texas christmas - day 13

Saturday was Laura's baby shower, and between the setting up and the actual shower, it took most of the day (for me, Leslie, Carol, and Cassy).  The menfolk and Laura were left with the kids in the morning, while the rest of the women went over to the rental house (not everyone could sleep in Laura's house at the same time, so we rented a second house, and it seemed the most convenient place to have the shower) to set up.  The evening before I had enlisted the help of Leslie, Rachel, and Amara to cut out elephants for me, which I planned on making a garland out of - and I was so glad I did!  Otherwise, we never would have been ready on time.  It took much longer to set everything up than I thought, and we were scrambling a bit at the end, but it all came together just in time!

The onesies hanging from the mantle were Carol's idea, and we interspersed them with portions of the elephant garland I had made.  I had envisioned the garland being one long string when I originally planned it, but I loved having the onesies break it up.  There were also a few elephants hanging from the light fixtures, and the 3-dimensional elephants made out of blankets were my creation as well (thank you, Pinterest!!!).  Can you guess the theme here?  Carol and Cassy did the balloons, the centerpiece on the mantle, and the banner hanging over the sliding doors (not pictured here).  Laura had given Carol 2 silver frames with pictures in them - one of just Micaela and Amara, and one with the girls and Laura and Dave.  It was Carol's brilliant idea to put them up on the mantle - so great!  Leslie was in charge of the food for the shower, and she did a wonderful spread.  Cheese, crackers, M&Ms, toasted sandwich rolls, fruit kabobs, tomato/basil/mozzerella kabobs, cupcakes (ordered from a bakery), and sparkling pink lemonade.  Cassy bought and arranged the gorgeous flowers in the middle of the table, and it was my idea to put white Christmas lights underneath the tablecloth (it's hard to see it well in the picture, but I thought the lights really helped the table "pop" and gave it some texture!)

2 of Laura's friends planned the games and took care of the invitations, and it was great to not have to worry about those things.  I thought the games were really fun - baby shower games can easily be kind of dumb, but I really enjoyed the ones that they planned.  My favourite was a game of songs - we split up into teams, and the first game was a contest to come up with songs that included a certain word - first 'baby', then 'girl'. We had 2 minutes to brainstorm, then the teams took turns listing the songs (we had to sing the line that had the given word in it).  As long as we were still thinking up songs, the game continued.  If a team couldn't think of one in 30 seconds, they were out - and the game kept going until all but one team was eliminated.  It was hard to think under pressure, but of course I thought of lots of songs over the next several days that I wish I'd thought of on Saturday!  All in all, it was a really fun shower - most of all because there were so many people there that I love!

Saturday night many of us went to see The Wonderful Life at Zach Scott Theatre - it's the story of "It's a Wonderful Life", but narrated and acted out by one man.  I had my doubts about the whole show being done by a single actor, but I was pleasantly surprised!  He did a great job and everyone really enjoyed the show.  On Sunday we played the original movie so the kids could compare.