#35: Belly Bean

I'm excited for my best friend Allison and her husband Phil to have their first baby this spring.  I'm excited to have a baby in the "family" that I can spoil rotten because, let's be honest, that's what will happen.  It will be adorable and I will love it.  I started spoiling it with an amazing baby shower for Allison today!  She wanted a "retro" themed party but then I found the most adorable invitations with a baby in an ACORN.  So we kind of went with a retro color scheme (avocado, burnt orange, teal, etc) and a woodland creature theme (mirroring that of the nursery).

I sent the adorable (Australian) invitations with a white onesie for people to decorate and bring to the party as a surprise for Allison.  I got the invitations from this Etsy shop.

We had the party at the Uptown Cafeteria and Support Group to tie in Allison's want for a "retro" theme.  The Uptown Cafeteria is a cool old-school cafeteria restaurant and we reserved the Teacher's Lounge for the gathering of 16 people (I didn't want to try and have everyone over to my house so a restaurant seemed like the best idea).  Below is the entry hallway to the Cafeteria- its covered in lunch trays!

I used many Vera Bradley bags to transport gifts and other fun things to the party.  Love these three bags.  I also gave Vera Bradley as prizes for the games.  Someone said they were the best baby shower gifts she'd seen.  Awesome.

The first thing us non-pregnant people did?  Had mimosas!  We were there for brunch and it was perfectly tasty.

Also there was a guestbook where everyone could write advice for Allison, Allison & Phil or for the baby.

We played a bunch of games like the baby food tasting game:

And a game where you're blindfolded and try to pick out the tiny safety pins from a bunch of rice:

Then Allison opened so many presents.  This one is my favorite because of the loving way she is looking at that box.

And then I took pictures of everyone and their decorated onesie with Allison (the pictures will go in the guestbook and be used for thank you notes).  Here is Allison and me!

And perhaps one of my favorite pictures from the party is this one of the hanging onesies and my dear sister Liz who hung them up for us.

Everyone got these lovely sugar cookie party favors.  Sugar cookie decorating with royal icing is trickier than I thought but look at the great finished product!  Woodland creatures!

All in all, it was a great morning spent with friends and celebrating a very exciting milestone in my best friend's life.  Like I said, I cannot wait for the baby to arrive!  Little Eleanor or Gibbson will be my favorite baby in the world.  :)