JAMSquared

On the 12th, my best friend Kristy hosted a baby shower for me at her house. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed getting to see everyone.

Evalyn made a beautiful cake that had all the baby animals that are found in the bedding we picked out for the nursery. She is so talented.

We played three games. For the first game, we were given about 24 animals and what their babies are called and we had to match them up. Did you know that a baby turkey is called a poult? My sister won that game. Then we played a game with 10 diapers that had different kitchen condiments in them and you had to guess the condiment. Kristy used such condiments as vanilla, apricot jelly, soy sauce, minced garlic. It was definitely a game for your sense of smell. The final game was guess the pregnant woman’s girth. I stood in center of the room and everyone cut ribbon from a spool to indicate how big around I was. My co-worker Caroline guessed the closest. I think my Mom was the furthest off.

James’ parents and nephew Dawson came into town last weekend. While James, his Dad, and Dawson went to see Aliens in the Attic Saturday afternoon, us girls went to my first baby shower. It was hosted by my friend and co-worker, Adriana, who had help from Gisel, Amitis, and Claudia to make it a rousing success. It was a lot of fun.  We enjoyed a lunch of soup, sandwiches and a variety of little snacks.

The first game was a trivia game. Gisel came up with 10 questions that everyone had to answer. My favorite was 1) Where was Baby JAM conceived? a) Midland, TX b) Bathroom of airplane (flying back from Tahiti) c) Kitchen or d) Bedroom. Patricia and my MIL tied for getting the most right with 7 correct answers.

The second game was insanely entertaining and hilarious. It was like musical chairs, but instead of circling a group of chairs, you had to pass a cucumber between your knees. I ended up winning that one.

The third game involved seeing how many clothespins you could pick up with one hand while naming a baby item for each clothespin. Patricia won with 13 clothespins in one hand.

After all the games, we had cake. It was a delicious carrot cake with apricot creme filling.

Afterward, I opened gifts. Baby JAM is going to be one stylish little girl. She received a number of adorable little outfits.

Thank you everyone for making me feel special. Special thanks to my hostessess with the mostess and Kristy for playing photographer.

Recently, James and I attended a couples baby shower for my brother Jason and his wife Julia. Their baby is due August 9th.

To prepare for the shower, I started shopping quite a while back. In fact, back in February while I was at Target for some other reason, I was browsing the baby section and came across this adorable little pink dress with stars on it and two-tone sleeves. I knew this was perfect for Jason and Julia’s baby, so I bought it. Then I asked my good friend, Jillan, owner-extraordinaire of Beany Bling, for advice on fashion accessories. Beany Bling was born when Jillan’s daughter was born a little over two years ago. She makes leg warmers and hair-bows to go with any outfit. The hair-bows can be purchased with cloth headbands that don’t pinch at the baby’s head for those hairless babies. The headbands are pretty neat in that you can interchange the bow and get multiple looks with the same headband. The below picture is the outfit with the leg warmers and matching bow. I also couldn’t resist this cute little brown and pink bow so hopefully Julia has another outfit or two that will coordinate with it.

The idea for the second part of the gift was born when I read this post at Cool Mom Picks. However, I wanted to put together my own labor delivery bag for Julia. So I bought the diaper bag she registered for and then I bought the following items to put in it.

• Lansinoh Ultra Soft Nursing Pads, 36-count
• Lansinoh Lanolin Topical Breast Cream, 2-oz.
• Earth Mama Angel Baby New Mama Bottom Spray, 4-oz. bottle
• Earth Mama Angel Baby Natural Stretch Oil, 4-oz. bottle
• Burt’s Bees Replenishing Lip Balm with Pomegranate Oil, 0.15-oz. tube
• Avon Naturals Shower Gel – Gardenia, 1.7-oz. bottle
• Avon Naturals Body Lotion – Gardenia, 1.7-oz. bottle

Another item I had thought about including was Preggie Pops, but I didn’t end up remembering to look for them at Wal-greens. Now, Julia has a number of recommended items for her labor recovery process in one convenient location. I’ve since then bought the stretch oil for myself and it smells and works great.

The shower was a lot of fun. It was held at Julia’s Dad’s house and was hosted by her Dad’s friend who lives out of town. The light dinner included these little smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches that were utterly tasty. We played a game where we had to guess the flavor of baby food. James being the picky eater that he is declined to play, but I had fun. Joe and Sara, two of Jason and Julia’s friends who organized the game, bought 8 different flavors of baby food, some of which were combo flavors such as Pineapple, Ham & Rice. Then we were to taste-test and write down what we thought they were. I didn’t win, but I got half correct, so I feel that I did pretty decent.

Based on the invitations, Becky came up with this cute decorating idea.

Becky also had these fun games/activities for us to enjoy:

1. As people arrived, they could spend time decorating a 6×6-in. square of paper with stickers and what we wanted to tell the baby.
2. A fun game where you placed a piece of paper on your head and drew a baby. It was neat to see what the “babies” looked like.
3. Two baby bottles. One filled with Q-tips and one filled with plastic safety pins. Guess how many are in the bottle.