Pink Elephant Baby Shower

Yesterday, I co-hosted a pink elephant baby shower for my cousin, Jes, with my mom and sister in Nebraska. We were honored to celebrate Jes' baby girl due this September. My sister Ashley said it best -- Jes is the most adorable pregnant gal. She has that pregnancy glow about her and will make such a great mama next month. I'm so excited to meet her little one!

My mom, sister and I have hosted many wedding and baby showers together over the years, so dividing up the party tasks was fairly simple. I took charge of printing invitations and shower games, my mom tackled the food and my sister took on decorations. It's nice to have others to rely on planning various sections, but in the end we all seemed to pitch in and help pull the shower details together.

The mama-to-be, my cousin Jes

I ordered the baby shower invitations from an Etsy vendor and sent the invitation to guests a month in advance. The day after I sent them, I was standing at my refrigerator filling up a glass of water and half-glanced at the invitation hanging on the door. "Please enjoy us for a baby shower" the invitation text read. Um, WHAT? Oh my gosh! I quickly looked back at the invitation proof on my computer and sure enough, the invitation text was grammatically incorrect. WHAT THE HECK. So unlike me! I re-checked the Etsy vendor and apparently the text was wrong even on the site listing. I don't know how I missed the error, I think it was one of those things where the brain auto-assumes the correct wording, but it was too late to re-print as I'd already sent the shower invitation in the mail. I called my sister to tell her, we panic-giggled at my stupid oversight and prayed the other party guests would read over the text as "Please join us for a baby shower" in their brains just like I had. GAH. (Note: I contacted the Etsy seller and notified he/she of the grammatical error. The invitation is now fixed on their site so at least no one else will have the same thing happen to them.)

Anyway, the baby shower came together wonderfully otherwise. I ended up making a "Lil Peanut" banner, elephant cupcake toppers and thank-you ties for the favor bags on my sister's behalf because I had a color printer at home. My sister purchased beautiful pink roses for decoration and together, my mom, sister and I all added our own touches to the elephant diaper cake centerpiece which Jes seemed to really love.

I spent countless precious Tory nap-time hours this past week cutting and gluing circles out of colored cardstock for the cupcake toppers and in the end, they didn't even fit on the three-tier cupcake stand so we didn't use but four or five of them. Oh well, my sister is going to keep them and use them for a future baby shower or birthday party she said.

My mom purchased pink mints as the party favors and tied them in clear cello bags with a white ribbon and the pink elephant "thanks for celebrating with us" tags I made. 

After beautiful Jes, the food was the star of the party. My mom has a knack for cooking, so my sister and I trusted her to take the lead on appetizers and beverages. She served Ham-Wrapped Breadsticks, BLT Stuffed Tomatoes and Cucumber Cups with Chicken Salad, along with a fruit tray, pink lemonade, iced tea and coffee. The presentation was absolutely stunning.

Stuffed BLT Tomatoes

Chicken Salad Cucumber Cups

Ham-Wrapped Breadsticks

My mom made up her own recipe for the cucumber cups using a chicken salad with black bean mixture. The original recipe idea called for a crab dip. These tasted light, summery and delicious. I loved how fancy they appeared for relatively little preparation. The Stuffed BLT Tomatoes were also a big hit, but their prep time was ridiculous (estimated prep time was 30 minutes, very funny and completely un-true Rachel Ray!) My mom, who is quite skilled in the kitchen worked on these bad boys for three hours - SERIOUSLY! The recipe wasn't difficult, just time-consuming. The finished product was delicious though, so they were worth it in the end. My favorite was the Ham-Wrapped Breadsticks. They were super easy to put together and looked amazing displayed on my mom's heirloom silver platter. I would definitely make those again for another party.

For games, I kept things simple with a "Guess the Peanuts" game (easy peasy - we put a bag of shelled peanuts in a jar and asked guests to guess the total number for a prize). We played a Baby Triathlon game where Jes had to complete a series of "mommy tasks" in under a minute. She diapered and dressed a baby doll, put on a Moby Wrap with the baby doll safely tucked inside and hung baby clothes on a clothesline while juggling the baby doll, a cell phone and the laundry. Jes is such a good sport so she was the perfect person to play this game and she passed all the tests so she's ready to be a mom! Everyone also played Baby Gift Bingo while Jes opened her shower gifts. I could have made my own Bingo cards on the computer paper, but I found a packet of pre-made cards with stickers at Wal-Mart, so I just bought them instead.

Tory was so tired, she snoozed on my shoulder through the first half of the party.

Overall, we had a really fun day celebrating Jes and her baby girl. At the end of the party, Tory came up to me and said "more party!" I think she had fun, too ... at least I know she enjoyed eating all the cupcakes!

Jes, the guest of honor, with her sister Jen and mom Cheri

Here's a link to my Pinterest board with several Pink Elephant inspiration ideas.