Storybook Themed Baby Shower

This past weekend was our Baby Shower!! My good friend Amy hosted and it was held at a community center in Lakeville and was the perfect location! The first thing hubby said when we got there was "This would be a great place to have Christian's First Birthday Party!" What can I say...we are planners! 

The shower was as Storybook Themed Shower. We designed invites to look like a storybook. It was a bit of a tricky process, but I found a book clip art and then added text and a faded picture. All the main invite details were on the front. The inside pages of the invite were like pages of the book - one page with a poem asking guests to bring a board book in place of a card, another page requesting diapers if they would like to enter the diaper raffle, and of course a page with directions to the Lakeville Heritage Center.

Everyone was also given a "Wishes for Baby" card to fill out to bring back to the shower. Amy made ours which were cute, but you can also buy them and get ideas from etsy. 

Decorations were really simple since my mom is a teacher and owns every children's book ever written and millions of stuffed animals to match! I had bought blue table cloths...but they ended up being the wrong size. Ooops! 

"Bear Snores On" 

and a teddy bear

"Clifford's Bedtime Stories" 

and Clifford the dog

"If You Give a Moose a Muffin"

and a stuffed moose

"Are You My Mother?" 

and a matching dog

"Horton Hears a Who"

and Horton the Elephant

"The Very Lazy Ladybug" 

and a stuffed ladybug

And we still had a whole tote more full of stuffed animals and books that we didn't have room to put out! 

If you can see on the party favors, there is a tiny clothes pin attached. We also played the "Don't Say Baby" game. 

I made the party favors from an idea I saw on this blog. Instead of swedish fish, though, I used rainbow goldfish crackers. 

We also served food to go with various storybooks. 

The Food Table

"Eating the Alphabet A to Z" 

Veggie Tray

"The Very Hungry Caterpillar"

Fruit Salad

"Green Eggs and Ham" 

Deviled Eggs and Ham and Swiss Roll ups

"The Stinky Cheese Man" 

Cheese and Crackers

And in the crock pot next to it...

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"

BBQ Meatballs

And instead of cake, we did cupcakes...

"If You Give a Cat a Cupcake" 

You can find these food ideas and more here and here. 

As everyone arrived, they mingled, got food, entered the diaper raffle, self-addressed an envelope for making thank you cards easier for mommy :), and designed a storybook mad libs card. 

I found this cute mad libs story about the adventure to parenthood. However, instead of having each guest complete an entire story, I broke the story down into one sentence strips and put them on a story page. Each guest then completed their sentence and drew a matching picture. The cards were then all compiled into a story book of sorts that we can some day read to baby Christian. 

Here are some pics of everyone mingling as they arrived :) 

 The gift table

 For our first game, besides the clothespin "Don't Say Baby" game, we played the newlywed game. It was a co-ed shower so hubby was there too :) Amy asked us different questions about children's shows, babies, and our pregnancy. For example, "When did Chandelle take her first positive pregnancy test?" and "On the children's show Full House, what was Danny Tanner's youngest daughter's name?" We got extra points for matching and points for getting the right answer. However, Amy didn't really keep score and the crowd got to vote for the winner...which of course was me! :)

The only other game that we played was Baby Shower Bingo. Guests got a blank bingo card that they filled in with what they thought we would get for gifts. Then as we opened gifts, they got to mark off the items on their bingo boards.

"God Gave Us You" 

and 

"Brown Bear, Brown Bear" 

books from 2 girls in my high school small group from church

Plus a cute "lovey" blanket that hubby is unfolding. 

Knit hats made by my grandma...Christian's great grandma. She made 2 different sizes so they should fit him no matter how big or little he is. 2 in teal to match the prayer shawl she made us for our wedding (I want to use this blanket and hat for some of his newborn pics). 2 in baby blue and a baby blue knit blanket for his "Going Home Outfit". 

You can't see it in the picture, but this onesie has a red wagon on it and says "My first SUV"...from none other than my Uncle Don. Camo is a given on that side of the family ;)

It was a great afternoon and went SUPER fast. Baby Christian was super spoiled. We feel so blessed to have been able to celebrate our little boy with all of our family and friends! 

I was so excited for everything once we got home that I forgot to take a picture of all the fun things Christian got before putting them away! I guess you will just have to watch for my upcoming posts "Organizing Baby's Room" and "What do I need for baby?" to get a better look at his loot! 

He definitely has a well stocked library :) Lots of choices for books to read to him now. 

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