Baby Shower!

What an awesome weekend!

I had been looking forward to this baby shower for weeks and it was everything I imagined and more! So many of my friends and family traveled to Lawrence to help us celebrate (Mom & Nikki from Denver, Lynelle from Los Angeles, Mary & Nana from Carroll, IA, Cortney from Washington DC and Drew's mom from Wakefield, KS). It sure makes you feel special when people are willing to travel across country to help you celebrate an occasion in your life. The same goes for my local friends who gave up part of their weekend to join in the festivities. Even those who couldn't make it sent lovely cards, gifts and sentiments. It reminded me how very fortunate I am.

I'm not sure how to even begin to describe the shower and my words won't do it's adorableness justice, so I think I'll try to tell the story in pictures.

It started with these incredible invitations that Lynelle did

With the "and baby makes 3" theme in place and the brown and blue color scheme we were off and running. We decided our country club would be the perfect site for the event. We chose a brunch menu (mimosas, quiche, cinnamon rolls and fruit) and let them do all the work. We added some creative touches for the decor:

Mom's talents with floral arrangements

And these favors that I put together

We also had a couple of activities for the guests to participate in. Lynelle came up with "3 wishes". Each guest wrote down one wish they had for mommy, daddy and baby. We gathered up the cards and I will save them all in a keepsake book. Some of them were hilarious, some quite insightful and others made me cry. Such a cool idea and I will always treasure those wishes from my family and friends.

We also had a onesie decorating station and boy were there some creative guests!










Some of my other favorites were "What Happens @ Nana's, Stays @ Nana's!" and "If You Think I'm Cute, Check out My Aunts!". Actually, they were all adorable and quite clever.

And here's how all the pieces came together










Of course, we can't forget about dessert. The cake was (almost) too cute to cut.



It seemed like I was opening presents forever - we sure did get a lot of stuff! Here it is pre-opening and then all piled up in the nursery.












Finally, one of my favorite features of the shower was the request for guests to bring their favorite baby book for our little guy. I've blogged before about my love for books, so this was a huge treat. We now have a great start on a children's library!

So there you have it! It really was a wonderful day. I'm still working on getting my pictures organized and Mary & Lynelle are going to share all of their as well, so I'll post again soon with a link to the full album. Now I'm going to go put my feet up, eat a piece of leftover cake and call it a night. All of the weekend's excitement has me absolutely pooped!

Thanks again to everyone who made this such a special and memorable day. I love you all!