Harts in Durham

I always have good intentions of writing about special things and people. Really good intentions. But somehow, words always seem to fail me. I can never quite express how awesome an event/vacation/something was….so I just don’t. And then I let enough time go by, that it seems weird to recap something that happened over a year ago. But this time I’m going to try.

Last weekend Corey and I traveled home to my parents’ house for my sister Christen’s baby shower. This is her first baby, our first nephew, and my parents’ first (or second…depending on when our adoption actually occurs) grandchild. To say we are excited is a pretty big understatement. A baby! And a BOY! I don’t know if you know this, but the Bradys are kind of a girl family. Until we all got married and added three men to the family. And then….nope, still a pretty girl-centric family. I have a feeling this little guy is going to change all that. His aunties and grandma are going to treat him like a little prince!

For the shower, we chose a baseball theme. Andrew, Christen’s husband is a big Cincinnati Reds fan. I’m pretty sure he expects his son to follow suit ;). The shower was co-ed, and we wanted to include the dad-to-be and things that he likes. Baseball seemed like it would incorporate some masculinity as well.

We kept things simple for the most part, and it was surprisingly easy to stick with our theme. For one, the food was super easy. Think stadium food: hamburgers, hot dogs, brats, nachos, cupcakes and little ice cream cups. Done!

We made most of the decorations, and for the things we didn’t make, we got things that would transition well to the baby’s room. Like the chevron bins in the picture below. They held peanuts, Baby Ruths, and Cracker Jacks, and after the shower we cleaned them out and sent them home with the parents-to-be.

The table was set up with a baseball field tablecloth, baseball memorabilia, and a diaper “autograph station.”

I made the banner above the table just from some scrapbook paper and stick-on letters from Hobby Lobby. I hung the pendants from a strand of jute with tiny little clothespins.

We hung a clothesline from the mantle and pinned up little Cinncinati Reds bibs, baby socks (so tiny and cute!) and a baseball jersey onesie with Christen and Andrew’s last name printed on the back.

We transformed an easel into “Guess Baby J’s Stats” board. We had columns for people to fill in their guesses for birth date, length, weight, and name. This is funny: Corey actually came up with the idea for this. I wasn’t so sure people would be into it, but almost every single person that came wrote down their guesses! I think people had a lot of fun with it.

We didn’t have any games (shower games a lot of times just seem kind of lame, and I’m not sure people really enjoy them), but we wanted to plan a couple sort of interactive things for our guests. In addition to the Baby J stats board, we had an autograph station where people could sign diapers and write a special message.

This diaper was my personal favorite :). Hopefully the sleep-deprived parents will get a chuckle out of these when they’re changing all those diapers!

We had such a blast celebrating the parents-to-be.

Isn’t she just lovely?

Baby J, you are so lucky to have the very best parents. We can hardly wait for your arrival!