Shower for Baby Lima Bean

A few months ago, I had the chance to throw a baby shower for my sister in law, Lauren. She's having her first baby in about a month! Though its grandchild #7 in my husband's family, we wanted her and baby "lima bean" to feel special.

I didn't have a theme other than the colors green and brown. Not knowing the baby's gender, I knew she would like those two colors. (Who doesn't!?) We incorporated those colors with paper products, flowers and fabric. You can see the food table above has a brown polka dot runner. It was simply fabric cut with pinking shears. No sewing involved and it added a nice touch to the table!

The invitations were designed by a friend who does graphic design. They were also green and brown. The invitations also included a poem for Lauren. The Gainors love to write poems and/or songs for all occassions; weddings, retirement, birthday, babies, etc. For this poem, I included my other sister in law that currently lives overseas. She wrote the poem for me and it was just a sweet to include her own little touch to the shower preparations.

We had guests write their own nametags with the color of the gender they believed the baby to be. This was a fun little "game" that didn't take much prep or involvement. In the end, it was a landslide win for GIRL! All but one lady thought baby lima bean is a girl.

We played a shower game where guests had to identify the favorite characters of Lauren's nieces and nephews. I made up a sheet with color pictures of about 20 different characters that are the Gainor kid favorites. It was really fun!

The food was simple. We made cupcakes (my first icing from scratch!), fruit salad, chocolate covered pretzels, ham biscuits, cheese ball w/ strawberry jam along with some simple punch. Let's just say that we wasted a lot of chocolate while learning how to make chocolate covered pretzels! It's not as easy as you'd think to melt chocolate.

You'll see a picture in the slideshow of this, but we also played a game and guessed the number of lima beans in a jar. Andy and Lauren have been calling the baby "Lima Bean" so I thought this would be fun. This would be easy to change based on the nickname the expectant parents had given baby. Peanut is a common name!

 

(I hope Lauren doesn't mind me posting her picture on Prayer of Hannah!)

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I made Lauren a pennant banner for the shower in the colors we used for the shower. Mainly green and brown - but with some blue too. I love the colors and fabrics of this banner. It hung over my mother in law's large windows in the kitchen. I also made a small one to hang over the fireplace in the living room. The small one can be attached the larger one later.

Here are the rest of the pictures! (They are not very good, my camera was acting up. I had some setting off and I'm not sure what it was.)