After a very rough first and second trimester, I entered into the third trimester not anticipating the remainder of my pregnancy would be any better. I barely felt well enough to get through our Halloween pregnancy announcement and honestly felt awful all the time. I had already passed the “honeymoon” period that my doctor described should have come after around 20-weeks. That mile marker came and went, and my intense nausea held strong. When my sister graciously offered to host a baby shower, it was one of the last things I felt like attending. She convinced me it was a right of passage and a special experience as part of being a first-time mom that I needed to embrace.
Baby showers are supposed to be held sometime around 24-32 weeks pregnant, so we decided to push the date out to give me time to be further along in the pregnancy and hopefully feel better. Unsure of how I would feel, I requested my sister host the baby shower at my house to make things a little easier on me with less travel and just in case I got sick and needed to retreat.
The Theme:
The theme was “Baby in Bloom” to keep things simple and classic for a gender neutral Spring baby shower. Despite the fact that my mom, sister and I all inadvertantly wore pink, we didn’t know the sex of the baby and didn’t want the baby shower to skew any particular gender. A clean white pallette felt right since it could be decorated with natural flowers and fresh pops of green.
The Games:
I remember my sister’s Nautical Baby Shower was filled with fun little baby shower games, but I wasn’t so sure I would feel up for them at mine. Being my little sister though, she vetoed me and planned several engaging games that everyone ended up getting a kick out of.
She planned a baby word scramble where I nailed most of the words, and a price is right game that made me realize I clearly have no realistic concept on how much baby items actually cost haha (despite the fact that she pulled some prices directly from my baby registry!). The baby food taste test game garnered the funniest responses though as we all tried to identify various fruit and vegetable flavors!
The Decor:
Keeping with the “Baby in Bloom” theme, white floral arrangments adorned all the rooms with a mixture of faux and live greenery tucked around the house to bring the outdoors inside.
My sister ended up ordering a lot of the decor and accents from Amazon such as the wooden plates and utensils, paper straws, supplemental faux greenery, and balloon garland kits. I had a small California air compressor that made quick work of assembling the balloon garlands. I highly recommend that if you ever consider assembling baloon garlands yourself, you have have an air pump on hand to make things quick and easy!
The Menu:
To keep things light but filling, my sister chose a variety of delicious mini-chicken salad croissants and broccoli salad from Chicken Salad Chick. a charcuterie board of meat and cheese, a variety of fruit, sweet petit fours, and a tasty lemon cake for guests to nibble on. She also served up a tasty baby shower punch made of lime sherbert, chilled pineapple juice and sprite. It was extra special because we used my grandmother’s crystal punch bowl as the center piece.
The Favors:
As a sweet thank you for guests, my sister ordered a bunch of small succulent plants for each person to take home. They arrived in small plastic holders, so she replanted them inside adorable miniature white clay pots.
The Baby Shower Dress:
As mentioned, we went with a gender neutral theme because the hubby and I decided not to find out the gender in advance. As I started looking for the perfect maternity dress to wear to the baby shower, I didn’t want to break the bank on something that I probably wouldn’t get much wear from after, but I also wanted something special. I ended up checking out the usual maternity dress sites like ASOS, PinkBlush, Amazon Fashion, Motherhood Maternity, A Pea in the Pod, etc. But I ended up scoring a great deal on a darling blush dress from an online boutique called Boohoo.
Even though I was originally unsure that I even wanted a baby shower, I’m so glad my sister pressed forward and encouraged me to change my mind. She did a wonderful job pulling everything together for our sweet baby and I couldn’t have asked for a better day celebrating with friends and family.
Our baby is already so blessed with love and the “Baby in Bloom” baby shower was such a special and memorable day that I won’t ever forget.
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