The Baby Shower

I'm getting really creative with my titles, aren't I?

Last Friday my friend, Pam, and I co-hosted a baby shower for Tina, inviting the ladies from church as well as other friends here in Michigan. We had a wonderful time!

Because Tina's going with a storybook theme in the nursery, we thought it would be fun to use that theme for the shower too. I wish I had a photo of the invitation to show you, but I don't. You can see where I got the idea from, though, on Pinterest.

I got pretty much all the ideas for decorating from Pinterest as well, including the idea to pair the food with books:

Since you can't see the Very Hungry Caterpillar very well in the photo above, here's a close-up:

We also had milk and cookies to go with "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie", apple slices and apple cider paired with "Johnny Appleseed", tortilla chips with "Tiny Tortilla" and the über delicious black bean and corn salsa with "Jack & the Beanstalk".

One idea I didn't get off Pinterest you can see in the background of this photo:

See those book covers on the wall? That wasn't my idea at all; when I stopped by the library to pick up books to display by the food, the librarians offered to let me use the covers too! Wasn't that nice? I do love the library here. And the librarians. They have always been super helpful, but this was going above and beyond. I borrowed enough covers to scatter them all over the walls in the living/dining area where we held the shower.

We asked that in lieu of cards, the ladies bring their favorite book. Tina received 27 books to start a library for Simon. Isn't that fun?!

There were a lot of practical gifts, like bibs, diapers (she's going to use the bumGenius brand), thermometers, burp cloths, pacifiers, and loads of other things.

She also received some lovely homemade gifts, including this embroidered blanket with Genesis 1:1 that our friend Loretta made:

And an adorable hooded sweater that my SIL Rita knit:

I'm relieved to say Tina liked the quilt! Here's her first look at it:

And here's a photo of the two of us with it:

They plan to do an alphabet wall with various sizes and fonts of letters, so that's where I got the idea. It allowed me to use a limited color palette (aqua, white, gray and lime green) in a fun way. I wanted to make every letter with a different fabric but couldn't quite pull it off; a few of the fabrics are repeated. And I have to give a shout-out to another SIL, Sharon, who helped me pick out the border fabrics. I was very grateful for her artistic eye for color!

It meant a lot to be able to participate in this shower, since we'll be returning to Argentina in two weeks and won't be here for the birth of little Simon Joseph. I love knowing that he'll be snuggling up under something that I made especially for him.