Kooking in Kate's Kitchen

Last October, I received the most wonderful phone call when my sister called to tell me she was expecting. Since then, I've attended an ultrasound appointment, made gender reveal cookies for them and ~~rubbed~~ pushed on her belly more times than I care to admit.

June is fast approaching and baby Nora will be with us soon. This weekend we showered them both with lots and lots of love.

My sister, Brittany, is so blessed to be surrounded by a big group of incredible women. Women who are strong, beautiful, and supportive. In Britt's case, she has 8 girlfriends from high school, 2 from college, 2 sister-in-laws, 4 sisters and an awesome mom and mother-in-law. To have so many amazing women to help guide you through life is incredible. And, especially helpful when throwing a baby shower!!!

I may have taken the lead role in throwing the baby shower, but with everyone pitching in, I felt like I did very little work! It was awe.some.

I thought I'd share some photos of the big day. Aside from cookies, throwing parties is one of my other favorite side hobbies!

It took me forever to come up with a 'theme', if you will. Britt isn't big into animals on baby print. I eventually decided to use her nursery palate for inspiration. Grey & Yellow chevron with touches of pink. We used classy patterns, grey, yellow and pink and kept things simple!

One of Britt's good friends was able to book a beautiful clubhouse for our venue. She also took care of the drinks!!! We had a beautiful, pink punch and some yummy lemonade!

Thank you so much, Kourtney!!

Several weeks ago, I scored some gray and white chevron straws for super cheap from Groopdealz and I reused mason jars for glasses that Britt & Matt used at their wedding. I love ways to be frugal and cute at the same time!

Another one of Britt's best friends, named Brittany, too...bought this beautiful Sweet Baby Girl banner off Etsy. Britt 2 also put together these beautiful, spring flower arrangements using mason jars I already had!

I think baby blocks are a cute & traditional touch to a shower, but I didn't want the primary colored little blocks of today. I bought four big wooden blocks, painted them gray and added Nora in 6 different fonts in pink, yellow, and white.

I love google. In my search for extra baby shower decorations, I accidentally stumbled across Seriously Daisies who happened to have several free baby girl printables. I reused several frames I already had. All it cost me was a little bit of ink!

One of Britt's good friends from college, Shannon, had the great idea to have people team up and make baby Nora some onesies. It's amazing how cute some simple onesies, ad.or.able patterns, fabric and iron-ons turned out! Thank you to Shannon (& Susie) for this fun activity!

These were two activities I definitely wanted to incorporate into the shower. Let's be honest...watching someone opening presents gets a little old, real quick. I wanted people to have fun and take some of the pressure off the momma-to-be, so we encouraged people to fill out a bingo card and cross off the presents as Britt opened them. Winners got $10 starbucks gift cards!!

The only downfall was that I didn't play!

I toyed with the idea of having people sign a picture mat or plate, but decided I wanted Nora to have something more personal. Something that Britt wouldn't feel she needed to find a place to display. Something that when Nora was feeling down about herself (maybe during those teenage years?), she could pull out and read and realize just how many people were so excited to meet her! I ordered the templates off Etsy and easily printed them at home. We kept these cards personal and simply collected them for Mommy and Daddy to read at a later time.

I've been to many baby showers and the one thing that becomes obvious is that not everyone is always excited to play typical baby shower games. I decided to only do the "Guess the baby food" game and put the jars and guessing sheets on the table. We encouraged people to play along if they wanted. My mom (who had 5 kids) correctly guessed 9 out of 10 and got 1/2 of the extra credit, right. She won a $15 card to Rita's! Britt's friend from college, Susie, made a list of 10 parenting questions and asked the Daddy to be to answer them. Everyone had to pick which response they thought Matt gave. Winners got a prize! Thank you so much, Susie!

When I made the invitations, I included a ticket for a diaper raffle and a ticket for a book raffle. I wanted Britt and Matt to have a good start on the necessary items like diapers and a good start for a library, but I didn't want people to feel obligated to bring anything if they didn't want to. I also wanted a cute and creative way to gather all the supplies, so we bought their pac n'play (or portacrib-as I still call it) and had people drop their goodies in it and their raffle tickets in little pails next to the crib. The winner of the diaper raffle got a $25 gift card to Regal Cinemas and the winner of the book raffle got a $15 gift card to ColdStone. I know diapers and books can be expensive and wanted to give good prizes in similar monetary value. I am also a firm believer in good prizes!!! I think it's important that guests realize how much you appreciate their extra efforts to participate by giving them something they'll be excited to receive.

I had to make a diaper cake. Mostly because Britt thinks they're cheesy and I'm all about cheesiness! Besides, if I was going to buy diapers, I was going to do something fun with them!

For the favors, I pulled from our running mason jar theme and a 'sugar and spice' printable I used for decoration. I added some pink, gray and silver candies, made some cute labels, used gray and white twine for an added touch and called it a day.

I love simple projects that add a creative and personal touch. Even from the earliest planning stage, I knew I wanted baby pictures of Britt and Matt. I used some pink clothespins and I think everyone enjoyed looking at the photos! A big thank you to the grandmas to be for gathering up the baby photos!

I like to think we kept dessert simple, but looking at the dessert table, there was nothing simple about it!

You may or may not know that I make cookies (duh), so those were a must. I had bags for people to take them for favors if they wanted. One of Britt's sister-in-laws, makes beautiful cakes and was so incredibly gracious in indulging me in my request for a cake for Britt. The rose cake is pretty trendy right now, but oh so classy. Mandy went above and beyond and made the most adorable little pennant banner, too. My sister's pregnancy craving has been donuts. (at least she's calling it a pregnancy craving!) She may or may not have the Krispy Kreme app on her phone that lets her know when the donuts are hot and ready! It's a wonder she passed her glucose test! ;)

Thank you, Mandy for the perfect cake!!!

I had an extra invite, stuck it in a frame I already had and quickly had an extra decoration.

I pulled inspiration from the invite for the cookies.

Here are some more beautiful flowers!

So many people contributed a yummy dish to the shower. It was so nice to not have all the food responsibility fall on one person's shoulders! I made meatballs and brought a veggie tray and proscuttio and mozzarella. A HUGE thank you to Kourtney for the deviled eggs, Mrs. Mantiply for the shrimp cocktail, Stephanie for the warm crab dip, my mom for the two pasta salads, Britt G. for the ham biscuits, my grandma for the fruit platter. I really appreciate everyone's extra effort!

Here are just a few of the cute homemade onesies!

Here is my beautiful sister and glowing momma-to-be cutting her cake.

This is one loved little girl!!! And a whole lotta loot Daddy had to pack into the car for the 5 hour ride home!

Had to throw in a picture of my sisters! (L to R)-Madison-17, Ally-22, Brittany-25, Cassidy-15, Me-28. I figured I should let you know our ages, because it won't be too many more years before we won't want to discuss how old we are!!