Jen's Baby Shower

I flew to Nebraska this past weekend to host a baby shower for my dear cousin, Jen.  I spent an extraordinary amount of time thinking and planning for this shower because I wanted everything to be perfect for her. The baby will be l-o-v-e-d by everyone in my family. We are all so excited to finally meet this little one, and no one deserved to reveal in the joy more than mama- and papa-to be.

Luckily I had lots of help to pull everything together. My mom and I partnered together to plan/make/purchase all the details and my sister Ashley and cousin Jes helped us host on the big day. Dividing up the "to-do" list was easy; my mom's definitely the culinarian of the two of us so she took care of all the food and I did decorations, invitations and games.

Jen's an elementary school teacher and loves children's books too so my mom and I thought an ABC theme would be a perfect fit.

For invitations, I purchased a cute design from Minted.com, an online stationary site I found through another blog site. I loved how these turned out; looked super professional. Hard to tell from the photo, but the ABC blocks in the invitation tied nicely with our theme as well

Incorporating the onsies and bibs in the invitation, I purchased gender-neutral yellow and green baby gear and hung them along a clothesline as decoration. I added a chalkboard hung next to the clothesline to tie in the ABC school theme.

      

A quick, inexpensive add were ABC magnets for the fridge. I noticed different words spelled throughout the party which I thought was really cute. People must have really liked those! I also added the shower invite to tie it all together.

Also an extension of the ABC theme, I purchased flash cards and strung them up as a banner on the window above the table scape. I thought this was a cute, inexpensive way to incorporate letters as decorations.

pictured: the hostesses with the mostesses, my mom and I

My mom did an amazing job with the food. She used glass plates and cups, a silver tea set and prepared pinwheels, fruit and dip and cake to munch on. I also added menu cards to incorporate the ABC theme.

I'd never heard of diaper cakes until I moved to Minnesota and decided to make one for Jen's shower. The diaper cake was the perfect centerpiece and received many oohs and aahs from the shower guests. Jen will appreciate all the diapers once Baby C arrives too!

As for games, I moved away from the standard baby games like "guess the baby food" and opted for games with less mess including the tray game, measure mama's tummy and an ABC book I saw on another blog earlier this summer. Stealing the show of course were all the lovely baby gifts Jen received, with due purpose! 

Finally, for party favors we setup a candy bar for guests to fill take-home bags. This was a big hit as well and several of the gals took home bags for their husbands too. Don't want the men to feel left out after all!

In all, we had around 18 guests and one happy mama-to-be. I'm honored to have had the chance to celebrate Jen and her bundle-of-joy-to-be.