Getting Ready for Deacon

I know I don't have to tell you that I love a good party!  Especially a baby shower!  This one was no exception as Kristen, Casey and I got ready to shower Summer's new baby Deacon.  Casey made the sweet clotheline and Kristen made his name banner and the pom-poms. 

It worked out great to have three hostesses.  Since we all love to craft and make things, parties like this are perfect.  I tried my hand at my first diaper cake.  Now I'm still not sure about this, but it sounds like some people like to use cheap diapers with the expectation that the diaper cake will be kept assembled for the baby's room and the diapers won't be actually used.  My assumption was that it would be taken apart and the diapers used so I went for the soft, nice ones!

Luckily my costly wedding cake pedestal mistake (ie - forgot to take it back to the bakers after my wedding and they charged me for it) has been quite useful for events like this!  

I wanted it to be more plain and "classic", but once I got going...I couldn't stop too easily.  So I added bows here and animals there and big red painted D on top.  It turned out super cute and I quickly saw why people often don't disassemble theirs!

For the crafters out there:  the cake is about one large package of diapers all individually rolled. I liked this style the best out of various cakes I saw online. I didn't use a faux center (some people use a large glass bottle, like a champagne bottle) cause I didn't want to go buy one (how's that?!) and didn't really see the need since I had plenty of diapers.  I stuck a couple of dowel rods that I had on hand all the way through from top to bottom to hold it all together.     

Ha!...Casey added the 'Don't feel the animals' and it made me smile every time I walked by.  Summer's has decorated the baby's room in a jungle theme and we ran with that for the shower theme also.  It was a really great theme to use and we about had to enact a vote of congress to choose which of the bajillion cute invitations we were going to go with.  Darn you, Etsy!!!

 

I was totally tickled at the cute wrapped forks Casey made up!  Love the tulle and leopard ribbon!

My other task was the favors.  We went with caramel popcorn baggies as thank-you gifts as the guests each left.  Casey made the 'Deacon' basket for his room as a gift for Summer but it worked out perfectly as the popcorn basket during the shower!

And yes...I ate way more than my share of caramel popcorn while I was stuffing bags.  **Sorry Kristen and Casey.**  But I DID wash my hands and kept the kids clear of the assembling.  ;)

It wouldn't be in Summer's nature if she didn't supply us with some family photos!  ...some GREAT photos!  We displayed them all around the house and it was the perfect touch....really personalized the shower.

Kristen made the awesome banners, and let me tell you...that girl is a banner making fool!  She is the go-to girl when one is in need of a banner.

Casey made a scrapbook with question about the current times (price of gas, name of the president, current movies, etc) for each guest to fill out and then include a personal message to Deacon and Summer.  It was so sweet and a perfect activity for a shower where we didn't want to play games.  I had a blast coming up with a cute do-able palm tree idea to flank the table.  I got to get my hands dirty with real-live tools and spray paint.  And lucky me, I had everything already on hand except for the paint.  The picture here doesn't make them look like much, but in person they were pretty darn cute!  (yea...so if anyone needs to borrow a couple of palm trees....) 

Here's the money shot!  We are some fun-loving, party-hardy, shop-till-you-drop, baby-making besties!  I'm so glad I found these girls to share my life with and couldn't ask for better friends to welcome each other's babies into the world with.  (Good grief, please look past that crazy looking fat arm...what the heck is that all about?!)

So now we wait!!  Deacon will make his arrival next week and I can barely stand it!  I'm glad it's not me (heehee) and I'm so happy for Summer, Jason and big sis Ada-Grace.

And I must say, man his name monograms well!  What a handsome name he has.  So special, just like his mama.