Parenting & New Baby Advice Blog

Archive for September, 2009

Everyone knows where babies come from – the stork!  Incorporate a stork theme into your baby shower by announcing to your guests that a “special delivery” is on the way.  Storks can be portrayed as a girl or a boy, and can carry multiple bundles of joy, so it’s easy to use a stork theme for expectant mothers that know (or don’t know) the sex of the baby and mothers expecting more than 1.

To point guests in the right direction, erect an outdoor stork sign that announces “The Shower is Here!”  Greet guests with a pair of toy glasses like the stork wears, and see who can keep them on the longest (the one who wins gets a prize).  When sending out invitations, ask your guests to send you a photo of themselves as a baby, then tuck each photo into a baby “sack” that the stork carries in his beak.  Number the photos and pass them around for everyone to guess who the baby is – the person with the most correct answers wins!

Serve food at your stork-themed shower that can be wrapped in bundles or pouches – like cream cheese won tons, soft shell tacos, pita pocket sandwiches and fruit quesadillas.  Use a stork-themed diaper cake as your table centerpiece and serve your guests on stork themed tableware.

After the shower, your guest of honor will need to send thank you cards to everyone who attended.  Help her out by providing stork themed thank you cards.  Some shower hosts will even have guests list their address in a guest book so the new mom has all the information she needs at her fingertips!

I have found a number of shower favors that will match your baby blocks theme perfectly, but my absolute favorite are our “New Baby on the Block” sticky notes.  The notepads are tucked inside a block-themed dispenser that is decorated in pretty pastel colors that will work for either a boy or a girl.  Another great set of favors are the block themed gift boxes that come in blue or pink and can be filled with chocolates, jordan almonds, mints or even bath salts.  To pay special tribute to the mother-to-be and send guests home with a tasty yet memorable favor, you can order personalized mint tins with a block-themed logo.  Simply add mom’s name and the shower date to your order and choose from 8 candy flavors to be included inside the tin.

If the baby has already arrived, ask the new mother for her favorite photo of her new baby and make copies for each guest.  Slip a picture into a block-themed photo frame and watch the guests’ eyes light up when they realize they each get a frame to take home!

If you’ve already found a great favor for your shower and want to add the block theme to it, we offer personalized baby blocks favor tags that can be purchased in sets.  Each tag includes your guest of honor’s name and her shower date – you can also substitute the baby’s name and birth date if he or she has already arrived.

With a few helpful hints, decorating for your baby blocks themed shower can be as easy as 1, 2, 3!  You can find block-themed partyware or decorate tablecloths yourself with colored paper “blocks”.  Order a fitting block-themed baby gift and use it as your centerpiece, or purchase alphabet blocks and stack them around the guest tables.  The alphabet blocks can even be used for a game during the shower – have guests stack blocks as high as possible with their eyes closed or use the blocks to spell out baby name suggestions for the new mom!

By adding a little creativity to your menu planning, guests will be able to enjoy block-themed food at the shower.  Cube up melons and serve them in a square dish.  Cut sandwiches into squares and serve with cubes of cheese.  You can even serve a block shaped cake by stacking 3 9×9 square cakes on top of one another, then frosting and decorating to look like a block.  Finish with punch that has a giant ice “cube” rather than an ice ring, or add a little jiggle to your dessert with jello cubes.  Who knew that hosting a block-themed baby shower would be so much fun!

Almost every child has a fond memory of playing with blocks – either stacking them up and knocking them down or spelling out words with them.  So a baby shower with a blocks theme seems like a fitting choice for nearly any mother-to-be!  From invitations to decorating to food and the cake, it will be fun to create your baby blocks themed shower!

There are a number of invitation styles that will work well with your theme, you can choose a custom baby shower invitation as shown above or make your own invitations from scratch.  Simply cut pieces of construction paper twice as long as they are wide, then fold in half and decorate to look like a block.  Or use photo shop software to arrange the wording of your invitation across a row or stack of baby blocks.  You can even sketch out your own stack of blocks, then scan it into a computer or copy it onto multiple invitations!

Something you may want to include on your invitation is to ask each guest to wrap their gift in a block-shaped box.  Then you can creatively stack the gifts to create a fun “block” display!  You can also find square plates or block-shaped streamers to decorate your guest tables – which will be square of course!

Find a large box and fill it with block-themed baby gifts such as a baby blanket with block-themed fabric, a set of blocks for when baby gets older or a personalized baby blocks photo frame.  You can also find block-themed gift wrap to tie everything together.

We’ll explore even more block themed ideas – including food, favors and decorating – in the coming days.

Delight guests at your Under the Sea baby shower with games that celebrate your theme!  Guessing games are always a hit, so fill a jar with fish-shaped crackers and have guests try to figure out how many are inside.  The person closest to the correct number wins a prize – like an ocean scented candle.  Another fun game is one that tests your guests’ artistic abilities.  Have each person place a piece of paper on top of their head and then draw the best fish they can without looking.  The mother-to-be can judge each drawing and award a fitting prize (like a stationery set) to the winner.  If you have time to do a little research, look up the names of ocean babies (a baby whale is a calf, a baby shark is a pup, baby frogs are tadpoles, etc) then create a quiz based on these answers.  The person who gets the most questions right wins!  If you don’t have the time or creativity to come up with your own shower game, you can find a number of baby shower game ideas online.

Some of the prettiest and most colorful baby gifts available are those that celebrate an ocean theme!  The gift basket pictured above contains a hodgepodge of items including a musical CD, fun bath toys, some ocean-themed books and an adorable plush octopus!  You can purchase this gift as seen, or create one of your own by putting together “Under the Sea” items into a galvanized tub or wicker basket.  The gift container can also be used to store toys, diapers or blankets once baby arrives!  With a gift this beautiful, you may choose not to wrap it and instead display it as a fun centerpiece at your shower.

Introduce guests to an “Under the Sea” baby shower with some cute invitations that display your theme.  You can purchase personalized baby shower invitations that are already filled out, you may choose under the sea themed fill-in type invitations, or you can create handmade invitations that coordinate with your theme and color scheme!  Personalized invitations may be a bit more expensive, but they are great if you are short on time and want something that just needs to be stuffed into an envelope and be mailed out.  The handmade invitations will be more labor intensive, but they are fun to design and you can include specific ocean items that your guest of honor loves.

If you choose to create your own invitations, it’s a great idea to include a catchy phrase or poem that includes shower details.  Some examples include:  “Swim over to Kayla’s Reef and celebrate the arrival of a new little guppy!” “Under the Sea with baby and me, join us with glee for a ocean party!”

Make sure your invitations include the basics such as mom’s name, the shower date, time and location.   If you have the information, it is also a good idea to include baby’s due date, the sex of the baby (if known), and any nursery theme mom will be using, as well as where mom is registered for gifts.  You may want to let guests know if a light lunch or dessert only will be served, as well as if the shower is for adults only or if children are welcome.  Some hosts choose a couples baby shower which works quite well with an Under the Sea baby shower theme because of the fun games and interesting ocean tidbits that you can include to keep the men entertained!

Depending on her stage in the pregnancy, your mother-to-be may be most looking forward to the food at her baby shower, and you certainly won’t want to disappoint her!  Plan your food around the theme you have chosen to elicit “oohs” and “aahs” from your shower guests.

Start guests off with a refreshing sea-blue punch served in a large goldfish bowl.  Then offer finger sandwiches using the Under the Sea cookie cutters pictured above.  These cutters also make a great take-home gift for your guests!  After sandwiches and punch, serve a delicious crab salad or refreshing seafood dip with crackers.  For dessert, try your hand at a fish-shaped cake.  If you don’t think you can shape a cake the way you want, cheat and order a fish-shaped cake mold – then all you have to do is frost the cake using brightly colored icing and your Under the Sea shower be complete!

If you live near the ocean or if your mother-to-be loves starfish, mermaids or turtles, then an Under the Sea shower them may be just what you need for the new baby!  All aspects of your shower – from invitations to cake – can follow your theme, you can even choose decor (invitations, tableware, personlized favors) that feature the same graphic.  Of course, sometimes it’s fun to use your creativity and make up some unique items for the baby shower – these can include a personalized shower banner, unique shower decorations, fun and personalized guest favors and one-of-a-kind baby shower games!

Disney has some wonderful Under the Sea characters that will be a welcome addition to your baby shower – decorate with Nemo, The Little Mermaid or even characters from Atlantis:  The Lost Empire.  Create a memorable baby shower cake in the shape of an octopus with cupcakes artfully arranged to resemble legs.  Transform a doorway into the grand entrance for your underwater adventure by hanging strips of blue crepe paper for guests to walk through.

In the next few days I will give some more detailed tips on how to create a wonderful Under The Sea baby shower for your new mommy-to-be!