About a week and a half ago some good friends of ours became foster parents to a newborn baby. Allison and I were chatting over coffee on Thursday and got to thinking what a shame it is that foster babies rarely get showers... I have a very good friend in Tennessee who has fostered several babies and adopted two of them... No shower for any of them... Shame on me for it not occurring to me to celebrate these precious lives and the women who drop everything and turn their lives upside down on a moment's notice to love them!
So Allison and I wanted to change this right away, and right away it would have to be... We looked at our calendars and realised this weekend would be the only one we would be free for the next five weeks... That means after we checked with the new foster dad we had three days to pull off a shower for Sunday afternoon... I literally heard the Mission Impossible theme music in my head. Could we throw together a party in that time that would be a blessing to the mom? Would anyone come?
We decided to do a "Diaper Shower" since the mom has a four year old daughter and two year old son... She has "baby stuff" but taking on the expense of diapers and stuff can be a real drain on your budget.
Katy had been looking for an excuse to entertain, so we conned her into asked her to host it at her new place... Yay, less housework for me... We just might pull this off...
Next decor... Allison had spotted these cute plastic popcorn containers in the dollar bins at Target and thought they would make cute vases and such... Since we only had a couple days and less money for this we decided to run back to Augusta (Which is 45 minutes from here and where the nearest Target is... Feel sorry for me yet?) to get what we needed... After talking to Paul we found out we had about a $40 budget to work with... Yowza... Cue that theme music again... We decided to just keep it simple... We created a little candy bar as a focal point and kept the food simple... Fruit, Cheese & Crackers, and Katy made some lemon bars. After we grabbed the popcorn containers we spotted the classic "Barnum's Animal Cracker" boxes... We decided to use those as our color cues and grabbed a few red and yellow pails (also from the dollar bins) to make the candy bar more colorful...
A bunch of candy, a couple bright colored bouquets of flowers and some plates, napkins and paper straws from our "party bins" and we were done... (Or over-budget... As the case may be...)
Sunday afternoon came, and we pulled off the surprise... She was so excited, and the candy bar was a huge hit... (Never under-estimate how happy candy makes adults!) We had a small but happy crowd of six adults, four kiddos and one adorable baby!
Here is the happy mommy with her big guy and her little guy...
You might remember River, she was the photographer at Kate and Jed's wedding and her husband Jerry was one of the grooms men... She also teaches art and photography at the school I will be teaching at this fall... (Yes, it's a very small community we live in!)
Here are my girlies with another sweet friend (who is pregnant and will probably be our next shower!) and the new big sister (making her "cheese" face!) on Katy's futon couch... I think all young people have a futon couch at one point or another... We actually discussed this at the shower and we determined we had all had one when we were starting out. (Random fact: Ours was in our den/guest room... Paul later fessed up he thought it would keep house guests from staying too long!)
Speaking of babies... Katy and Jed have one too...
Meet "Lucy"...
Or "Lucy Lu" as Kate calls her!
She is a "bengal" kitten and just eight weeks old...
She is so cute and has the most amazing markings but when she is awake she is a blur of energy so I found a picture of a bengal kitten on google that looks similar...
Lucy's spots are a bit bigger then this kitty's but you get the idea.
(NOT Lucy... from Google.com)
So we were all babies this weekend! (Yay!)
Thanks for listening,
PS. Don't forget about the 20 days of givaways going on over at As Jules Is Going... She is giving away some really cool stuff!!
I have such admiration for those who foster children. A good friend of mind fostered a baby from age 29 days to age 2. Then she was adopted which is wonderful but oh my word, two years is a long time to live with a little one and then hand her over.
ReplyDeleteThat's a GREAT idea to bless the mom with a shower. Foster babies often come with nothing but what they're wearing and it can be a challenge.
ReplyDeleteJulie
Cute shower! That must've been a sweet blessing for this family. It is such a good thing to feel loved and cherished by others.
ReplyDelete<3 <3 <3
Wow, the picture of the candy bar looks like it was in nice hotel lobby or something. Kudos to Katy for the smart decor. When I was a newlywed (was? yes, its true. can't claim that anymore) I was totally clueless (and pretty much still am) about how to make a little apartment look classy. Nice job.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, Katy is kinda clueless about decorating too... She knows what she likes but is pretty clueless about how to put it all together... She relied pretty heavily on her sister to help with the decor. (I love to decorate too, but I am trying to be more hands-off and let her feather her own nest!) That being said, she is a wiz in the kitchen and comes up with new recipes almost weekly! (We all have our strengths!)
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