My mom and I thought long and hard about a theme for this shindig. We started talking about it before we knew the gender and had come up with really cute themes for both. But then we started talking about the timing of the shower, because this little guy is coming at a very awkward shower planning time. We didnt want to do any of the weekends before Christmas because of Christmas parties and people traveling, and us traveling and that would just be bad. So we settled on the weekend in between Christmas and New Years and thats when we had the idea for theme... Baby Its Cold Outside. I mean come on, how does it get any cuter than that! Now I am not a huge fan of the color blue. Especially at Christmas time, and when we found out we were having a boy, my mom and I started the quest of arguing about whether or not we would be decorating with blue Christmas ornaments and decorations. Well I won that battle haha and we ended up going with a red and white theme. Still plenty boy and plenty baby. I was happy about it haha.
We found some really cute ideas on pinterest and for the first time my version actually came out somewhat better than the pictures I was basing them on. We found this really awesome entry table idea and we altered it somewhat to make it fit more with what we wanted. We used the slate chalkboard that we used for our announcement pictures, our daycare Christmas tree haha, and some amazing garland that my Grandma so sweetly gave us. We used a can of fake snow and some red ornaments and ended up with a pretty awesome display of Christmas and cuteness.
My mom and I went through about a million ideas before deciding on what would be a good baby themed center piece while still keeping with the theme. I found a tutorial on Pinterest that taught you how to attach pictures to a candle so that the light from the lit candle would still come through. So we began digging through old pictures of me and Nic's family went on the hunt for adorable ones of him and we began pairing them up. We attempted to make sure that each picture matched both in age and in content. We then printed the pictures side by side on a piece of Vellum paper and attached them to votives that we had used for our wedding. We put them on bright red chargers and used Epsom salt to create the look of snow. I think they turned out pretty stinking cute.
My mom also found the idea online to do Snowman Cheese Balls as an appetizer on each table for when guests arrived and it wasnt quite time to eat yet. They were pretty adorable too :)
And no true Pittsburgh party is complete without a cookie table. Its just not. So we of course used the theme to our advantage and baked some cuteness to go with it. And of course my amazing Fairy Godmother came through yet again with some adorable cupcakes to go along with it.
And we had some awesome help along the way. My cousin Michele was such a life saver. On Friday, she spent the entire day at our house helping to get things together and to make sure that we had everything in order. I think we spent 6 hours straight sitting at our dining room table putting icing on and decorating our cookies. She also showed up at 9 am at the hall on Saturday along with her two sisters and my Aunt JoLynn to help get the wraps and the cheese balls made for the tables and the main meal. My mom's dearest friend, May also came early to help get things in order and we are just so thankful for all the help that we had that made the day a success for us.
I think my favorite part of the decor as a whole though was the way we displayed the little man's name. We hadnt told a great deal of people his name before the shower just because we know so many people who are expecting right now and we really wanted our name to be different and unique and so we just kept it to ourselves for a while. But we thought the shower would be a great way to display the name seeing as everyone would be asking anyways. So 5 dollar tree gift boxes, some stencils and some white paint resulted in the amazing cuteness that is Rylan's Presents. I love them because we will be able to keep them and use them as part of his Christmas decorations in his room next year.
Also in this picture are a few of the favors we ended up going with. Nothing is cuter than a onsie, especially when the onsie is made of chocolate haha.
Overall, the day was more than amazing. We had so much fun just seeing everyone and we couldnt have been more blessed by the love that everyone showed our little one. We received everything we could possibly need for our little guy, and what we didnt get, we got giftcards to cover the cost of. After everything was said and done, the major items we needed cost us $20 of our own money. Blessed doesnt even begin to cover it. I do have to give a special shout out to the same cousins I mentioned earlier though. They gave us a clotheline of Pittsburgh apparel for Rylan. When my cousin Dawn Marie had her little boy Seth someone made her one for her shower and I made a comment about how cute it was, and even 5 years later, they remembered that I had said that and went and made me one. It was some of the cutest stuff we got and I will wear everything on Rylan proudly :) Here are some snapshots of opening gifts and the other festivities that went along with that.
It truly was an amazing day, filled with more love and more joy than I can even rightfully express in words. We were so blessed to spend the day with our amazing support system and to shower our little miracle with the love and joy he deserves. It meant the world to us that Nic's family was able to travel in to be there to celebrate and it meant just as much that Aunt Ashe and Uncle Aric made the trip from Virginia Beach and Auntie Bekah made the trip from DC. This little man is so loved. We are ready to meet you now buddy. So when you are good and ready, you come on and meet us too :) I also couldnt even begin to thank my parents and my brother enough for all the work that they put into giving us such an amazing party and for truly showing us love in all that they have done for us over the last 6 months. We wouldnt be where we are or headed in the direction that we are if it werent for them and we are just truly grateful.
We ended the day with some family pictures and that is also how I will wrap up this particular post. So I hope you enjoyed your snap shot of our amazing celebration of life and love.
I am 33.5 weeks along with Rylan Lafayette. And time is flying by. Until next time...
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