That's "Owl" Theme and We're Sticking To It

This afternoon I finished editing and uploading the plethora of pictures from Leigh Ann's shower on Sunday, and I realized once I had uploaded them all that there wasn't any reason I needed to wait until they were finished to blog about the event. In my mind I guess I imagined putting the pictures into a slideshow on the blog. Now that I realize there are 111 pictures in the bunch, I'm thinking that probably only Leigh Ann herself and a few of our other friends who were there would probably be interested in that many pictures! If you get the urge though and want to see all of the food, decorations, gifts, guests and the game, please feel free to check the full album out here.

When my friends Melissa, Ellen, Corrie and I first got together to discuss the planning of Leigh Ann's shower, Mel came up with the great idea of using an owl theme, partially because Leigh Ann had recently picked out some baby bedding with owls, and partially because her husband Nate recently finished his doctorate in the English department and is a literary brainiac. We thought everyone bringing a book for baby braniac's library would go along well with the wise owl theme. Once we had the theme picked out we began to go a little crazy with it! Later Melissa found out Leigh Ann had changed her mind on the bedding, but the owl themed baby shower was already well on its way!

At our planning meeting, I volunteered to plan the menu, for which I chose foods that were either bird/tree related or in the color of the green/pink/brown/orange invitations we picked out. I made a fruit plate, a veggie tray, some little bird nest egg salads, ham asparagus roll-ups, spinach/artichoke dip on a tree shaped platter with a rye bread trunk, and some little bird seed snacks that are Chad's new favorite snack at our house! Melissa made festive little labels for all the food, Corrie ordered some adorable little cakes to match the invites, and Ellen made some awesome punch and bought colorful flowers to decorate her lovely home perfectly. Here are just a few of my favorite pics of the decor and food from the day.






The other thing that I had so much fun doing for the shower was making a shower game, even though none of us are big baby shower game people and weren't even sure we wanted to have one. I played a similar game when at my friend Karen's baby shower just a couple of weekends before, and it just seemed too perfect for the theme--and it actually seemed like something Leigh Ann might enjoy! I went online and found pictures of 20 famous people when they were babies, and then I printed out all their pictures onto tree branches (which I scanned from the invites) and pasted them into a tree trunk on poster board. Because I'm not very artistic, my tree ended up looking like the Washington Monument, but whatever. I put the celebrity's names in a list and numbered the pictures so that the guests could match the names to the numbers, and I think most people enjoyed it. Even if they didn't enjoy it, at least it wasn't ridiculously cheesy like so many baby shower games! It took me almost an entire day to find the pictures and make the tree, but I had a fun time doing it!

I'm hoping that all of Sunday's guests enjoyed the food and festivities as well as showering the lovely Leigh Ann and baby W with gifts and good wishes. It might not have lived up to the most amazing baby shower that Leigh Ann planned for our friend Amy a year ago, but with our four brains working together, I think we were able to come pretty close!