Looking back at our baby shower I'm still not sold on if I was smart to insist that it was at our house, or if that was a poor lack of judgment and hesitation to admit how pregnant I really am.
We decided to host our joint shower at our house for ease of gift transport, comfort and being able to have our pup Porter attend. I don't regret it, however... the prep.... which I put upon myself was something to be seen. Let me take you through all the wonderful tasks I decided were super important and had to be done prior to guests arriving. Super important. Totally necessary...
Speaking of "necessary," I decided our first task was to power-wash our outdoor screened-in gazebo / shed (many names for this thing depending on who you ask) in order to serve our food inside. Once I power washed the inside I was due for my second shower of the day. I poorly judged how wet you get power washing, especially when you're cleaning overhead. Video example below... also please note I decided that this day of all days was the best time to not wear waterproof mascara so I looked like a raccoon afterward. I also requested that Ryan power wash our fence to get all the chipped/peeling paint off, also very necessary.
I also decided that 8:00 AM the day of the party was the time to make Porter a custom "big brother" bandana with my Cricut. I think worth it.
Balloon arches... oh balloon arches, where to even start. I purchased the one below from Etsy, and I absolutely loved it. It took about 2 hours the day before to blow up all of the balloons (130+)... and it looked great as you can see below, when it was first hung. Then the sun came out... and it sounded like gunshots or fireworks were popping in the backyard randomly throughout the party as the sun heated the balloons a bit too much. Either way, I would recommend it because come on, it's pretty dang cute. BUT definitely use a balloon pump or you will pass out trying to blow them up. we had to blow up just the smallest of the balloons that came without the pump and that was hard enough.
Boy or Girl. What do you think?
Full transparency I stole this idea and have now used it at a handful of events.
Who doesn't love fresh flowers to have in their house! And the leftovers aren't half bad to have in your own home. I made some little "thanks a bunch" tags that I had printed through VistaPrint and simply tied these with a thin string to my vases. The vases were the hardest thing to locate.. definitely get those far in advance for your event. For the fresh flowers, I just went to my local Whole Foods and told the person working how many vases I anticipated needing to make and she helped me to figure out how many bunches I should get. Since we do not know if we're having a little boy or little girl, we decided to go the "pink" and "blue" route for the flowers, allowing our guests to make their arrangements to represent what their guess is for Baby Stock!
Feeling lucky? I'm not the "game" type for events, at least not ones that I have to be the focus of the attention. No thank you haha. I opted for things that people could do on their own for an activity. One of those being a due date / gender / birth weight calendar that they could write their guesses on! Unfortunately for me... most people had some pretty high weight guesses for Baby Stock since Ryan was 10lbs at birth. Let's hope that this little nugget takes after mom instead of dad since I was only 7lbs 50z.
The other "activity" we had was the option to write some parenting advice for us. This was something easy to have set out and it can be continually added on as people come by to meet the baby once they arrive!
Our food setup, if I do say so myself came out pretty freaking cute. I bought three little terra cotta pots that I painted and added wording to with my Cricut for utensils which will get a lot of future use. The food was prepared by my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and Ryan's aunt which turn out to be a huge hit. Mini charcuterie cups, fruit cups and snacks! We also had to have my favorite, pickles, and Ryan's favorite, Lay's chips as an option as well.
Our desserts were once again done by the amazing Buttercup Baked Goods. Annaliese did our cupcakes and cake for our wedding and we have used her for pretty much every event we've had or hosted since. Nothing beats her gluten free red velvet cupcakes, talk about mouthwatering. I didn't want to go overly boy or girl for décor so we kept things simple with Red Velvet cupcakes for "girl" and Lemon / Vanilla with Blueberries for "boy". I may or may not have hidden a few in our downstairs refrigerator to have for myself once the party was over.
Overall we cannot complain, even though it was a bit hotter than I personally would have liked, it was a great day. We were able to have the people we love all together, safely at our house. Friends were able to see each other in person for the first time in months, new babies were able to meet each other,, few thing are better than that. Thank you to everyone who helped to make our day extra special!
Dress from Pink Blush Maternity <3