Parrish, party of 5: Baby Showers!

My Ohio Baby Shower was September 1. It was mostly family and some friends. We had a large turnout with about 30 people. My mom and mother-in-law set it all up. It was at the church I grew up in. Everyone was supposed to design a quilt square and my sister-in-law is going to sew them all together so Penelope will have a keepsake quilt from the shower. People were also asked to fill out a paper with "Penelope Parrish Predictions" about her birth like how much she will weigh, birth date and hair color. I will post on here who is the closest after she is born. We also played a lot of games. Word scramble, one where you guess what the baby animals name is (fawn, squeaker, pinkie, polt), guessing how big my belly around is and a game called "Just ask mama" Everyone wrote a question that a new mother might have on an index card then pass it to the right. That person writes the answer to their question on the back. The responses were really funny. Here are some of the responses:

When can I put cereal in their bottle? --- You will know!

Do they ever sleep? --- When they are about 8 weeks.

Should her bowel movement be that color? --- Every two hours.

When do babies start to crawl? --- Practice.

How often do I feed it? --- Yes, if it's ok if it looks gross.

When can you give the baby a bath? --- Yes, if the parents want it

And the winner--- How do I clear up diaper rash? --- Orajel

So then it was time to open gifts. Guests played Baby bingo. They filled out their own cards with items they think I would receive as a gift then crossed them off as received it. I think that was a good way to keep everyone interested. Also, we set a timer and when it went off, the person whose gift I was holding got a prize. Whew, I think that's all the games. We were running out of time so my mom cut the cake while I was still opening gifts. The top tier of the cake was cinnamon bun coffee cake with cream cheese filling and the bottom was marble fudge with real fudge. So yummy! We really jammed everything in in two hours. Josh having a beer and diaper party at the same time so a lot of his family headed over there after.

My awesome cake

Princess party punch!

Guests playing a game

Presents

Opening gifts

My flowergirls, 3 years later. Claudia and Kennedy.

So next was my "Mother to Bee" Missouri baby shower on September 22. It was thrown for me by another Air Force wife and most of the guests were other wives of people my husband worked with. There were around ten people. They were asked to fill out a paper with "Wishes for baby." It was like a fill-in-the-blank. Examples like I hope you learn....I hope you ignore.... Some answers were pretty funny and others were sweet and thoughtful. I opened gifts and we played the guess how big my belly is game with string. Josh made Penelope little shoes out of his bandana. It was so cute and he surprised me by having me open them at the shower. Aww! Then it was time for cake. The cake was vanilla flavor with raspberry filling. We had a lot left over, so a friend and I took it to our husbands' shop where the guys finished the rest of it in about ten minutes.