Jenn's Blog

It's been killing me not to blog about this, but now that my sister has internet access I just couldn't risk it!

My mom and I decided to throw a surprise baby shower for my sister Anna. We had first tried throwing a shower for her in January, but Anna was feeling too big and uncomfortable and just not up to a shower. Mom and I decided to wait until after the baby was born, but the more I thought about it the crazier that idea seemed. I'm not due until April 1st, there's no way I'm going to want to throw/host a shower for probably the first 6 weeks or so and then my by that time were are already into May which is Ben's busy season, which means I'll have one more kid and LESS help. No thanks! So we bit the bullet and decided to go ahead and host it now. Oh, plus, my sister is still on maternity leave so that made it easier too.

Anyway, so I was worried about how many people would be able to make it to the shower to begin with. Our family isn't that big and everyone who was invited had a 45 minute or longer drive (with the exception of Ben's mom). Then of course we got snow in the middle of the week. By Friday the roads were totally fine, but they were calling for snow again from Friday night through early Saturday evening! Argh!

It DID end up snowing and actually came down quite a bit at certain times, but we still had a great turn-out. I was really surprised and grateful. And the cool thing was that most of the guests were people we hadn't seen for a while - my adopted dad's sister and his two daughter-in-laws (one of whom I'd never met and the other I'd met once about 8 years ago).

The rest of the shower was pretty typical. For lunch we served my mom's meatballs, a pasta house-type salad, and garlic bread. We had punch and cake. Played some fun games, opened gifts, chatted. The cake was from Shop 'n Save. It was pink and white and had "Welcome Baby Tiza" on it. It was really good cake!! I gave away potted plants as party favors (99 cents at Shop 'n Save!!).

Anna got some of the nicest gifts. Our aunt gave her a diaper bag and changing pad that she had made herself. It was beautiful - and the changing pad was round which is so nice. She also got a handmade blanket with soft, furry pink fabric on one side and Disney Princess fabric on the other. Oh, another cute thing: little denim capri pants and a pink onesie that said "Future Prom Queen". Everything she got was so precious!

My sister and niece stayed allll day which was heaven. Tiza is 5 weeks old and is the sweetest little thing. I could have held her all day. And I love seeing my sister as a mom. She is so sweet with her little girl. So loving.

So it was a wonderful day! Ben was super helpful - he picked up the cake and the balloons, put the balloons out for me, shoveled the driveway, put up the streamers for me...whatever other little project I could find for him. He was great.

We all slept in until 9:30 today because we were so pooped, but it was totally worth it! Yay for babies.