Baby Shower from Church Friends

My friends at church threw me a baby shower recently. It was amazing. It was a great time of fellowship, eating yummy food, playing fun games, and celebrating my Little Critter.

The girls did an great job with everything. It really made me feel so loved with the effort that went into the shower and all those that came to show their support.

 The game they did was pretty funny. Since we cloth diaper, they were going to get scraps of cloth to have teams make a diaper out of. Instead toilet paper had to be used and the goal was to create a cloth diaper and I had to pick the winning team. Let's just say I couldn't stop laughing!

Here are 3rd and 4th place. We have on the left a cloth diaper with suspenders and "sumo" baby cloth diaper with a bonnet included. LOL
 

The top two where tough to decide between. The runner up included a tool belt with their cloth diaper. It holds things like paci's, bottles, etc.

The number one really had me laughing so hard I thought I was going to need to pause and use the restroom!

The whole "outfit" included a cloth bib that once the top was wet through, you could simply remove and the next available bib would be ready. The hat was an all weather hat. It had removable ear flaps for when it was too hot outside! The best part was the cloth diaper...it was a cloth diaper meant for newborn through toddler years and even had access for potty training! Genius idea!

 As I opened all my gifts, someone at the party creates a hat from parts of the wrapping paper and tissue. Here's mine...complete with curly bangs!

 The cup cakes were delicious and had homemade chocolate toppings on them!

Here's a shot of everyone at the party. It's hard to imagine that with RC, I had no one here and now I have all these lovely ladies in my life!

Suprise!

On Sunday, Feb. 19th, I went to a surprise shower for Anne M. It was great to meet some new people (her neighbors) and deliver another awesome cake! It was so hard to not post to facebook or here about the cake I was making for her shower. I so badly wanted to post "this cake is turning out amazing" or "this cake is taking forever to bake." I kept it secret though and when Anne showed up to the shower she was completely surprised. Her neighbors had organized this one which meant less for me to do, until I offered to make the cake!!! I had fun making this one. It was a fairly simple cake, but still helped me to work on various skills.

Originally the idea for this cake was to actually make the boots on top of the cake out of Rice Krispy treats, but after giving it some thought, I decided how cute it would be to just use the actually ceramic boot planter that Jan, the party organizer, had bought and filled with flowers.

It was perfect as a cake topper. The cake is a 12" round base with an 8" round top tier. Both are funfetti cakes as it is one of Anne's favorites. The cakes are covered in homemade marshmallow fondant with fondant ribbons and buttons. It was super cute and super delicious.

Her gift was also tough to keep from her. I had to ask her some questions about the baby's name, initials etc. On Friday, when we had the MOMS Club joint shower for her and Jennifer W., I had given Jennifer an awesome new tote from Thirty-One with her baby's name on it. It was so hard to keep it a secret and hold this gift until the surprise shower. I wanted to trick her a bit. Here's a picture of her opening her gift.

The Thirty-One product is a Mini Utility Bin in Flutter and I had her baby's name embroidered on it. It was filled with wipes, baby lotion and wash, diaper rash cream, and some bibs. It was also super cute and made a great gift.

Moms Club Joint Baby Shower

Today I hosted my first baby shower. Leading up to it I was kind of nervous. At first, the shower was going to take place at another members home, but I was still planning it. While our apartment is big, other play groups have been chaotic. The party got moved to our place 2 days before! That made me more nervous. Not only was I baking the cake, but now I had the whole place to have presentable...uh oh was my first thought. I worked hard to finish the cake and even got some decorating done! It helps that RC was pretty good and I was able to do a lot of work after he went to bed.

It went over well though. The kids played in the sun room while the mom's and other guests hung out in the living/dining room. It also helped one of the girls was able to get two girls from church to come supervise the kids so the moms could actually attend the shower! We played Baby Jeopardy, had some great food and punch, and finished off cake! The kids played hard and had fun. RC played with the big kids and looked to be having lots of fun. So much fun that he took a 2 hour nap, then got up for 30 minutes, and took another nap and went to bed early!

Here are some pictures of the event!

 Front Door

 Inside Decor

 The Mom's-to-Be!

Jennifer W (left) & Anne M (right)

Me & the Mom's-to-Be!

The Bath Time Punch!

 (click on the punch photo for instructions by Tidy Mom)

The Cake!

 This took several days to make. All the decorations had to be made in advance to harden. The cake was made 2 days prior along with the marshmallow fondant. The duck is actually a giant Rice Krispy treat as we didn't need that much cake. I used a 3D duck pan for that. That was made 2 days in advance as well so it would hold it's shape.

Day before the party I covered the cake, added the decor, and iced the duck. The day of the party the duck was added to the cake! This was by far my biggest cake yet and I think the most fun to make! Was super cute and could even be used for a rubber duck themed birthday!

The girls with the cake!

All the wonderful gifts everyone brought! One time I was happy for such a long fireplace hearth!

Here is me faking Jennifer out with her gift. She love Thirty-One and for her gift, I just didn't have a wide enough bag to wrap it....so I used my Large Thermal Container as the wrapping. As she was getting it handed to her I informed her the thermal was just the wrapping and I did need that back....she was so bummed until.....

she unzipped it to find.....

the new Mini Utility Bin! I had the baby's name embroidered on it and filled it with some cloth diapers and a wet bag. She was definitely happy she still got some Thirty-One!

 and Anne got some super cute outfits...for the baby, not her of course. ;)

and lastly, RC having fun!

 oh well...here I suppose it was more like he was wore out from jumping....

but once he got to the sun room, he played like crazy. Every time I peaked in he was all over the room playing hard!