Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of hosting a SURPRISE baby shower for my younger sister, Keri.  It was a joint effort of my Mom, my older sister, Kristel, and I.  We began planning it in early October, and boy does time fly when you are trying to plan a surprise and also get ready for the Christmas Holiday Season!!

There were a few DIY projects that were part of the shower, but I know my family is anxious to see pictures of the event, so I will give the highlights today and then I can recap the DIY for you later.   Plus, I seem to have failed to take a picture of my one project, so I will need to try to get one from Keri so that I can share with you.  It started with DIY invitations in the shape of diapers, this is just a quick snapshot of the variety of the invitations.  I’ll share the templates and step-by-step later.

I know this picture is blurry, but it conveys the moment of the surpise with Keri’s reaction.

Plus, I was behind her, so I didn’t get to see her face…I did get to see her jump and her hands fly up onto her pregnant belly.  By her reaction, I think we definitely pulled off the surprise.  My Mom was the key to getting  Keri to my house without her knowing it was a shower.  Pretty challenging, when you are also bringing along three of the guests!!  But, Mom thought of a great plan and it worked. 

Keri and Mom

Since we knew it would be a busy time of year for everyone, we planned the shower as a Saturday morning brunch, hoping it didn’t cut into too many other plans.  Keri is due January 29th, so we planned the shower around the time of year, with Christmas and winter decorations.  And, lots of PINK, because Keri knows she is having a baby girl.  My cousin Kirby went above and beyond. I showed her a cute snowman diaper cake that I had pinned, and she said she could do that and make it pink.  She was not kidding.  She made this beautiful Snow Woman, which became a central part of the decor for the shower.

We had the shower in my basement to provide plenty of room for everyone to move around and still be in the same space.  I set up extra tables and chairs so we would all have a place to sit and eat.  We used the bar to set up the buffet.

Everyone got the chance to eat and visit with each other to start the day.

Then, we played some games.  We started with playing “Guess what is in the diaper”

I had never played before…actually, I still didn’t…I watched everyone else try to guess what was in the diaper.  They looked really gross, but it really was delicious candy bars melted in the diapers.

While the diapers were being passed around, others were trying to “Guess how big Keri’s belly is.”  We used pink ribbon and they each got to cut off the amount of ribbon they thought it would take to wrap around Keri’s belly.

Then, to see who got it right Kristel measured Keri’s belly.  She came in at 42.25 inches.  Keri’s mother-in-law was almost perfect with her 42 inch guess!

Kristel measuring Keri’s belly

Our third game was “Name that tune” and we played short clips of songs, all of which contained the word baby.  It was a fun challenge.  Speaking of baby, my cousin’s baby Natalee was in attendance and is as sweet as ever.  Everyone was taking turns passing her around, and I couldn’t resist snapping pictures of her!!

Kristel and Natalee (left) and Granny and Natalee (right)

The final game was “Baby Price is Right”  We put out 4 baby products at a time and the lucky contestant got to put them in order of cheapest to most expensive.  It proved to be more difficult than anyone thought it would be.

Since I had my tree up, we decided that it was definitely the place to put the gifts.  I even decorated the tree in pink, just for the occasion.  The white painted changing table was one of the DIY projects that I will share later.

Keri’s family and friends were very generous and I think she has everything she needs for when she and Cory bring home baby Anna.