Baby Boy Shower Ideas

There are a few new baby boys expected in our neighborhood, so I helped with a couple of fun showers.

The first was for my friend who is having twin boys! We had a cute OWL theme.

I have loved making these party banners. The orange and blue and green looked so cute together! My talented friend made the adorable knit owl hat that I stuck on my new wreath (made in the same fashion as the Christmas tree and the red heart I posted about... those two projects really stemmed from a beautiful white wreath I saw on a blog awhile back... it all finally came full circle when I made the original white wreath).  We served a variety of treats and snacks.

My favorite treat of the night were these sweet owl cookies. I used a cake mix cookie recipe (and added a bit of extra flour so they would roll out a little easier) and a tulip cookie cutter. We frosted them with an Andes mint (put on right after they come out of the oven and spread around when melted) and then some chocolate butter cream frosting for the eyes along with two white chocolate melting discs, another dollop of blue frosting, and some mini chocolate chips. The noses were orange M&Ms cut in half. Aren't they adorable?

A few weeks later there was another shower... this time with a cute sock monkey theme. I helped with the invitations and a few of the decorations.

Another party banner...

...and the return of the white wreath, this time with a cute bow and a sock monkey at the base. The hostesses of this shower served monkey bread and banana parfaits, which were delicious!

I keep joking that I am going to open a party planning business, which I would entirely love, except for the business part of it :). 

Baby Girl Shower

We had a baby shower here the other night for Ryan's aunt Troi who will have a baby girl next month!

I have loved these easy pendant banners. They make things feel so festive! Our menu included cucumber sandwiches (baguette bread with seasoned cream cheese, cucumber slices, and dill weed), fruit salsa with cinnamon tortilla chips, spinach artichoke dip with pita chips and baguette bread, mini chocolate chip cookies, oreo truffles, and chocolate mousse-filled, ganache topped cupcakes.  We drank Brazilian lemonade and had a marvelous time.

My favorite part of the evening was our musical addition... Jane is my friend that is a talented harpist. During our annual Young Women's Service Auction last year she auctioned off playing for an event... I won the bid, and she got to play for the shower. The guests loved it!

I love cupcake toppers too... they are so pretty and so easy to make.

Yummy desserts...

...and healthy-ish foods too.

The mom-to-be was happy and it was fun to celebrate her baby. I was having so much fun visiting that I didn't take any photos of her or our guests... but we had a great time and she got lots of cute things for her baby.

**Any fun suggestions for future showers?

Baby Shower Celebrations

My cute friends from work and my ward/neighborhood decided that our new baby needed to be celebrated... and despite my initial opposition to the idea of having any parties in my honor (I'm a much better hostess than guest of honor!) I eventually said yes and embraced the idea. I am amazed at how generous people are and so grateful that so many friends and family members wanted to help welcome our little one into the world.

At work there were all sorts of salads... I ate as much as I could possibly fit and still wanted more. (Of course I left room for cake!)

These cute ladies have been so much fun to work with... and they are great cooks too!

My ward and neighbors put together an amazing shower a week later at my friend Tiffany's house... Olivia loved being there as the Big Sister and helper.

There was a flurry of activity in the kitchen preparing an incredible salad bar... complete with suggestions to make gourmet salads. I regret that I didn't get a photo of the completed salad bar... it was beautiful and delicious.

My friend Jessica is an amazing cake decorator and put together a tower of gourmet cupcakes. I loved their brown and pink decor.

Cheesecake with raspberries!!! I don't think that needs any more explanation. I loved the frames that Tiffany and Jessica put together.

Tiff, Andrea, Marilynn, Amanda, Camie, me, Jessica, Sherri, and Jill--a few others that helped with the shower weren't there yet and didn't make it into the photo... (Sara and Miriam!). I feel so blessed to have such good and generous friends.

I wanted to include a picture of Amanda and her quilt... she is amazing!

Thanks, friends, for helping to celebrate our new baby!

Candy, Candy, Candy

So today we had a shower for my brother's wife Ashley--their baby Samuel was born on September 30th and they were here from Connecticut for Thanksgiving. He is such a darling boy, and very mellow. Two weeks ago I was at a baby shower for my cousin's wife who will have twin girls and they had the neatest candy bar with pink, green, and white candies. The first time I saw anything like this was at my cute cousin Katie's wedding reception and when I saw it with a baby theme, I knew I had to copy it! After many trips to various stores to find the right kinds of candies in various shades of green, yellow, white, and blue and glass containers of all sizes (the dollar store and the For Every Body warehouse in Lindon are great for cute, cheap containers), I created quite the cute candy bar if I do say so myself. We even had little footprint tags to seal up the bags. The only downside (if you can call it a downside) is that we have so much candy left over and not another shower in the near future, so we might be having a selection of sour apples, laffy taffy, life savers, caramel apple sugar babies, jelly bellies, sour apple rings, York peppermint pattties, lemonheads, buttermints, and hershey kishes for the next few days. I think I can live with that. Remember how I said I'm not a very good dietitian? This is one of the many reasons--I love candy!