Baby Shower Joy

My mother did an amazing job with my sister's first baby shower for her little girl a few years back, and this time around it was my turn. Of course, I can't hold a candle against my mom's planning and execution skills but  I guess everyone has to start somewhere. This baby shower, or baby sprinkle as they say for a second child, was for my sister's little boy and I decided on the Little Man theme. We held the event at one of my sister's friends' houses, which is absolutely amazing for entertainment, so I did not go all out with the decorations, but rather spent a bit more time on food and gifts!

For this event, I tried to use as many disposable items as possible - guilty of ruining the world - but I thought it more time efficient (little to no dishes!). I decided to make plates and cups with the theme myself, by using plain light blue and green paper cups and light blue and silver paper plates, cut out little moustaches, bow ties and buttons out of black paper and covered with dc fix to stick to the plates and cups. Although the cutting out took some time, it was easy to make and I enjoyed making it! To fit with the theme, I bought green and white polka dot, blue and white stripes and turquoise polka dot napkins.

For the coffee and tea station I bought disposable coffee cups with lids for easy clean up later on. I decided to buy small sachets of coffee and brown and white sugar instead of having one big bottle or bowl of coffee and sugar, to avoid contamination. I also served two types of tea, as a treat I added sachets of cappuccino, mocha and hot chocolate, and also found these cute milk pods that contain milk for a single serving. So I might have destroyed the world even further with all the paper and plastic disposable items, but at least I didn't have to throw away any contaminated items.

For snacks I served a variety of sweet and savoury bites, as well as a few fresh elements. My mom and youngest sister assisted with a lot of the savoury snacks and I covered the sweet treats! The savoury snacks comprised mince meat pies, made by my sister and some of the best I've ever had! My mom prepared two types of mini pizzas, margherita and bacon and cheese, cheese puff pies, spinach and feta pies and crumbed chicken bites. I prepared vegetable spring rolls, three different types of cocktail sausages - chicken, cheese grillers and sausage with chili - and the same egg, bacon and cheese bites I made for our Christmas Eve picnic (click here). The fresh elements comprised baby corn, sugar snap peas, carrots, celery sticks, cherry tomatoes and white and pink grapes, served with three choices of dipping sauces - feta and herb, humus and cream cheese with sweet chili sauce which my youngest sister made. For the dips I also placed small containers on the table which is very handy to keep the dip separate from the rest of the snacks.

On the table were also a few beverages - a container of fresh water with lime slices, and four different flavours of fruit juice for the guests to enjoy.

My mom also made packets with a few sweets for the children that attended the baby sprinkle with the cutest sweets. I took some leftovers home for my almost two-year-old son and now all he wants is 'whiets'.

I outsourced most of the sweet treats for this event. I bought koeksisters, which is always a hit and I also made the same pumpkin cupcakes I made for our Christmas Eve picnic (click here), but only decorating with baby blue and spring green glitter to go with the theme. I could not believe what a hit these little pumpkin treats were! I ordered mini doughnuts from our bakery, which is normally very nice to eat, however there was a miscommunication on what the colour and texture should be like and in the end these were a bit difficult to eat as the colouring stained the guests' mouths. These were supposed to be made with white chocolate with light blue and green colouring, however the baker made these with dark blue and green glaze with way too much food colouring. At least it gave a bit of a contrast to the table.

​The cupcake toppers I made myself, by cutting out little moustaches out of black cardboard paper and sticking to mini kebab sticks with double sided tape. It worked like a charm! The cupcakes and macarons I ordered from Totally Caked (click here). The cupcakes were a combination of vanilla and chocolate and absolutely divine! The icing was just the right amount of sweet and the perfect combination with the sponge itself. The macarons was also perfect and so yummy, I ate (in secret) most of the leftovers myself. The green ones had a small amount of mint caramel treat inside which made it an absolute hit!

I also ordered sugar cookies from Cookie Tales (click here) and used as thank you gifts to fit with the theme. These were absolutely amazing and the guests fought over who was getting which design! I was so impressed with the designs and colours! This is the same lady that made the dinosaur feet sugar cookies for my son's first birthday (click here). A definite go-to supplier.

During the course of the day we played four games and in-between my sister unwrapped a few presents, so that it's not one long gift unwrapping affair. We did the same with my sister's first baby shower and it works like a bomb.

The first game was an ice breaker, which was similar to my sister's first baby shower (stealing ideas), but this time around I focused on items the new baby will require. This game I called 'the diaper bag and dress-up' game. As the guests arrived they received an item or two which they had to keep safe for this game. I read a story and whenever the items was mentioned the guest had to place the item in the diaper bag. The game started off by placing a mom-to-be sash around my sister and handing her the diaper bag. I then started to read the story... The items consisted of clothing, surgical spirits, cotton wool and earbuds, grooming kit and thermometer, baby soap and lotion, medicine dispensers, a soft toy as well as an educational texture toy, disposable nappy bags, vaseline, bum cream and a photo frame with the invitation printed out to remember the day by.
 
Each guest also received a plastic sheet sleeve with an answer sheet and stickers to answer the questions. I thought it would be a bit different to do it this way rather than using a pen or pencil to fill in the answers, but at the end of the day it was a lot more work for me to prepare but I think the guests enjoyed it.

After having a few snacks we played the first game. This game consisted of 10 questions and the topic was boys and girls. All the questions were about the development of boys and girls. Depending on the question, the guests had to place a sticker to the options provided - boys or girls, or true or false. The game intrigued me because my sister already has a girl and is now getting a baby boy and also due to my twins and how the two of them develop differently due to gender differences. The two guests with the highest number of correct answers could draw a prize out of the bag - which were either chocolate creams or wafer sticks.

After opening a few presents and enjoying more snacks we progressed to the second game called 'Name the baby animal'. I supplied the guests with 20 options of baby animals (of which some were made up words) but there were only 10 questions. As I read out the parent animal, the guests had to choose the correct baby animal. This was a tricky one as Afrikaans doesn't have a lot of different names for baby animals. The game was still fun and there were a few guests with a surprisingly high score, but my new mom-to-be sister was the ultimate winner.

The third and final game I invented, was perhaps a bit complex, however the guests seemed to enjoy it at the end of the day. This game had five questions (because new baby's name consists of five letters) and each question had five options, but the options were different letters of the alphabet and not in numerical order. As I read out the multiple answers to the questions, the guests had to choose a letter to answer the question. Within each question was one letter of the little man's name, which was the correct answer to the question. I also decided that each question will not count the same number of points, but rather my sister had to throw a large die and whatever number it fell on was the number of marks a correct answer would be, so lucky for the ones that got the answers correct with the highest points. In the end I did not execute the game as I planned. The plan was then for the guests to guess the baby's name given the correct answers, but since no one got all the questions right, I gave a list of letters to each guest and the one who managed to unscramble the letters and got it right, won.

All in all the baby sprinkle was a huge success, and now I can tick this event type off my list!

The INvitation