on what went on last week. It was week 26 of my pregnancy and we had an early baby shower for Avery! Here's my belly pic from the shower, and I think it's safe to say that my belly has grown considerably this past month...wow! Anyways, since most of my relatives and extended family live out-of-state, we decided to take advantage of the fact that many of them would be in town over the holidays and have my family shower with them now, instead of waiting until Mar
ch. This turned out to be a great idea because I couldn't imagine having it without them! Now I can't take the credit for this awesome shower, that goes to Brandon's side of the family who planned, cooked, and hosted the event. They did such an amazing job and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out and the memories I will take away from this fun occasion. Here are some pics from the shower!
Here I am with the "food table." I love the pink and brown decor, which goes right along with the way we decorated Avery's room (check it out in this post).
Up next are these adorable chocolate cupcakes with pink icing...how cute! Although I couldn't eat them, I heard many good things about them. I brought my own chocolate cupcake to enjoy (here's the recipe-they are gluten-free, vegan and delicious...love the icing too).
After playing a baby trivia game (about the only game I would allow-no melted candy bar in diapers for me please-lol!), it was time to open some presents! A fun thing we did was for everyone to write down a piece of advice for me on acard when they first got to the shower, and when it was time for me to open their present, they would read me their piece of advice. It was fun to hear all the "new mommy" advice, and even better, my sister-in-law made me a really cool scrapbook for the shower that has a place for me to save all the advice cards. I'm sure I will be re-reading these in a few months!
H
ere I am getting the Arm's Reach Mini Co-Sleeper from my mom and Brandon's mom. I'm sure I will post more details about this later, but it's basically like a bassinet that sits right up against your bed. So when Avery is crying or hungry at 3 AM, I don't have to go all the way down the hall to feed or comfort her, I just roll over and there she is! I'm not a parent yet, but that sure sounds good to me!
Another thing we did during the shower was after I opened up a present, we passed it around the room so everyone could see it. I liked that we did this so that everyone could be included in the gift opening process, as well as how it took a bit of pressure off me! I am not used to being the center of attention like this, so I was just fine with people looking at other things instead of me opening up present after present! Any other mama's out there remember that feeling of being in the spotlight at your shower? It's not a bad feeling, just a little different than what I'm used to in my day-to-day life ( :
Here's another cool gift I got from my sister-in-law Meghann, a cloth diaper cake! With as green as I am, you know I'm going the cloth diaper route when Baby Avery is born (more posts to come about this), so I loved that Meg created this for me. It served as the perfect centerpiece on the table, and I like it so much that I can't bear to take it apart! It's just sitting on the dresser in Avery's room, all put together still!
Up next was picture time! Here I am with my side of the family.
Next up was Brandon's side of the family, many of which had a hand in the planning, planning, and decorating that went into the shower, so thank you for all your hard work ladies! ( :
After it was all over, we brought home the presents and displayed them here on our dining room table. Brandon and I have this funny tradition of putting anything new we get for Avery on the table here, mainly because our kitchen is like the central-hub of the household, so anything we put there we will be able to see many times a day. And after getting all this fun stuff for Avery, we weren't ready to just go put it up right away, so we had fun checking it out for a few days. Now although I didn't mention everything I got at the shower, you can see there were many pink outfits, as well as a few fun accessories like baby hats, socks that loo
k like shoes, bamboo cloth baby wipes, and this adorable sheep sound machine.
After it was all over, we brought home the presents and displayed them here on our dining room table. Brandon and I have this funny tradition of putting anything new we get for Avery on the table here, mainly because our kitchen is like the central-hub of the household, so anything we put there we will be able to see many times a day. And after getting all this fun stuff for Avery, we weren't ready to just go put it up right away, so we had fun checking it out for a few days. Now although I didn't mention everything I got at the shower, you can see there were many pink outfits, as well as a few fun accessories like baby hats, socks that look like shoes, bamboo cloth baby wipes, and this adorable sheep sound machine. As you can tell, it was a really fun shower and I'm so glad we decided to have this family shower early while most of our relatives were in town. A big thanks to Brandon's family for putting this on and making it such a fun and memorable event for Avery and I!