A Baby Shower for Halleli

Things are hopping in the sister-in-law + babies category around these parts. My brother’s wife, Hannah, is expecting their first baby in two weeks, plus we just found out that my other sis-in-law, Steph, (married to Shaun’s brother, Kyle) is pregnant with their 4th.

I have to admit that it’s pretty exciting to get to be involved in all this new baby business without actually having to carry the new baby around in my own belly right this second. 🙂

Speaking of being involved, I promised to show you pictures from Hannah’s shower that we threw last weekend, so I’m delivering the goods today.

In case you missed the inspiration board, you can go back and check that out, but I want to just throw out a disclaimer and say that the end result was not as ethereal as I would have liked. I know, I KNOW. I should never begin a post with a disclaimer, but even though my mom and I did lots of prep before the party, and we had help from our other two hostesses as well, we still ended up doing a fair bit on the day of, mostly because I reeeeeeally wanted to have it outside but kept watching the weather since Saturday was (of course) the only day of the week with a chance of rain.

Once all the food was completely prepped and all the decor had been compiled, we started to set up outside (since the online forecast had dropped from a 30% to a 0% chance of rain), but pretty much the minute we set up the first table, the sky started spitting on us, so back into the house we went, and it was a mad rush from then until shower time to get everything ready.

All that to say that my inner perfectionist would have been happier if I’d had another hour to fuss with the placement of each decoration, but it’s probably a good thing I didn’t because the point of this party was not be Pinterest-worthy but instead to be a blessing to Hannah.

And she looked like this most of the time (at least the smiling part…she didn’t walk around sideways with her hands under her belly…that would have been awkward), so I’m guessing we accomplished our goal.

Isn’t she just ridiculously tiny and adorable? Pfffttt. Darn cute pregnant ladies. (Every now and then, I stumble across a picture of me at 38 weeks pregnant with the twins, and I audibly gasp; that was one BIG belly).

AAAAAand now to the actual party pictures.

Mandy was nice enough to nab some decor shots for me as I was running around finishing up the last minute details, and I grabbed a few more toward the end, so between the two of us, we got some fun detail shots, but this was the main shot of the full table that I had.

The attendees had already descended upon the food like a hoard of hungry locusts the proper ladies that they were, but as you can see, we had plenty left (my mom and I have a tendency to make enough food to feed small armies).

On the menu?

• Chicken salad croissant sandwiches
• Pimento cheese sandwiches on the yummiest nut bread ever (baked fresh and local)
• A fruit tray (Sam’s always has the best produce)

• A veggie tray with a side of dip in one of my pretty PIP china bowls

• Mini cherry cheesecakes (I’ll share the recipe soon)

• Mini carrot cake cupcakes + a mini cake for Hannah to take home

• Salad with Craisins, almond slivers, and feta cheese

• Pink lemonade, which we served in my aqua mason jars with the adorable striped pink and white straws.

• Water with lemon and orange slices

It was quintessential chick food, which was great, because it was a room full of chicks!

See?

{Bonus points if you can spot Nola}

I included this next shot, not because of the decor but because if you look closely, you might spot white paint on the inside of my left arm (there was more on my leg, but my skirt covered it).

That’s because I had spent the previous evening spray painting a mirror to turn into a chalkboard for my new little niece’s room.

For the shower, I scrawled, “Praise the Lord for little girls” on it and hastily scratched some flowers in the corner right before the shower started, but I asked Hannah to choose a Bible verse that she loved, and I’m going to use it in conjunction with the baby’s name to make some chalkboard art for her nursery.

So…what is her name?

Halleli

It comes from the Hebrew word, “Hallel”(which is where we get “Hallelujah”), which means “praise.” It’s pronounced Hah-LEH-lee.

We also used that pretty garland to do a playful little message on the food table.

The flowers were another one of my favorite shower elements. I got them at Sam’s Club, and when I first got there,  I was disappointed that they didn’t have what I was looking for, but then I started eyeing the pink and white carnations and imagining them with sprigs of chartreuse green, which is exactly what we ended up with.

I think we managed to make 6 or 7 small bouquets with $25 worth of flowers, which is pretty amazing.

Probably my very favorite decoration of all was this adorable diaper cake.

It was made by Hannah’s other sister-in-law, Lia, and I thought she outdid herself matching the shower’s color scheme (which just so happened to closely mirror baby Halleli’s nursery, so the diaper cake should be able to serve as decoration there too).

My mom put together a game in which you guessed the identity of common baby essentials inside favor bags just by feeling and shaking them, and here they are all laid out on the diaper cake table. It was a really fun way to give Hannah lots of practical necessities.

Hannah got all kinds of other great loot too…

…including the pack n’ play AND complete car seat and stroller system from her registry.

{I’d forgotten how much first-time mama showers ROCK}

In case you’re wondering where my kids were, Daddy had the older three at Grandma’s while the twins trundled around begging food and generally being cute.

This is Evy, and looking at this picture, I can’t believe a) how long her hair is (they both still refuse to keep clips in their hair) and how much red is in it.

It makes me laugh because, even though their Aunt Hannah is only related by marriage, the twins’ hair color is almost identical to hers.

Oh, and I couldn’t leave these out:

Hannah’s aunt made them as party favors. The best I can tell, she made them out of Styrofoam cups. Aren’t they the cutest??

And here’s a group shot of all the hostesses with Hannah.

{My mom, Beth, Me, Hannah, Holly, a friend from church, and Lia, another of Hannah’s sisters-in-law}

I can’t wait  for baby Halleli to come out! And I was so honored to get to do something to (hopefully) make Hannah feel special and loved during this special time in her life (first babies only come once!).

P.S. If you want to see pics of other showers that I’ve helped host, you can check out Jolinda’s and Mandy’s baby boy showers as well.