baby party

Alternate title: "the time I said yes when I wanted to say no"

Some of the decor:
tiny "little sister" jammies,
homemade paper circle garland,
ribbon tassel garland,
mini white pumpkins,
and balloons.

After my baby shower a couple of weeks ago, my sweet bossling2 was inspired. All that night she told me how, when she got older, she wanted to throw showers for people. Then, her eyes lit up and she asked if she could host another shower for me. One that she could also invite her own friends to, of course. My first thought was to say no. I'd just had a shower, and I didn't want to seem ungrateful by turning around and basically hosting a shower for myself (with my daughter's input, of course, but still.) But she was so excited by the idea, I figured it wouldn't hurt to discuss it a bit further.

First, I pulled up the calendar on my phone. I told her the first thing we'd have to do is pick a day. I figured one week would be too short of notice, while two weeks would mean the party happened the day before my due date. I thought it was a bit risky and ambitious - we'd have to cancel if baby came early, but I told her that day was probably the best choice.

From there I started asking her what kinds of snacks and decorations she'd want to have at the shower. She listed off a few ideas, and then we talked about games. I told her about some traditional baby shower games that we might be able to do and we talked about what we could do for prizes. The ideas were simple enough, and her excitement was pretty contagious, even though I was still feeling really self-conscious about the whole idea, I decided to go forward with it.

I created an event on Facebook with a description explaining that this party was E's idea, and was all about her and that she is finally getting a sister. I considered things that we already had on hand to use for decorations, and then picked up a few extras - important things like balloons, and unimportant impulse buys because I wanted to make it extra special for my girl.

As we got closer to the day of the party I started to stress a bit. I was feeling extra worn out, and overwhelmed by why needed to get done. Specifically getting the house ready for guests, but there was also shopping and food prep that I needed to accomplish. When it was all said and done, though, we managed to pull it off. Mr. Boss helped out with the cleaning, and my last-minute-panic abilities set in, which helped me accomplish what I'd wanted.

I was trying to get the food all put together and set up when our first guest arrived. She was super awesome and helped me out with those final preparations, which I really appreciated. Especially because it gave me the opportunity to run and rinse the specks of day old mascara from my cheeks that I'd never gotten around to. Oops. Ha ha.

I frequently have this desire to host gatherings, but every time I actually do it I find myself feeling frazzled and don't really get a chance to enjoy myself. This time was different. I was still running around a bit, but also had the opportunity to sit down and chat and enjoy myself. E got to have some of her friends there, which made it so special for her. Plus, a friend of ours brought her 3 week old baby to the party and all the bosslings got to gush over that sweet, tiny boy.

It was probably the craziest idea, but we pulled it off and had a lot of fun.

The food - my favorite part.
Fruits, veggies, caprese bites, pink fluff, better-than-anything cake, and my favorite frozen pizza,
plus some pink lemonade - because it was pink!

One of our party games - the memory game.
The other game was guessing the size of my bump.
Imagine the surprise and amazement of all when the string of one of the youngest party-goers
was the exact length to touch perfectly end-to-end around my belly!

Gushing over our friend's tiny boy and getting all the more excited for our baby to arrive!