Baby Shower!

Today was my long-time friend Val's baby shower. Her mom and I threw her the shower- her mom was in charge of the location, food, and cake and I was in charge of the decor, snacks, and entertainment. Val is decorating the babies room in Winnie-the-Pooh (a bear) and also hoped to get a lot of diapers and things like that at the shower so she would not have to worry about getting them after the baby was born. So.. my party theme was born... a "Bear Essentials" party.
The party was in a large room at Papa Vinos Italian Restaurant in St. Joseph, MI. There were about 30 guests- Val's friends, family, and co-workers. I had been working on odds and ends for the party for about 2 months... I more than took advantage of Michael's weekly 40% off coupons!
Anyways, the party went really well. Everyone was shocked that I had time to make everything that I did- the diaper cake, the invitations and thank-yous, the confetti, and the cookie sucker table favors... I let them know that it helps when you work for the government and can do crafts at work! ha! i love my job.

Anyways, the cookie suckers were much harder than I thought they would be, and my mom and I worked on them for most of the day before the shower. We both learned how to make a new type of frosting that hardens... (it hardens pretty quickly i might add). Anyways, I pretty much hated the cookies until the next day when I saw them with new eyes. Then, I thought that they were cute and pretty much lived up to the expectation that I had in my head!
The party was really fun, and Valerie got some good stuff. She also got a lot of diapers and baby wipes (essential items). Everyone that brought one of these got entered in to win a gift basket, a pretty sweet one I might add.. filled with chocolate, beauty stuff, and alcohol! I want to go into a gift basket making business- or a diaper cake making business. Tell your friends! I take orders!It was fun meeting her new teacher friends and getting to hang out with her old roommate Kelly again (who was also a bridesmaid in Val's wedding). I also got to hang out with some of my new family. My sister-in-law Sarah kept trying to convince me on the wonders of having children.. i think in the end she just solidified her position as getting to babysit Val's future daughter. Ha! take that.

Anyways, the food was excellent... and the games were great! First we played a game about the baby's future attributes. It went over really well. The guests had to choose if the baby's parents wanted the baby to have an attribute (like hair color) that resembled the mom or the dad. The parents-to-be worked on this together so it ended up being a good thing for their baby book too!
We also played a game where guests tried to guess how big around Val's belly was and another game where they had to identify the brand of melted candy bar in 5 baby diapers... you can guess what that looked like. (People really tried on that one)! I used a Hershey's bar, reese's peanut butter cup, almond joy, snickers, and 3 musketeers. A few people actually got them all right. A tip for people planning future showers: if you have a lot of guests- have a good back-up plan for when people tie in the games (that happened in all of mine)!
The guests also decorated onesies on paper with funny sayings, pretty designs, or advice for the new mom. They all ended up really cute!
All in all, I was really tired after the party, I have never done anything like that before- but it went really, really well. Most of all, the mom-to-be and the grandma-to-be had a great time! Like I said all day... i still can't believe she's pregnant (we have been friends since kindergarten)!!! When did we get this old???