Thankfulness Day 24 - A Beatrix Potter Baby Shower

 Around this time last year, my DH and I went back to our hometown for Thanksgiving, thinking it might be the last chance we would have to see family before we headed off to Italy. During this time, my grandmother graciously let my mother and sister take over her house as they cohosted a baby shower for us, and it was awesome! My mother and sister, as with most of my family come to think of it, do nothing half-baked and always go above and beyond when committing to something. Most often their generosity borders on absurd and insane, and this event was no exception as they single-handedly furnished the baby nursery! They also spent countless hours decorating and planning, and as such, I am going to show off the fruits of their labor below.

            The main theme was Beatrix Potter. I have been a huge fan of the books and movies ever since I was little and have always wanted to theme the baby nursery as such, regardless of the gender. However the color scheme of blue and green worked particularly well for the garden/Peter Rabbit theme as well as our baby's gender. (yay for little boys!) 

          My mother and middle sister both work, and due to the holiday season they had particularly long hours and decided that they may need help decorating. I love decorating and was more than happy to come and assist, and it was easy because they already had all the supplies needed. 

  

    
          As you can see in the picture to the left, even the dining room joined the happy theme! We hung the balloons from the ceiling at various lengths to add dimension. A marble inserted into each one helped them stay in place. We also mixed plain with polka dot and had different colored ribbon tied to each. This took a lot of teamwork and we had an assembly line going to be most efficient. My sister would insert the marble (so the balloons would hang nicely), while I blew them up and tied the ribbons to them, and then my other sister would hand them up to my tall hubby who was on a ladder and attaching them the ceiling. It looked great and was really fun to walk under! Snippets of the curled ribbon decorated the floor so nothing was left untouched for festivity.


I was also in charge of lemonade! With a little help from my family and friends of course ;) I found some unique lemonade recipes online and my hubby and sisters helped me make them. They were sooo good!

Squeezing the lemon juice! So many people pitched in to help, thanks everyone!

We tied cute/themed ribbon my mom found around the mason jars.

I made the mini labels so people knew what they were getting into! The Honey Vanilla Lemonade was the very best of them, which I had not anticipated. 

Food! Family also brought delicious dishes to share. yum! back when I was allowed to eat anything and everything... ah those were the days ;)

My mom made these delicious dirt (oreo pudding) cups complete with fake flowers and gummy worms. 

And of course it's a carrot cake because it was a bunny/garden party

We played a lot of fun games and won plants as prizes. Here people filled out cards of advice for us as parents. Most of them advised us to "get sleep!" (And yes, I still have the cards. They are tucked into the baby book)

Such a beautiful toybox!

Family on both my and my hubby's side showered us with gifts for our upcoming little one, and we really have been in need of little as far as baby supplies go. A year later and I still have unopened bottles of baby soaps to work through! We managed to transport it all back to our apartment in Arizona, where it was packed up by movers the next weekend and shipped off to Italy. Just over two months later, in mid February, the shipment arrived (all in one piece! and less than a day before the baby made his appearance! What timing!). After the weeks in various hospitals for his PKU, we finally got to be home and set up the nursery. Although it's changed a fair amount since the spring, here are the pictures we took when we first got it set up:

This picture was taken before we learned how to hang things in the concrete walls, so the pictures, cross stitch from his great-grandma, and beautiful mobile my mother-in-love made aren't here.

  




Today I am thankful for family and good memories, for the one's who help you and celebrate with you. We are very blessed!