The shower that we've
been planning was held last Sunday and was a great time. Now that
it has happened, I can post descriptions and some pictures. I didn't want
to post details before because we wanted to keep some surprises for our momma-to-be
and as I said before, she is one of my loyal readers (hi D!)
The whole shower was a group effort -- the only way to throw a shower since you have ideas from multiple people and can draw on many skill sets. Its also fun to plot and bounce ideas off each other. We also talked each other down, we're not full time party planners and while some ideas are great in theory we'd make ourselves crazy trying to pull them off!
I was finally able to actually make use of Pinterest - I've had an account for
a while but mostly just pin recipes I'll probably never make. I really
liked the 'shared board' so we could more easily keep track of ideas and share
them without having to dig through tons of emails and we could get ideas for
items and use them as inspiration.
The general theme was Owls and woodland friends, to go along with the nursery
theme the parents-to-be have picked out. We went with earth tones and
colors from the nursery bedding (greens, blues and little bit of
red). We took an approach of 'less is more' and made some things do
double-duty, for example using door prizes and small gifts for D as decorations.
We also decorated with some large tissue balls and banners made with scrapbook
paper and ribbon. To go along with the woodland theme
we scattered pine cones and stamped out leaves around the tables and also made
a bouquet with branches (free in my yard!). A kind of silly touch that I loved
was a feather boa for the guest of honor - feathers, to go with the owls.
Everyone wrote words of wisdom for
the new mom and as take-away gifts my very crafty friend made scented sachets
(home grown lavender!) stamped with owls.
The menu went with the theme as
well, down to the eating utensils.
The food included a fruit tray and a
veggie tray, crackers and cheese balls made to look like pine cones. We
also had deli spirals, nuts and caprese k-bobs.
For desserts we had two kinds of
dessert -- owl cupcakes (chocolate) and the cutest mushroom cupcakes (vanilla)
I've ever seen!
Serving dishes didn't really go with
the theme, we had to pull out probably every dish I own -- we made good use of
them all, we did have the plates and napkins coordinated - brown (like they
were the ground or a tree).
We had clear cups for the drinks so
you could see the birch straws that we'd found - guest of honor had actually
found and showed them to us and they were TOO perfect not to use!
For beverages we had mocktails -
sangria and bellinis, and even had some champagne and wine in case a guest
wanted a real cocktail (guest of honor insisted).
We had a great time
visiting, and played a few games (my favorite: celebrity baby names - where do
they come up with those?). She received many wonderful gifts, hope she
can get them all home to Atlanta.
It was a wonderful day and I cannot wait to see baby girl M!
Kevin had a very important job that day too -- getting Smokey out of the house. They spent the day with Smokey's grandparents (K's parents) and I know he had fun -- he had not one but TWO walks and was so tired that night, I know he had a great time. He even got hold of a cupcake that night (my fault).
