Baby Shower BBQ (catching up)

Our baby shower BBQ has to be one of my favorite parties to date. Because I work from home (and have no co-workers) and my few very close female friends are spread out across the country, I had been worried I would not have anyone to invite to a baby shower and had planned to skip the occasion altogether though. That was met with much protesting though, and ultimately we made the decision to forego a traditional baby shower and instead just have a big BBQ with all of our friends and family…guys, girls, young, old…everyone! And looking back I would never have wanted it any other way. What a fantastic opportuntiy to have everyone we love all in one place for a good time. It was almost like getting to have our wedding all over again! We still wanted to make the party about celebrating the anticipated arrival of the baby, but with such a mix of people there we worked hard to make sure it did not come off as a “baby shower.” With the help of my mom and sister-in-law, we put together such a fun afternoon for everyone! 

 

The shower was right around Labor Day, and so we decided to have a red, white and blue theme which also fit the whole BBQ/picnic feel quite nicely. This also made it easy to incorporate a ton of English/American flag decorations. We did include a few games but had them off to the side and optional so no one felt roped into playing the usual baby games you’d find at an all female shower. 

 

I was adamant that picnic tables were a must, but after a TON of research I found out it was near impossible to rent basic wooden picnic tables in the DFW area. Side note…seriously considering starting a picnic table rental company! Anyway…I still majorly owe my mom, dad, brother, husband, probably others…for humoring me and purchasing/hauling/building/sealing half a dozen tables for the occasion. I hear they were heavy… and it was hot…   SO worth it though, OMG! And it worked out WAY cheaper (minus the manual labor) than renting regular round tables anyway. Plus my brother and his wife, myself and my husband and my parents now all have new permanent additions to our back patios. Mom painted her two tables lime green and purple, and we are still debating what to do with ours. We made a ton of decorations…paper pinwheels, paper pom-poms, fabric flag garlands, etc. I wish I still had time to do stuff like that. Décor and party planning and coordinating everything used to be so important to me. This year at Christmas I think we still had a pumpkin on our doorstep. Or three.

We decided to have the food catered rather than forcing someone to man the grill for 75 people on a Texas summer afternoon, and it was a GREAT decision. Burger House did an absolutely amazing job with the burgers, fries, chicken sandwiches and other sides. Yummo. Sadly I don’t even recall what there was to drink-drink since I could not partake, but I did have my blue lemonade/mason jar/striped paper straw in washtub station as requested. Thanks again, Pinterest! There was a ton of dessert items. I was SO disappointed with the cake, though. Ugh. I seriously want to post this side-by-side as one of the ever popular “Nailed It” memes. Like…really. A very well established and well respected bakery in our area…which will remain nameless…seriously thought this was okay? Whatever. I did really well not to freak out about it. And a huge thanks to Aunt Tracy for attempting to salvage it with the ribbon curls. It was even WORSE before this if you can believe it. I wish I had taken just a normal shot of it in all its glory, but I remember trying to take all of the pictures from some sort of angle that would make it appear semi-acceptable. Again, whatever. Lesson learned. Never going there again.

 

 

Okay..so it was the perfect day MINUS the cake. I was even able to go outside without full mosquito garb for the first time in months thanks to an unseasonable dip in temperature. Perfect timing.