Our BaBy-Q Baby Shower
By Aimee on
Ah the long anticipated baby shower. I have been excited about this day for months and finally we had it over the weekend. The night before I woke up at 2 and didn’t fall back to sleep until 5 then had maybe another hour of sleep. So I started the day off exhausted but excited. It felt like Christmas. The weather forecast said rain with a possible thunderstorm. It put a new perspective to the meaning of ‘baby shower’. So we packed the car up and waited for my best friend to arrive before heading to the hosting house to set up.
This lady has been my best friend ever since we were very little. Normally it wouldn’t be such a big deal to have your best friend come to an occasion like this but she flew half way across the country to be here which gives me all the warm fuzzies. After many many hugs and a few photo moments we headed off. At this point in time it was raining intermittently and was mostly still sunny. Things were looking good. I was glad to have so many hands to help set up. There was no way I was getting up on a ladder to put up bunting and I was so tired I couldn’t think straight. But the boys did the bunting and put up some weather protection whilst we got out the sticky tape and taped the table cloths to the tables. The wind was pretty wild.
Now I didn’t want much as I wanted a very relaxed setting but I did want to be colour coordinated and I wanted doughnuts like no tomorrow. Craving perhaps? This is where my mum came in. Two dozen Krispy Kremes. They were amazing. Sam and I made sure we grabbed the ones we wanted first then I piled them high on a cupcake stand. Set up was done! In the invitations I had used a basic red and yellow colour theme and used this same theme through the decorations. Table cloths were black and all other decorations were either yellow or red with white polka dots. Nice and gender neutral.
It hit 11:00 and all was quiet, slowly people started to arrive and my excitement kept my exhaustion at bay. As part of the setup I took liberty to create a few ‘games’ or things to get people in the baby shower mood. One was making predictions on what they thought the gender/due date/time of birth etc. would be. I helped by writing on a chalk board what Sam’s and my own birth weights/lengths/times were and added a few pictures for cuteness. Sam had the sweetest little dimple that has never disappeared and my eyes have remained huge. It will be interesting to compare the predictions to the eventual outcome.
I also filled three bottles up with varying lollies for people to guess. We had jelly babies, skittles and mini mm’s. When the time came to read out the winners I couldn’t have picked a better winner for the jelly babies. My 6 year old niece won with an exact guess of 40 jelly babies. I was so proud, but her brother was a bit upset.
We also had an Instax Camera making the rounds and capturing some wonderful photos. My mum brought bubbles for the kids to play with which kept them and the puppy entertained. The rest of us filled up on sausages, the tastiest mars bar slice (courtesy of Sam’s Mum), fairy bread (an Australian party staple) and chatted the day away. This was about when the thunderstorm rolled in and the sky released an incredible amount of water. Everyone stayed dry but huddled around the heater as it was pretty cold outside.
Then almost as quickly as it started the day was pretty much over. People started to leave, I had to drop my bestie off at the airport and by the time I got back the boys that were left were playing video games and the girls chatting away in the lounge room. Even with the way the weather turned out I couldn’t have asked for a better day. We have such an amazing support network of family and friends around us and it is pretty obvious the love they have for this little one already with the way they spoilt bubs with gifts. One group of friends even had an ultrasound picture turned into a watercolour painting that I will cherish forever. So a big thank you again to all of those that came, near and far, and to our gracious hosts we couldn’t have done it without you.
