I had a super awesome pair of friends throw me a super awesome baby shower.
Or rather, a "Baby Sprinkle," it's called, as on your second kid you don't necessarily need very much. I certainly don't need much (unless this child comes out with a weiner and doesn't look good in pink, but we'll cross that bridge later) but was excited at the thought of having a ton of friends out to my rather distant home for the afternoon, feeding them, showing them a good time and yeah, getting a few presents in the meanwhile. I admit it... the presents are always fun. But honestly I just wanted to have an excuse to get folks to come over en masse and hopefully not forget about me as I prepare my descent into mothering-newborn-antisociality (just in time for the holidays! and the dead of winter! ahhhh! goodbye, social world... see you in May.)
The party was everything I dreamed of and more. Shelly busted out her creativity and glue gun and made the most fantastic decorations and party favors, all on an elephant theme, and all under the constraints of "unknown gender, secret name, and non-pastel colors." (alas, I did not make things easy for her!) It was a triumph of artistic awesomeness. She used circus peanuts (that bizarre candy made of marshmallow?) as the stands for little elephant signs! And that's just one among a bazillion other excellent things, like brown bags of animal crackers with an origami elephant pinned to it for the guests to take home... a baby banner... four awesome canvases for baby's room... the best diaper cake evaaah! And then Loreen, a picture of humility in the kitchen inversely proportionate to her utter awesomeness behind a KitchenAid, made the classiest, tastiest menu of tea snacks and appetizers... and ALL GLUTEN FREE. And a cake. With a three-dimensional elephant-carrying-an-umbrella that matched the invitation, formed out of fondant, on the top.
A-maz-ing.
Shelly recorded it for party-planning posterity at her blog The Screaming Tomato. Which I'll lazily just link to (again) since I am not sure if I uploaded the photos yet. Though there are some super cute ones. If I don't go into labor today I'll upload them and record them here for my posterity. Or... Posteriority? That's the history of my big fat a$$. Har har har.
But all profanity and joking aside:
Shelly and Loreen... you went above and beyond the call of duty and took time out of your own very busy lives to basically spoil me out of my very mind with all that excellent attention, effort, creativity and care. Thank you SO MUCH. It was, aside from my wedding day and the kid being born and maybe some holidays, one of the most memorable and love-filled afternoons of my 32-something years. Sniff sniff :-)
