Los Grovers: Annie's Baby Shower

Remember how my sis-in-law, Annie, is 7 weeks ahead of me in the pregnancy department? Well, her baby shower was a couple weeks ago. It was the sweetest, prettiest baby shower, thanks to party planner extraordinaire, Meliss Grover (aka Auntie 'Liss).

Meliss chose a Birds & the Bees theme for the shower. Here are the little birdie houses she painted, stamped, and decorated to hand out as favors.

I made crazy cake cupcakes with chocolate whipped cream frosting and toasted coconut nests. We put some jordan almonds in the middle for little eggs. Check out Auntie Liss's attention to detail. We had bird egg shaped candies, little birdies everywhere, and even candles with honeycomb shapes.

It took Meliss and I an entire afternoon to fashion this fancy diaper cake. Who knew it would be so involved?!?? But, we are happy with the results. It turned out pretty dang cute, if I must say so myself. I was ~~completely~~ a little intimidated by the project assignment, but we had a good online tutorial. phew.

Seriously, Meliss doesn't miss any details. She got mason jars for drinking glasses, and even some darling paper straws that matched with the decor.

She also sewed at least 5 different pennant banners with darling scrapbook paper for decorations, and you know, found a panel of bird and flower fabric that would go well with the decor and sewed a border of a pretty ribbon around the edge of it so it would be extra perfect.

What a cute idea. Meliss got this plain white board book and used matching scrapbook paper to line the cover and each page inside. She had people draw little pictures on small pieces of paper to be used for an ABC book for Baby Gilbert. I can't wait to see the finished product. How special!

More favors. Itty bitty honey bears with birdseed packets too, because it IS the birds and the bees, you know. The honey was fun and fancy flavors like sage and blackberry and orange.

There was also a wishing tree for the Annie. Meliss made all these cutsie birds out of more of that scrapbook paper. Each person wrote a wish for Annie and her baby on it and hung the birdie on the wishing tree. Such a sweet idea, and what a wonderful keepsake for Annie.

Auntie Adie and Auntie Liss. She brought the party, yo. Meliss came with decorations, plates, napkins, tablecloths, glasses, game prizes, more decorations, fresh cut flowers, drink dispensers. Seriously this chick knows what she's doing!!!

Here's Gabriela playing the Price is Right game. I picked up a bunch of baby items from Target and the guests had to guess how much they thought each item cost. See how hard Gabriela is thinking here? Kind of funny, since she was at the store with me, and remembers just about everything she ever hears or sees. When asked if everyone was ready to move onto the next item, Gabriela said she wasn't ready yet.

She also worked very hard on her entries for Auntie Ann's Baby Book. Each time she finished one, she ran up to Auntie Ann, announcing she had finished drawing another picture for the baby. In the end, I had to confiscate the papers so there were some left for the other guests to contribute to the book.

Gabriela gave Auntie Ann some of her favorite books: The Way I Feel, The Monster at the End of This Book, The I Love You Book, and From Head to Toe

Auntie Liss's good ideas never stop. She had all the Grover cousins write with fabric pens on a giant piece of white fabric to create a playmat for Baby Gilbert. Chaney drew a giant picture of Yoda, Beau made the sweetest heart, Claire made a welcome home Baby Gilbert scene, and Natalie wrote all sorts of sweet baby words. Gabriela drew a picture that she said included mouthwash. What baby doesn't want to look at mouthwash while improving their neck strength? She also spontaneously dictated a letter to the baby that I had to write down. "Dear Baby, I love you so much. I hope you go to Grandpa's Farm." How sweet is that? All the kids worked so hard on their contributions. Meliss put cute taggies on the edges and quilted it all together.

Oh, Auntie Liss. Where do you find the time? She also quilted this special blankie for Baby Gilbert. Isn't it darling?!

Obviously, Baby needed some Super Grover apparel. This cousin will be matchies with Gabriela AND Baby Brother because I couldn't not buy some for them as well. Grover is so under represented in the Sesame Street crew.