Lezlie & Will's "Little Man" Shower

Another season, another baby shower.  We are one busy group of friends!

A few weeks ago, Corrie called to ask me if I'd help her host a baby shower for our friends Will and Lezlie as they are expecting their first baby-- a sweet baby boy!  (What's that like?)  Since I had seen several Facebook posts by Will referring to their baby-to-be as "Little Man," I thought that would be the perfect little theme for the shower.  You know I love a good theme.  Bow ties and mustaches everywhere!

These softball boys tend to travel as a pack, so we thought it'd be best to do a coed shower, but to keep it a surprise from Lezlie.  They live in Raleigh and were visiting for the weekend.  It was so fun that she thought she was just showing up to our house for a softball get together, and it was in fact a gathering to celebrate their bundle of joy.

We hosted the shower at our house which can be stressful from the cleaning--and keeping clean-- perspective, but it makes it easy to decorate as I had time.  Make a banner one night, do some bow tie garland the next.  Harper even helped me whip a diaper cake in about twenty minutes.  I may have gone through an entire blade on my paper cutting machine, but I was able to do all the decorations for about $15.  It makes things a lot less stressful the day of for sure because the only thing I needed to do on Saturday was pick up balloons and whip up my food contributions of little "man"wiches  (chicken salad on croissants, pimento sandwich quarters, and poppyseed ham and cheese sliders).  Corrie and Rachel brought the rest!

Mama to Be Lezlie

Opening Gifts

It may go down as the longest baby shower of all time because all twenty adults and 9 kiddos stayed from the 5 p.m. start time until at least midnight, and we got to host Will & Lezlie and the Cromers overnight.  I think we all had a great time congratulating our dear friends and warning them about all the craziness celebrating all the fun ahead!  Can't wait to meet you, Sawyer Hughes!

A Baseball Shower for Baby Alston

Beautiful Mama to Be

"I have prayed for this child, 

and the Lord has granted what I ask of Him." 

1 Samuel 1:27

Sometimes it still amazes me that I met Corrie when she was 17 years old.  I have seen her play college basketball at Radford and watched as she met and fell in love with her husband (they started dating after our wedding!).  I've missed her while she lived abroad, and been thankful over and over again for the calm, sweet presence she is in our family.  I had the privilege of helping host her bridal shower over five years ago, and oh what an honor to stand by her as she said I do.  So, fast forward five years, and now she and Jeremy are expecting a little BOY whom they've decided to name Alston Fields Cromer.  Of course I wanted to celebrate Corrie as she becomes a mama and this precious little guy.

Baby Alston's nursery is an All-American Baseball theme which sounded like a great idea for her shower.  This little guy is not just any little guy; he's the first little guy in the Fertitta family.  Why not go all out with a super boyish theme?  Corrie is a loved lady, so it's no surprise that she is having a total of four showers.  You read that right--four showers!  I figured she would be enjoying plenty of sweet baby blue events, and so I decided to roll with her nursery's navy and red baseball scheme for the 40 people gathering to welcome her Little Slugger.

In planning for her shower, I started out by finding invitations I loved on Etsy.  Of course.  And lucky for me, the shop offered a party pack with games and decor as well.   I enjoyed mixing things I found at local stores, some DIY items and fresh flowers (red and white mums), with the premade party decor that came with the Etsy package and just needed printed at my Staples Copy Center.

Having a little fun while hosting

The shower was held on September 6 at Green Ridge Baptist Church,  The Fellowship Hall is pretty large and could have easily held double the number of people we had invited for the shower, so I didn't want it to feel empty.  The balloon 'stands' placed on the food table were such an easy way to fill a big place. I just blew up balloons (no helium), twist them together, ran a dowel rod through the middle of the cluster, and dropped in down into a vase filled with baseballs. They were easy to make ahead and were done in 5 minutes-- unless you're Corrie reading this and if so, they took hours and hours and hours of thoughtful work...   :)

 

I am not usually a game person, but knew we needed to mix in a few activities, so I used three of the games provided by the party pack from Etsy, but made a few modifications.  To serve as an icebreaker, we played a team version of the game of "What's in Mommy's Purse." I divided up the room into two teams (red or blue), depending on the color of ribbon at your table's centerpiece.  It was a lot of fun to see everyone race to find the often random item we called out, getting a point for their team each time.  I will definitely use this game for future showers, as I had several ladies that aren't moms comment on how they enjoyed having a game that they could wholeheartedly play along with, unlike so many baby games that are based on one's knowledge of babies or motherhood. In the end, the blue team won the great prize of headed to the food table first. 

Cute cardboard letters from Jo-Ann's, spray painted in "Oxford Blue"

  

Speaking of food, determining the food for the shower was one of the things I lost the most sleep over!  I saw so many cute birthdays and couples showers using a concession stand idea and serving hot dogs and cracker jacks, but since this was already a pretty different baby shower, I wanted to stick with more traditional shower fare.  Since I wasn't doing baseball themed food, I thought it would be fun to at least give each item a baseball related name, so in case you're looking to do the same, here's what I came up with:

Baseball Baby Shower Menu

• Home Plate Pimento Cheese Mini Sandwiches
• Double Play Veggie Dippers
• Full Count Fruit Kabobs
• Coach's Chips and Dip
• Extra Innings Deviled Eggs
• Curve (meat) Balls
• Batter Up Buffalo Dip
• Champion Cheese and Crackers
• Pop Fly Pepperoni Rolls
• Shortstop Spinach Dip
• Wooden Bat Chocolate Dipped Pretzels
• Little League Lemonade
• Strikeout Sweet Tea

Patra, Grandmother (my grandmother-in-law), and Susan (my mother-in-law) having fun during introductions

Despite Corrie's enormous mound of gifts (which took up not one gift table, but two), we managed to keep things running smoothly and finished in the two hour time table I had mapped out.  There were a lot of smiles, a lot of (happy) tears, and lots of love and support shared, so I hope that at the end of the day, Corrie and Jeremy know just how loved they are, and just how excited we are to meet Baby Alston!

Hope Alston Fields is ready for this crazy bunch!