An All-Star Baby Shower

Note:

I apologize for the blurry pictures; please see disclaimer in righthand sidebar.

To see clear photos of this party, please check them out on my Shutterfly share site here.

Eric, Ellie and I spent this past weekend in St. Petersburg primarily to celebrate Plus One's impending arrival (nine weeks left!) with a baby shower thrown by my mom and stepsister Julie. The big event was on Sunday, and we had a wonderful time!

My mom made the invitations! (Identifying details have been removed to protect the innocent)

My mom and Julie went all out with the details for this baseball-themed shower (spoiler alert: that's also going to be the theme of Plus One's nursery!). To start, there was some great baseball decor, including a pennant banner, baseball tablecloth and a "grandstand" with baseball fans made of newborn diapers, socks and washcloths. Cuteness!

Pennant banner

"The crowd" looking out over various shower activities, and standing guard over the baseball cake pops!

The fans! How cute are they?!

There was also a baseball for the guests to "autograph" as a guestbook. We plan to display it in Plus One's nursery.

Baby Boy's first autographed baseball!

For activities, there was a station to write a funny message on a newborn diaper, so that when we're up in the middle of the night to change the little guy, we can have some entertaining messages to chuckle at.

Hey, any idea that gets you looking forward to diaper changes is a darn good idea!

They also had a diaper raffle, and anyone who brought a pack of diapers received a ticket for the raffle. The lucky raffle winner (my mother-in-law Toni!) received a lovely prize provided by my Aunt Debbie.

For a game, everyone cut a length of yarn to guess the circumference of my belly. The winner was a close call: my mom, Gramz and my mom's friend Wilma all were pretty near accurate, but ultimately Gramz took home the prize!

"Guess the circumference" game

Top: Julie overshot it quite a bit, but Wilma was pretty close!

Bottom: Gramz (the ultimate winner!) and my mom also were very close!

Comparing the top three yarn lengths

Ellie started wrapping yarn around her belly!

Speaking of prizes, my Aunt Debbie provided the guest favors and they were wonderful. Each person took home a potted plant to "celebrate new life." Beautiful!

Aren't they lovely?

The food was another wonderful detail: not only was it delicious, but it was also all baseball game food (well, with the exception of fruit salad, which may not be a ballgame staple but sure was yummy). We had hot dogs, nachos with cheese, boxes of popcorn and some blue punch. Everything was laid out on a festive red checked tablecloth, and the food was served in the little food baskets they give you at ballgames. And of course, for dessert, we had baseball cake pops. Yum!

The food table

A closer look

Delicious!

Baseball cake pops

Plus One also received some wonderful gifts from everyone: primarily lots of great clothes, some books, some other necessities and his nursery bedding. Plus, of course, all the diapers from the raffle!

Ellie was a very big helper with the gift-opening. After her birthday party last month, she's a pro!

Cute little clothes!

My cousin Molly sent a wonderful gift basket even though she couldn't be there. It included Plus One's baby book and a lot of other great stuff, including notes to me, Ellie and Plus One that brought tears to this hormonal pregnant lady's eyes.

Bedding! Man, the nursery spoilers are flying all over the place in this post.

Plus One wasn't the only one of my kids who received gifts. As it turns out, Ellie tends to clean up at showers for her baby brother. (Don't get used to it, kid!)

Left: Sporting a visor and bracelets from Great Aunt Debbie; checking out stickers from Grammy

Right: "Taking pictures" with her new Minnie smart phone from Julie

Not pictured: Lots of other presents for this little girl!!!!

I mean, I get it. Who can look at that face and NOT want to buy her all the things?

The rest of the shower time was spent visiting with all my loved ones in attendance, which was the best part. I'm so lucky to have these ladies in my life who love and support me and my baby-to-be!

Ellie and Great Aunt Debbie sneaking in a quick Facetime chat with Molly and Santiago

Wilma, Debbie, my mom, Ellie, Gramz and Toni

Ellie hanging out with her Grammy, munching on some popcorn

The shower ran into naptime and Ellie was overtired to begin with, so she was a pretty sleepy big sister by the end of it. She was a trooper, though!

Things wrapped up after a couple hours, and Eric returned from his golf outing with Gary and Julie's husband Dennis. We loaded up the car, said our thank-yous and good-byes, and then it was off to Jacksonville. Poor, tired Ellie knocked right out in the car, although her refusal to take long car naps continues and she was awake again about 20 minutes later. However, when she woke up the first thing she said was, "Had fun at the party!" Me too, baby girl!

Passed out in the car, clutching an Easter Mickey - a gift from Gramz!

Thanks so much to Mom, Julie and Aunt Debbie for putting this all together for me, and thanks to everyone who made the afternoon so wonderful! Eric, Ellie, Plus One and I are very blessed!