Shower number one went okay. I was honestly pretty worried about it going in and probably shouldn't have agreed to the date in the first place. Every year my parents invite my Dad's side of the family up to their house to celebrate New Year's Day. Normally quite a few of the aunts/uncles come and some of the cousins. Well it was brought up that since we were all going to be there anyway that we should have my shower that day as well. I agreed as it seemed convenient for everyone...on the condition that the shower was made a separate event and not just thrown upon my mother and honestly I wanted the attention since it took us so long and I wanted a specific baby shower! My aunts agreed and promised that it would be a separate event, things would be planned, and invites would go out in advance with a specific time for the shower.
Fast forward to the WEEK before and we find out that invites have NOT gone out until that day, meaning another day or two before they would get the invites. That means that a ton of my cousins who would have made an effort to make it to a baby shower for me but don't always come to my parents for NYD weren't going to be able to make it. For all my other cousins invites are always out at the minimum of 2 weeks before the shower and honestly I felt neglected and cheated out of a real baby shower. We weren't sure if anything special was going to be done at all or if it was just going to be "look, here are baby presents, now we're moving on".
So my Mom asked one of my aunts 2 days before if anyone was planning anything specific or bringing a baby cake or anything like that. The response was, "oh, I don't know, but I suppose I can pick up a cake!" I was dreading the worst at this point. The day of everyone shows up around 1:00 (the invites said 12:30) and things were fairly disorganized. Luckily the aunt who brought the cake also brought some cute decorations and we hung them up to make it look somewhat like a baby shower. Then we opened baby gifts and I was amazed at the generosity that was given toward us and I'm very thankful for that! They had everyone put their name/address on envelopes (saves time for those thank yous!) and I drew some out of a hat and they won a "prize". Then...that was it. It didn't go as bad as I feared, but I did still feel kind of cheated. Not to mention that I felt bad that several people who normally would have come weren't able to make it. I don't mean to sound ungrateful as obviously we received some wonderful gifts and I'm very thankful to those who came, but I just wish it would have been more "baby showerish."
Anyway...I had shower number 2 today. This one was thrown by my mother's side of the family by my aunts Kay and Barb. The invites for this shower were out about 3.5 weeks before so plenty of advance notice there! They arranged a diaper raffle...anyone who brought a package of diapers got put into a drawing for a grand-prize. The food was wonderful (and plentiful!) and the cake was adorable. It was a "duck pond" complete with blue frosting and little rubber ducks. Each of the ducks had a number under it and I got to pick one of them to find out who won the diaper raffle...of course my mom won! We played several games, the traditional dice game (always fun!) and the guess the size of Shana's belly game! Haha! String was passed around and everyone cut off a piece that they thought would equal the distance around my stomach. Almost everyone OVER guessed by several inches! My friend Tricia however came in at 1/4 of an inch! We opened gifts and again I'm amazed at the generosity. Our little girl is NOT going to be short of adorable outfits for sure, especially pink ones! The shower was a lot of fun and I'm so glad it went well!
So since getting all the gifts we've been organizing the nursery a bit more. We painted back on January 3rd and it looks adorable! We actually painted the room kind of an aqua blue because everything else is pink and we didn't want to go to overboard with the pink. My Dad and Brandon did most of the painting, my mom helped paint around the edges a bit. I kept getting kicked out, they were worried about me being around the paint fumes too much. It turned out so cute and we still have to hang stuff up (waiting to get a mirror attached back to the dresser and waiting on our glider/ottoman set before hanging stuff.) Things are getting organized otherwise!
We're pretty much set as far as stuff but still need some basics, like some baby care items, bottle nipples, diaper changing contour pad, a boppy, breast milk storage system and some other small things. On another exciting note, I've been jonesing after a specific baby swing since BEFORE I got pregnant. It's the Graco Sweetpeace Newborn Soothing Center. Well it's around $180 at Target and Babies R US, you can get it through Walmart for slightly cheaper, but still expensive. Several online baby stores sell it cheaper and I've been watching their prices. This weekend one of them put it up for $99.00! I googled coupon codes for their site and also found a $10 off coupon so I ordered it for $89.00! With the shipping it's only costing us $102.81...take that Target and Babies R US! I'm so completely excited about this swing! Now watch...she won't even like it! lol. If she just sleeps in it I'll be happy!
Alright, this has been a LONG post...I'll end it with some pictures of the nursery and from shower #2. I forgot the camera at home for shower #1.
How adorable! I love the cubes in your closet. We have some just like that, but in dark pink and brown. Our time is getting close!!
ReplyDeleteSarah