Adventures in Baby Showers: Games and Activities

I will be the first to admit that I am not a huge fan of "shower games". So when I was planning the Gender Neutral "Birds and the Bees" baby shower for my sweet friend Sarah, I wanted to find activities and games that were fun, but not over the top weird. 

When the guests first arrived there were 3 different stations set up around the house with activities for them to complete while we we mingled and drank (virgin) mimosas. 

1) "When will the baby be born" calendar ~ I filled in the due date, and the guests could make a guess as to the time and date the baby will be born. Then after the shower is done, the mom-to-be can take the calendar home and cross off the days (hopefully making them go by quickly!!)

2) Wives' tales and Boy or Girl Guesses and Photos ~ I printed up a bunch of wives' tales to help the guests descide if the baby would be a boy or a girl. 

{source}

It was fun for everyone to see what the mom-to-be was experiencing in her pregnancy. There was a sheet where you could write down your guess. After each guest made a guess, I took a picture of her with the mom-to-be and a sign recording their gender guess. 

**It is also easy to include family or friends who live far away in these previous 2 activities. I had some girlfriends from college send their gender guess and birthdate guess and filled them in on the calendar as well.

3) "Wee hour of the morning diaper stash" ~ Part of my gift to the mom-to-be was a box of diapers. This is her special stash of diapers to use in the middle of the night, to put a smile on her face, and remind her that she is a wonderful mom!! My favorite saying written (in Sharpie) on a diaper was "Everyone Poops!" 

Before eating lunch each guest tried their hand at remembering nursery rhymes in a Nursery Rhyme Fill In The Blank game. {Similar game here}.

After lunch I needed help with my other present for the mom-to-be ~ The Baby Shower Prayer Wreath. 

For more detailed information you can go to THIS POST , but basically I made the wreath ahead of time, and then had each guest write a short prayer on a colored strip of paper, and then I wove it into the wreath. The mom-to-be can hang the wreath in the baby's room and it can remind her that we are all praying for her. 

The one silly game we played was making diapers out of toilet paper. The guests were paired up and given a roll of toilet paper and 2 minutes to make a diaper on one of the pair. The mom to be picked the winning pair based on which diaper she liked the most.

And the last little activity we did was my favorite!! 

Since this new little baby is a combination of mom-to-be and dad-to-be, I contacted both of their mothers' to find out what they were each like as a child. I had each mom send me a list of 10-15 things that each of them did as a child. Then I made a "Mom? or Dad?" sheet. The guests had to guess if each statement was about the mom-to-be or dad-to-be. If the statement was about the mom-to-be, she got to open a gift. If it was about the dad-to-be...well, then we all just go a good laugh!

In case you missed it

{HERE} is where I wrote about the theme and invitations 

and

{HERE} is where I wrote about the decorations and food 

Do you have a favorite baby shower game?

Adventures in Baby Shower: Gender Neutral Baby Shower Decorations and Food

Post #2 in this little Gender Neutral Baby Shower series is all about 

Decorations and Food.

(If you missed part #1 about the theme and invitations, just click HERE)

Now, if you have spend any time at all around this little blog, you know that I am a DIY girl, and this shower was no exception. I made all the decorations and food all myself...and I had a horrible nightmare the night before the shower about the food (but more on that later!)

I tried to stick with the colors yellow, blue, and green from the invitation, and snuck in a bit of purple too. Using circle cut outs I made this little sign for the living room that is pretty much the first thing someone sees when they walk into our house. The little bumble bee is made of card stock and his wings are made with vellum paper (a translucent paper found in the scrapbook paper section of any craft store). To cover up the green frog tape I used to hang the sign, I made some flowers out of colored card stock. 

I used streamers throughout the house. I like to make streams a little extra fancy by sewing 2 colors together, slightly overlapped, and scrunched a little as I go with the sewing machine with just a regular straight stitch....Does that make sense? Would anyone like to see a video tutorial on how I make these? Just let me know in the comments! 

(Here is my attempt at being 'artsy' and taking a photo of a streamer on the back door)

I had some regular flowers to decorate the lunch table with, buy my favorite touch are these flower pens on the table! To see how I make them just click {HERE}. These little pens are perfect for decoration, useful in games that require pens, and are also what I use as a gift for each of the ladies at the shower to take home with them at the end of the event! When each guest used the pen at home, it is a reminder for them to say a little prayer for the Mom, Dad, and Baby.

This next detail is both a decoration and an activity that we did at the shower. It is a Baby Shower Prayer Wreath. I decorated an empty wreath with some flowers, ribbon, a bird and some little bees. During the shower I have each of the guests write a short prayer on a colored strip of paper and then I weave those papers into the wreath. There are several prayers from ladies who could not attend the shower in person but who will be praying for the new baby, Mommy, and Daddy! 

I am all about activities that also serve as decorations, so I made up this little calendar for the ladies to take a guess at the date the baby will be born! But that is an activity...and Activities are on this post HERE. 

Just like I am all about activities serving as decorations, I love when food serves as a decoration as well!! I did not have time to take tons of pictures of the food, but here is what was on the menu for the shower:

Appetizers: 

Fruit and Veggies with Dip

Chips and Salsa

Oh, and my Grandma's chick feeder filled with peanut M&M's 

(you can read about the chick feeder HERE)

Drinks:

Virgin Mimosas 

Lemon Water

and Boy/Girl Punch

Since we did not know if the baby was a boy or a girl, I thought it would be fun to have "blueberry boy" punch and "red raspberry girl" punch so people who vote for what they thought the baby was by the color of their punch! For the punch recipe click HERE.

Lunch:

Pulled Pork Sandwiches on Hawaiian Rolls

Pasta Salad with Chicken

Cranberry Apple Cole Slaw

Deviled Eggs 

Dessert:

Coffee

Mini Muffin Brownies

Sugar Cookies

And now for my nightmare...I woke up EARLY Saturday morning after having a bad dream about the pulled pork. We had smoked the meat ahead of time and put it in the freezer (in real life, and in my dream) but in my dream when I went to take the bag of frozen pork out of the freezer and put it in the crock pot the morning of the shower...the bag was filled with potatoes, not pork. And there was no pork to be found in the whole house!! I was so upset because there was no pork to serve at the shower!!

Back to real life ~ When I work up I had to go straight to the freezer to double check the pork! Don't worry, it was pork, and not potatoes. 

Up Next: Activities!! 

Adventures in Baby Showers: "Birds and the Bees" Gender Neutral Baby Shower

Last weekend I hosted a baby shower for my sweet friend Sarah!

I had a blast planning, crafting and making this little shower happen and I have been bursting with excitement to share all the details with you! I wanted to make sure I didn't leave anything out, so this post will just be on the theme and invitations, and next week I will share about the decorations, food, and games (oh, and my horrible nightmare I had the night before the shower!!) 

But here is a sneak peek...

Sarah and her hubby decided to let the gender of their little bun in the oven be a surprise. Picking a unique, fun, and gender neutral theme for the shower had me stumped for a bit!  She did pick out a super cute rug for the baby's room that has a "forest" theme to it. So I started my idea search there...I did a bit of pinning on Pinterest (I made a gender neutral baby shower board to keep all my ideas together) and came up with the theme of  

"The Birds and The Bees" 

(cute, right?!) 

Combining a few different ideas, I made up these invitations:

I just used regular, old Microsoft Word to type the words, printed out 2 invites per sheet of white card stock. Then drew on the tree and bumble bee with colored pencil. The little bird was cut from blue felt and embellished with some silver puffy paint. I backed the white paper with brown to give it a 'forest' look. 

Check out the Decorations and Food Here 

and check out the games we played HERE!!