SURPRISE!!!

My poor, poor daughter.

She’s having her first baby,
and thought it would be fun to have a baby shower.

But no one offered to have one for her!

Poor, poor Belle.

The days, weeks, months were ticking by.

And no one said,
”Hey, Belle, I want to have a baby shower for you!”

Poor, poor darling daughter
started feeling kind of sad.

Little did she know that Beast’s Awesome Aunts and Grandma
were behind the scenes planning a
SURPRISE SHOWER
for her!

So, while Belle is quietly feeling sad,
these great ladies were quietly sending out invitations,
planning games and prizes,
and making cute party favors.

(To be clear, Belle didn’t complain to me about the lack of shower plans.
She’s not a greedy person!
Beast mentioned one time that Belle was kind of feeling bad about the shower situation.)

Beast made sure that no one mentioned the word “SHOWER” to her.
I wasn’t even supposed to say,
”Hey, darling daughter that I adore, if no one offers to give you a shower,
I’ll have one for you after the baby comes.”
….just to help her feel not-so-sad.

But I may have said that to her anyway.
Just once.
In an off-hand sort of way.

I don’t even know if she heard me.
But it made me feel better.

The Aunts were gracious enough to allow me to participate.
And I got to pick what I wanted to do.
Can you guess what I chose?

I chose to be in charge of games.

HA!!

NOT!!

Yes, I wanted to be in charge of FOOD!!
Hello!
This is Betty talking!
Of course I want to bake!

(Since the shower was at our home, I was in charge of decorating as well.)

I decided to do a mixture of sweet and savory.
But, I don’t do savory very well.
It’s definitely something I need to work on.

I relied heavily on Pinterest to come up with recipes and decorating ideas.
I would say that 90% of everything I did was found on Pinterest.
Have I mentioned before that I ♥ Pinterest?

Finally, 2.5 weeks before her due date of March 7,
the shower date arrives.

To get Belle to come to our house, I told her we were going to go out and take some
maternity photos.
She tried to come early.
I told her – in no uncertain terms – NOT to show up before the scheduled time.
I may have been too firm.
I hope not, but she IS pregnant and kind of emotional.

So, Dear Belle, if I seemed kind of harsh,
I’M SORRY!

I don’t have a huge house, so we kept the numbers of people we invited to a bare minimum.
We invited only family (Beast comes from a large family)
and Belle’s high school friends.
And believe me, my living room was packed full!

(You can see how crammed we were!
This picture is missing 5 people that also came.)

The end result was worth the weeks of planning and conniving!
She was thrilled!
And happy.
And so very excited!
(Click on the pictures to see them better!)

And yes,
SHE CRIED!!
(I knew she would!)

These girls have been her solid, friends through thick and thin.
I’m so glad they could make it!

Some snapshots of the party.
Doesn’t she look happy?

Story of this little shirt:
Beast’s Dad is in a long term care facility.
He was in a car accident several years ago and was left a quadriplegic.
One of Beast’s Aunts found this shirt and thought of him,
purchased it, and took it to him to get his approval.
He sent it to the shower with his blessing.
Yes. Some tears were shed when she opened it!

And now the food.

left to right:
Mormon Champagne
Chocolate Dipped Strawberries
Chocolate Dipped Marshmallows
Croissant Sandwiches (Made by an Aunt)
Brownie Bites with Salted Caramel Buttercream Icing
Raspberry Filled Sugar Cookies
Cream Cheese Ham Rolls

 

 

 

 

I also did:
Caramel/Chocolate Pretzel Rodsand these delicious things.
I don’t know what they are called.
Baguette bread, spread with garlic butter and broiled with a piece of mozzarella cheese on top.
Pulled out of the oven, top with a tomato and green onions.
DELICIOUS!!

Sadly, I didn’t get any pictures of the brownie bites!
After the strawberries (YUMMMY!)
they were my favorite!
That caramel icing is TO DIE FOR!

You can kind of see them here in this picture.
Behind the “cupcake” I made out of a rolled-up receiving blanket
with a onesie t-shirt stuffed inside and wrapped in a coffee filter.
They were silly, but a fun decoration on the refreshment table.

My proudest “Mommy Moment” of the day happened as follows:
(If you offend easily, please don’t read the next paragraph.)
Beast’s Grandma made the party favors you can see in some of the pictures.
They are nut cups which are pieces of flannel,
folded to look like a diaper, pinned and dipped in paraffin wax.
Scooter thought they were pretty cool.
So he complimented this nice lady on her creation.
He said,
”I really like the nut sacks.”
His nicely meant and (completely innocent) compliment
was met with silence and then several snickers.
We’re still laughing.

Flynn came home for the weekend.
YAY!
He’s such a SUPER, WONDERFUL, GREAT guy!
He wanted to make sure he was here to help me clean the house and get everything ready.
I seriously love that man!

We took this funny picture after everyone left.

Love these two and their bellies!