A Baby Shower for Mrs. Ferguson

I recently had the privilege of throwing one of my best friends, Jamie Ferguson, a baby shower for her first little boy, to be born anytime between now & March 1st (she has had a crazy pregnancy and may be induced soon). Jamie already has 2 lovely little girls, Skylar (4) & Stella (2), who are also Stuart and I's goddaughters. 

Jamie and I have known one another since 7th grade! She is a blessing in my life and we have been with one another for all of life's major and minor events, including all kinds of boyfriend dilemmas, college, Jamie's wedding, the birth of her first child, Skylar and my wedding. I had to miss Stella's birth (I was in Idaho). 

Here is us at Jamie's wedding in 2006! 

This new little bundle of joy will be named, Stuart Parker and we are just STOKED to have another Stuart in the world! Jamie & her husband Dylan are going for the whole "S" thing with their kids and I think that all of their kids' names have been adorable, although I am a little partial ;) I am pumped that I will be in NC for the birth of Stuart! 

I had never thrown a baby shower before and I have to say that I was a little nervous...especially because all of Jamies' kids' parties are always so dang cute. She always has a theme and really goes all out with the food. I spent HOURS on Pinterest; saving ideas and coveting elaborate & expensive showers done by strangers...but I had a budget. Like a "I am a nanny and my husband works for a restaurant and we are trying to save thousands of dollars to move to NYC" kind of budget...I had to narrow it down to a few adorable things and rule out a lot of things I wanted to do...It was going to be THE baby shower of the century!! haha...but I have to say, with a L O T of help from my little baby shower elves (ahem--Jessica Howle, Lara Stroud, Jenna Sistrunk & my Mom), I think I pulled off a pretty great shower. Here are some pictures:

Invites: I learned to tie a new kind of bow and loved how they turned out! 

 And then they just slip into this cute little envelope thingy (sorry about the blurry picture...and the fact that our camera date is STILL wrong...)

 Onesie in the works...we cut out like 50 of these cute little guys and then cut out an additional 50 random shapes like ties, bowties, elephants, ducks & stars....THANKS Stu--he drew out all of our little templates ;) Then we hung them up on clotheslines that hung above the shower and secured them with clothespins.

Ok, so our venue wasn't my favorite (a little crowded with extra tables and random stuff), but it was FREE thanks to my Mom & Stepdad letting us use their church's fellowship hall. Yes, a boy baby shower and PINK walls...hahaha. But here is a shot of some of the onesies hanging.

Centerpieces: this is where I struggled...I could not for the life of me find something affordable/cute/fitting for centerpieces. So I settled for a few rubber ducks and a white candle holder that was also free (they belonged to the church)...so I just tied a blue bow around them and called it good. Anyone recognize the blue runner and idea of a bow around a candle holder? It was our wedding reincarnated! Same runners...same idea with the candle. Easy as pie. Blah...but easy. Whatever.

Cupcakes: I did not want to do a cake. For one, cute cakes are expensive. And two, baking is NOT my strong point. Or decorating rather. So, I settled for baby face cupcakes I stole from pinterest. Ok, I did NOT like how they turned out...they just looked SUPER homemade...you know what I mean?? The eyes looked a little scary and I think the light blue pacifiers were too light against the flesh-colored frosting...flesh frosting was, interesting, to make...here are the ghetto baby cupcakes: If you care to take a shot at these, I found the pacifiers at the dollar store (4 to a pack)

Duck punch: I thought it turned out pretty cute. I LOVE the boyish ducks I found. Although in this picture the ice cream is awkwardly melted and it doesn't look so much like a bubble bath anymore...but it DID! The vanilla ice cream added last makes it look like the ducks are in a blue bath with bubbles :)

 Second drink option: chocolate milk! I saw the idea to have milk at a baby shower on pinterest, of course, and loved it! Milk...at a baby shower! Duh. Adorable. But I didn't want to have regular milk because I didn't think many people would want regular milk. So I opted for chocolate. This was probably the biggest project for the shower! My bff Jess randomly had like 16 starbucks frappacino bottles saved up...over time, she didn't like drink 16 in one sitting or anything. But, she had saved them...and then we found this cute idea for milk bottles online using those same frappacino bottles! They were the perfect shape. We washed them, spray painted the lids blue, used "goo-gone" to take off the starbucks label (that stuff WORKS!) and then labeled them as "MILK." ;) cute huh?

Chicken Salad on bakery rolls: Stu also made this! He wanted to...and it was simple and super delicious.

Dipped pretzels in white chocolate and milk choclate

 The spread also included a veggie plate with onion dip & cookies and cream hershey kisses (which are wrapped in blue!)

 Nametags/favors/'wishes for baby"

Favors:  I wanted a shower favor that was usable...I hate when you go to a baby shower or wedding and the favor is something random you will never use or keep. So, I found a cute website with ideas for baby shower favors and found the idea to use bath salts. Women love pampering and who doesn't love a good bubble bath? So, I found these little plastic bags and filled them with lavender-enriched bath salts.   Again, my bff Jess came to my aid and designed this ADORABLE label to staple over the bags. 

Close-up of the favor (a little blurry): It says, "We shower baby Stuart with gifts of blue, But this little Shower gift is just for you!"--Get it? Baby shower/Shower gift? As in taking a shower/bath with bath salts... I thought it was clever.... ;)

"Wishes for Baby": I found this really cute little mailbox in the dollar section at Target. I left out little slips of paper for guests to write wishes for Baby Stuart and then for them to stick them in the mailbox to give to Jamie & Dylan. Sort of a little keepsake.

                                           

We played three games at the shower. I am usually anti-games for any kind of shower. Just because they can get WEIRD. Especially baby shower games. Like the candy  bar in the diaper one? Or the eating of baby food one? But what else do you do with a guest list of women ranging in age and how they know Jamie? So we played 2 games after everyone had chatted a bit with one another and eaten. And then 1 after gifts and before everyone left. The first game was called "What's in Mommy's Purse?" This game was funny--you received points for things you have in your purse (ranging from normal items like drivers licenses to strange things like hand guns and underwear) and who ever had the most points won. It was funny to see what people carried in their purses. And how many people carried their social security cards in their purse! That was worth 25 points because you aren't supposed to do that! I was like the only one who knew that....if you get your purse stolen=identity stolen as well! 


The second game was a baby trivia game filled with interesting facts about birth and babies. It was fun to hear the debates between moms about what comes first/develops first/etc. 


The last game was all about the mom-to-be and was called "who knows mommy best?" It was basically a bunch of questions about Jamie's interests. Each game had a winner or two and they received a cute little notepad shaped like a pregnant woman and it said "About to Pop!" and even had a little white pencil tied to it with a bow. I wish I had won one...just kidding. I didn't play...anyway....Natalie (my sister-in-law won 2 games but gave her second prize to the runner-up and then one of Jamie's cousins won the last game. We were all surprised that Jamie's Mom got a lot of the questions wrong, haha!

Game time. Here is Jamie working on her purse game!

The ladies...and Dylan in the back video-ing the shower...and "watching" Skylar & Stella (who we set up a movie for! Genius right??)

CUTE Jamie :)

 Gift time! Skylar (left) and Stella helping Jamie :) How cute are their matching dresses?? Love those girls!

Diaper Genie! What Dylan registered for...haha

Jamie & I

I think that the shower went well. Jamie didn't have too many guests show (more food for us!) because Dylan's family all lives in Virginia and Jamie & Dylan now live in Fayetteville (Dylan is stationed there for Army)...but Concord, NC is where Jamie grew up and her mom and dad have a lot of family here that came. Jamie was happy with it and thats all that matters! We had a good time and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Stuart Parker Ferguson! Hurry up little guy :)