, swedish meatballs, orange chicken, pasta salad, white bean salad, croissant sandwiches, fruit kabobs, relish trays, veggie trays, deviled eggs, remoulade, cookies. I didn't put the green salad out for obvious reasons...) I told you we get carried away.

We only had about six people and it was 20 minutes after the starting time, so I told everybody to start eating. After a bit we started on the games. More people started showing up and eventually everyone was there. We had four games where they had to actually do something. The first two prizes were $10 gift certificates and people seemed to be restless, like I remember feeling when I'd gone to showers and they played games. But when I announced the next prize was a $25 VISA card, and the prizes got better, everyone seemed to perk up. After that it was a $30 Target card. The grand prize was a $50 gift card to the Outback Steakhouse. Then we drew names to win the four little plants that decorated the tables. With the favor bags we made sure everybody got a little something.

One of the best parts for me was seeing my AZ sister who came along with her beautiful daughter who lives in "the OC", and her daughter whom I met for the first time. It's been many, many years since we've all been together. Also, Carli's GaGa was able to make it and we had a nice visit.

The dogs in the side yard (notice they are decorated too).

Don't get me wrong here... I was happy to do it all, but by the time it was over I was tired and broke. I was so tired I forgot to get a picture of the gift table (!). Though I did get Carli a few little things, like the blankies and some store bought miscellaneous stuff (including Boudreaux's Butt Paste-ha ha!) I let her know her main gift from us was her health insurance until she graduates and gets a Dental Assistant job!

Now I have to wrangle the tables and chairs into the truck to return them to the rental facility, and then it's back to normal, whatever that is!