Baby Shower Fun

Yesterday, friends and family gathered at our house to have a baby shower for my sister, Emily. She is thirty five weeks pregnant with her first baby and we are all very excited. Her two friends Kate and Vicki were very keen to organise a baby shower for her so via the power of Facebook we organised an event and began preparing for a fun filled Sunday afternoon. We played games, chatted, watched Emily open presents, and ate a lot of cake.

The mother and two grandmothers to be.

When everyone arrived, we each picked either a blue or pink card to write down our baby predictions. I picked blue as I have been certain from the start that the baby is going to be a boy. Emily has kept the names her and James have chosen a complete secret which I think is lovely. We will all have a big surprise the day the baby is born.

The cakes my mum and sister Sarah spent all weekend baking and decorating - as well as a batch up cupcakes made by me and some seriously good tiffin from Kate.

Vanilla cupcakes (Hummingbird Bakery recipe) decorated with shimmer sprinkles and farmyard animals.

Mini banoffee pies. There are no words.

You can't really tell from this photo but these lemon biscuits were actually heart and baby gro shaped - so cute, and tasty too.

Apparently there are two ways to eat scones: jam on bottom, cream on top or cream on bottom, jam on top. I tried both (with butter on the bottom of both - yep), and I have to say I prefer jam on bottom, cream on top, although it really doesn't matter that much to me.

These gingerbread marshmallows made by Sarah were the best of the lot, though. She got the recipe from Joy the Baker, and they tasted like Christmas on a cloud - a sweet, spicy, chocolatey cloud.

Emily opened her presents and there were lots of squeals and 'awws'. My mum got her a countdown to baby calendar, which is fairly similar to your average advent calendar, minus the chocolate, but with words of wisdom and advice for each day in the month leading up to the mother-to-be's due date. Such pieces of advice might include going and buying a trashy magazine and eating an entire tub of ice cream.

We also got Emily's baby photo album out to have a look through. She was so weeny and cute, as was my other sister Sarah with her blonde curls and ice cream jumper!

Emily and her friends

Although baby showers are an American tradition I think it's a great excuse to have a party and celebrate a new baby coming into the world as well as a new stage in a woman's life. Emily will be a mother for the first time, my parents will be grandparents for the first time, and me, Sarah and Craig will be aunties and an uncle for the first time too. It's all so exciting and I can't wait 'til the baby arrives. The due date is 10th January, so one month today, ahhh!