Baby Shower

This is my last make-up blog, and I want to crank it out so I can move on to blathering about my beautiful baby.

On April 10th, we had a baby shower at Phil and Gion's. It was a co-ed BBQ. It was beautiful.

It was really exciting for me because I had these dreams of decorating for my bridal shower and for a wedding in May, but we didn't have time for a bridal shower, and our wedding was in December (so a totally different decorating scheme). The baby shower was in the location I had hoped my bridal shower would be, and we used some of the decorations that I had planned to use at the wedding, so it satisfied my dreams a little.

We went with a co-ed shower since we planned to split parenting responsibilities equally. I didn't like the symbolism of a bunch of ladies getting together to "pass on the baby-care wisdom" without the dad there--even though it sounds super fun. Maybe for the second one, so there's less advice and more bitching. (;

The shower was even more special for me because my aunt Sue and cousin Wendy made it out from Colorado. We're very close, and Wendy wasn't able to make it out for our wedding in December, so it was great that they could be there. Also, they helped a lot.

Of course, we were overwhelmed by the generosity of our parents and of Rachel. They gave of their time and their pocketbooks to make another beautiful day for us, and we're very grateful.

Part of my bridal shower dream was to open presents on the back deck (well, have the whole party on the deck, but that would have been a smaller party). We tried to open presents there, but very soon, it was obvious that it had become too cold to stay outside much longer, so we moved to the living room.

It was simply lovely. Thank you to everyone who came and celebrated with us. Now here are some more pictures:

I had this idea to spray paint animal lawn ornaments and use them as centerpieces at the wedding. Very excited that I got to use my idea. And the flowers and table cloths Gion collected matched them perfectly!

We were hoping to use Barbara's flags at the wedding, but instead we used them here. Wonderfully springy.

I think one must get the idea from reading this that the shower was just a mish-mash of remnant ideas from parties that could have been, and that's partly true. Most of the decorations were ideas I'd had before (except for Phil's awesome muslin canopy and Gion's table runners and flowers). But it turned into an amazing event of it's own celebrating something that was bigger than weddings and bridal showers . . . our amazing baby and our growing family! Thanks to everyone who made it!