As most of you know (if you don’t, where the heck have you been?!) this weekend brought with it an event I’ve been planning for MONTHS!

I’m a perfectionist, especially when it comes to gifts, or events for people (or even myself) and I strive to give 100% at every turn.  It’s one of my biggest strengths and, a l’autre main, one of my greatest weaknesses.

This weekend’s shindig was my first time ever hosting a baby shower, I’ve been to a few baby showers throughout my time here in Houston.  Since it’s not something we do at home in Northern Ireland, I am excited every time one comes up!

The three baby shower’s I’ve been to varied in shapes and sizes, the first was Miss Kelly’s baby shower while she was pregnant with little Mr Carter (if you can believe it he’s walking and talking now!)

It was lots of fun, they had cute (and tasty) cupcakes and games…like guess the size of the bump, the ‘don’t say baby’ pin game…

This picture is of me playing the multi-tasking game, the aim of the game is to talk on the phone to your friend, hold the ‘baby’ (teddy bear) and fold laundry all at the same time – it was lots of fun!

Little miss Averie was only a matter of weeks old too, wow – how time flies eh?!

My next shower was for an SSA friend Patricia, another one with games, like guess the ‘dirty diaper’ chocolate bar game, memory recall game – list as many of the baby items you see in the box as possible (which I won and took home a prize for!).

The most recent shower, (which, now I think about it, isn’t so recent since little Hazel is going to turn 1 year old soon!) was actually what’s called a ‘Sprinkle’.  It’s a mini-shower, held for a mum-to-be who has already had one child and is on her second or third baby.

This, was hosted in a local Chinese restaurant (P.F Changs!) and was yummy, a nice, stylish, sophisticated sprinkle, with a great meal and good friends – perfect!

Having been to a few, and seen more than enough inspiration pictures on Pinterest (my new weapon of choice), I decided, with my best buddy Magz getting pregnant, it was time to jump in feet first and do my first ever shower!

I can’t say I was anything but excited about this shower, for the most part I mean (aside from the occasional OMG what if this shower sucks moment).  I had more ideas than I had time to execute (yes, I did start planning months in advance and still ran out of time!) but in spite of that fact, I think it went down pretty well!

Saturday I spent cooking and organising in my kitchen.  Sandwich fillings had been done on Friday afternoon, so that left cupcakes, defrosting some frosting (yes, I was sneaky and used frosting I’d frozen after 4th July weekend cause I made WAY too much back then) and doing some last minute cooking.

That evening, after a trashy (but delicious) dinner from Long John Silver’s, Col and I loaded up Lexi Grey and took a drive up to Magz and Sam’s with a car-full of stuff.  After unloading, I got to work on the set-up, while Col took Lexi back down the road, changed her out for the Griffon and filled the Griffon up with the rest of the stuff (yes, it took two car trips) and came back up to the Madden’s house to help me with setting up.

It was a late one, just after midnight was when we quit and crawled bounded up the stairs, but we’d gotten everything, essentially where we wanted it.  We had four tables (gift table, onesie decoration, drinks, food), which, lying in bed, I realised wasn’t enough and Col agreed to go home the next morning and pick up another one from our house to sort my ‘problem’ of too much stuff, not enough space (we needed two food tables, one for sweet and one for savoury).

I didn’t sleep particularly well that night, either did Col.  Maybe it was cause we weren’t in our own beds, maybe it was cause we knew it was a short night’s sleep, maybe it’s cause it was over a hundred degrees in Houston…who knows?

Either way, shortly after seven am it was time to get up and get at’em! The Maddens headed out to the dog park with the doggies, Col and I headed to our house, to pick up another folding table and some supplies for chocolate fudge frosting, then it was back to the Maddens to finish set up.

After we’d sorted the issue of tables, it was on to the next issue, food prep, fruit and veggie cups needed putting together, punch needed made, biscuits, crackers, cheese, sweeties etc all needed taken out of their packages, sandwiches needed making and all of the food that was pre-prepared, needed heating up.

Col and I were still cooking food, long after guests arrived – but I didn’t care, as long as Magz and Sam were present, accounted for, showered and changed, the fact that I was in my sweats and a T-shirt didn’t matter! lol!

As far as food goes, think predominantly British 80’s-style party food!

Scotch eggs, Cornish Pasties (some with meat, some with cheese), ‘sticky’ chicken drumsticks, mini chicken pies, cheese and spinach wheels, sausage rolls, lasagne, pasta salad, pita chips with hummus, crackers and cheese (Jacobs Cream Crackers), veggie cups, fruit cups, pasta salad and sandwiches (tuna & sweetcorn with mayo, egg & onion, salmon & cucumber and plain ole ham!)

The drinks station had juice boxes for the kids, bottled water, milk, orange juice, coffee, mason jars of lemonade and a big dispenser full of punch, (I amended the recipe this time however and used 7-up free, instead of the club soda) and the father-to-be sorted a chest filled with wine, beer and soda.

The piece de la resistance, was the dessert table!

Here we had three types of cupcakes, (lemon with a raspberry frosting, carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting and chocolate with a chocolate fudge frosting), chocolate chip cookies, jammie dodgers (a British biscuit/cookie), Little Miss Sunshine and Mr Bump sweets (from the UK), lemon heads, yellow, brown and orange M&M’s, milk duds (chocolate covered caramel), raisinets (chocolate covered raisins), cola bottles (from the UK) and sour patch kids.

The cake, wow, the cake! ‘Lentil’ (named after Magz and Sam’s unborn child, also known as Lentil!) was made by our lovely friend Emily, if you can believe it, it was her first ever attempt at a cake like this.  She’s never used fondant before!

The bottom layer was chocolate cake, the top, lemon, both tiers with buttercream frosting.  It was yummy and most definitely a highlight of the party!

As they left, the guests were invited to take a party favour.  Little yellow tin pails, inside the pails was a Bath and Body works hand sanitiser, body lotion, a mini butterfinger bar, and a mini snickers.  They went down well, better than I thought they would actually!

For the shower, I did a number of handmade, crafty things, starting with the tags on the pails (which I made with my trusty Cricut!).

This is a ‘non’ diaper cake, the mother to be hated the idea of a diaper cake and, since she plans on cloth diaper-ing, I decided on doing something a little different.  The bottom layer is made up of homemade burp cloths – made from terry diapers that I dyed myself – a friend of mine swore by them when she had her baby, and suggested dying them as white is pretty boring!

I got these mini chalkboards on ebay, I think it was, they were something I’d seen on Pinterest and I instantly fell in love with.  I didn’t get a proper picture, but each of the savoury dishes had one beside it to explain what was in it, as did the jars of sweeties!

I had a bunch of help with a lot of the craft projects, from Amber and Aaron – my two graphics people.  They sorted me out with the right pictures etc and I just print, cut and put together! I really love how they came out and thought all of the crafting gave the shower a cute personal touch (as you can tell, mum-to-be is obsessed with giraffes!)

Magz and Sam seemed to have a great day, as did any of the guests I’ve spoken to, since the party.  Per the couples wishes, there weren’t any games played – bar one, the ‘Don’t say baby’ game.

Each person starts with a safety pin, while talking to other people, if anyone says the word ‘baby’, you claim their pin, the person with the most pins at the end of the day gets a prize.

It’s simple, relatively unobtrusive and pretty fun!

The only other vaguely game related activity, was the decorate a onesie station, again this was more popular than I anticipated and went down a storm with adults and children alike!

I did subject the couple to the on-display present opening tradition of baby showers, which they disliked, but endured (and they got a bunch of cool presents!)

It was fun, busy as heck, cooking, helping with the cake serving, keeping track of who bought what present etc but it was most definitely fun!

After most people had left, (Em, Luke, Col and I, hung around for a while) Sam and Luke embarked on the hilarious task of trying out the Baby Bjorn carrier.

It took a while, and served as a source of great entertainment for the rest of us!

Magz was a pro at it! hehe!!

All in all, I’d say it was a pretty successful first attempt at planning and hosting a baby shower.  Something I greatly enjoyed, something I’ll happily do again in the future – in fact, my next one is less than eight weeks out!