My Nautical Baby Shower

I didn't get a chance to post about the awesome family baby shower my sister in law threw in April before munchkin arrived but am so excited to share it with you now! It was nautical themed and the invitations were so adorable with Ahoy It's a Boy on them.

The decor was top notch! If anyone is throwing a nautical shower, I know some of these things came from etsy. There were fun banners, various ships, a sailor hat and lighthouses that both of us and my mom happened to have for decorating the table that contained the Wishes for Baby cards and the Advice for the Parents-to-be cards. There were also thank you cards that matched the theme where the attendees went ahead and filled in their address - this is something Megan had done for her at one of her showers and it is a real time saver when you have so much going on with a new baby.

My mom gave Megan the Little People Marina to put out which I played with as a kid. Love all the old Little People stuff.

This diaper wreath was amazing! It said Baby Munchkin in the center and is from etsy.

With the wonderful host! She was so sweet to host a baby shower with a 2 month old.

Now let's talk about the amazing food. First the diaper cake on the food table was adorable. We cloth diaper but I haven't really had to buy any disposables for when we travel, etc. due to diapers from my showers.  It was the perfect centerpiece.

The food was catered by someone that catered one of Megan's showers and it was delicious! Chicken salad, veggies and dip, fruit, spinach artichoke dip and some sort of cheese dip in the hollowed pineapple that was to die for! I could totally go for some of that right now.

The cookies are from Blue Flour Bakery in Columbia and they are so so good! I first had their cookies at the shower I threw for Megan when her mom brought them. They are a great shower dessert and I prefer cookies over cake.

With Miss Abby right before we all ate.

After eating, everyone filled out the Baby Wish cards that I cannot wait to share with Munchkin one day and the Advice for the Parents-to-be. 

Then I opened the gifts. My chair even had a Mom-to-be sign and the mantle was all decorated too with BABY letters Megan made and some onesies and burp cloths y mom made.

With Eric's mom and my mom

One of our close family friends was really sweet to come up from FL for the shower.

As well as my aunt from FL and cousin from Charleston.

And my sweet niece. She was the flower girl in our wedding and is so grown up now.

There were cute cookie favors for the guests to take as they left also from Blue Flour. I actually froze two of these for us to enjoy post baby and ate them a couple weeks ago and they were still just as delicious.

Eric helped out with clean up and packing up the baby loot.

And of course this little guy dressed up for the party in his nautical wear too at a little over 2 months old!

Oh The Places You'll Go Baby Shower

Last month, my mom and one of my best friends Katie threw me a baby shower here in Charlotte with the theme Oh The Places You'll Go. It was more travel inspired with just a touch of Dr. Seuss which I loved since we really love travelling and seeing new places and hope our little one will too.

All of the decorations were perfect. My mom has a lot of travel decor (like the hats hanging from the kitchen light fixture) from living in different countries growing up in an army family. And she has lots of Little People travel themed toys like the airplane and bus and such that my sister and I played with as kids. She borrowed the globes and garland from me and made the table cloth and banner.

She also made this diaper wreath with clip art travel stuff taped to it. She also made a pretend passport for the baby. We are hoping to cloth diaper but of course will always need a few disposables for when we travel and such. She printed the Dr. Seuss quote out and framed it. We are excited to hang it up in the nursery.

Our little guy has a ton of cute appliqued and handmade onesies and such from the mantle. I'm loving the little hat and leggings with transportation stuff on them. There are a few more Little People toys on the mantle as well as random little toys in the two vases as decor. And a Oh the Places You'll Go Baby book to be read in utero from my sister. We've read it to munchkin several times and he seems to move around a lot and really like it!

I took these two photos later that night so you could see the window decor and table cloth better because it was hard to capture on camera when it was so bright out.

When guests arrived they grabbed a bow tie and if someone said the word "baby" you got to take their bow tie so the person with the most won a prize. I lost my bow tie very quickly :)

All the food was labelled for a different country to go along with the theme... so clever!

The little food labels were made out of punched out maps and punched out white paper with the words printed on them and are attached to binder clips.

My friend Elisabeth brought this activity that I was super excited about which I had seen at a friend's shower. Everyone puts their thumbprint on the printable (in the end it will look like a big bunch of balloons) and signs their name in their thumbprint. I can't wait to put this up in the nursery too!

We played  few fun shower games Katie came up with. One was matching the word "baby" in different languages and another was about what different things you have on your smart phone.. some was related to baby or kids and there were other categories like how many contacts you have with a "B". Much better than the measuring tape game or the candy in diaper game that I've heard of played at showers.

And I opened gifts. Little guy has some super awesome stuff already!

The wives from the group we usually hang out with.

Katie and I... can you believe she co-hosted a shower when she was about 37 weeks pregnant. She is amazing!

Elisabeth and I

My friend Kelley brought her daughter Olivia who is seriously the best behaved almost 4-year old I've ever seen. She is so adorable too.

With my mom and sister

And the hubby... who was great at clean up and packing up :)

I had such a wonderful shower and munchkin is already so spoiled and loved! Thank you mom and Katie for throwing the shower!

Meeting our newest nephew

We had the pleasure of meeting our newest nephew, Asher, last month when he was almost 1 month old when we took a visit to Columbia! We had a lot of fun holding him and snuggling him all day and we were so happy he had made it back to his birth weight. And we got a short glimpse into life with a newborn :)

The three boys

He had some adorable yawns and liked to stick his tongue out. And who doesn't love those cute little Clemson shoes. He's such a sweetie!

We made another trip down this past weekend to see Eric's family and spend time with little Asher again. He liked snuggling with Papaw and he liked his little nautical hat my mom made him.

He has also learned to fist bump his cousin with no training from us :) I actually didn't even know he was doing this until after I was looking at the photos and I love it!

Welcome to the world little one! We love spending time with you!

It's A...

Last Sunday we had Eric's parents, Abby and Grandpa, Keith and Megan, and my parents over for lunch so we could all find out the gender of Munchkin together. At our appointment we had the ultrasound tech write it down and seal it in an envelope to take to Publix. Publix then made a gender reveal cake for us where the middle icing is either blue or pink but nothing on the outside of the cake gives it away.

We got to visit the new Publix not too far from our home. It was just as great as I remember growing up. Eric had to get a sub while we were there and I know we will be back. I'm sure other grocery stores do this too but we decided on Publix because their cakes are so delicious. I even know people that have used them to make their wedding cake because they just taste THAT good! Oh and we picked up a few balloons (FYI - helium balloons will not last 24 hrs... we had to get a few more at Bilo the morning of the lunch).

We had homemade pizza and salad for lunch and everyone put in their boy or girl guesses for Munchkin. The girl side won out but I was most interested in my mom's guess... she has this hidden talent of guessing genders correctly... she has about an 80% track record. (My sister and her husband weren't there but had called in their guesses)

We cut the cake and after we pulled the knife out the first time we could see some blue icing on the knife but we wanted to be positive and once the first piece was out we were sure munchkin IS A BOY!!! We are so excited! Of course we would have been happy and thrilled with either outcome but I've always wished for a little boy as part of our family and I'm so grateful that was God's plan for us too!

Ever since we found out we were pregnant, even before any symptoms or anything I'd been picturing munchkin as a boy for some reason so that is why my guess was a boy.

Most of the old wives tales actually pointed to girl. Here is how they all came out:

Chinese gender chart: Girl
Heart rate: Girl
Morning sickness: a bit of a toss up (no pun intended)... definitely had some nausea but never threw up
Skin: Girl
Cravings: Boy

Of course the cake was amazing just as I expected and everyone enjoyed it... and I'm not even a big cake person but this cake is fantastic (for me, if I plan to eat cake over cookies or brownies it better be darn good cake!).

Blue balloons for us!

Munchkin got to officially meet Megan's baby, Peach, bump to bump for the first time. They did not find out the gender. Their little one will be here in just a few weeks and we will get to find out if it is a boy or girl! We are glad the cousins will be so close in age!

We then spent the rest of that afternoon at the American Girl store with Abby so she could get her doll's hair done. That place was definitely eye-opening. I love American Girl dolls but I miss the days when it was more about the dolls outfits and the books/stories that went with them rather than all the kits/furniture/accessories. There is certainly a lot to choose from now.

Eric and I topped off the day by going to dinner with Keith and Megan and a couple of friends at one of my favorite restaurants, 300 East. That concluded a successful gender reveal day with the parents and in-laws. We are so thankful that the family was able to come and celebrate with us!