It’s A BaByQ Shower

This past Saturday we had a baby shower for my son Matthew and his wife Regan.  Matt and Regan have been wanting, hoping and trying to have a child for over 13 years!  They have been through a lot, and I felt like I kind of went through it with them.  They tried every fertility treatment you can think of and spent lots of money in hopes to have a child, but experienced disappointment after disappointment.  About three years ago they actually became pregnant naturally, completely on their own and we were ecstatic, to say the least!  I was overwhelmed with thankfulness to the Lord after praying for this baby for so many years!  They heard the heartbeat and it all seemed great, but at about 10 weeks while at another check up they could not find the heartbeat and realized that the baby had died.  We were beyond grieved over this loss!  

On May 15th, a week after Mother’s Day, a few of my kids came over to celebrate a belated Mom’s Day because I was out of town the week before.  We had a nice dinner and afterwards Matt said he wanted me to open my gift.  There was a card and a small box and I opened the card first and it had a gift card in it for Home Goods (one of my favs, of course!), and it was for $50, so I said to them, why is there a gift box too?  So I opened it up and I looked inside and was puzzled at first because it had a pregnancy test wand in it and it took me a couple seconds to realize what it was.  The little window had the word, PREGNANT, in it and I was stunned!  I said, “Who is pregnant, Regan?”  She said, “yep”, and I went ballistic, literally,  I started crying and hugging everyone!  It was one of the best days of my life because I have diligently prayed for this day for so long and they were pregnant without any fertility methods again, this is their baby 100%, a gift from God!!!

Well, Regan is at 32 weeks now and the pregnancy has gone so well!  It is a baby girl and she will be born in December.  She will be my 6th grandchild.  I adore all my grand kids, their is nothing more exciting or special than a new baby coming into our family and I expect that this little one will be as much of a joy as the others, but I will always look on her as a miracle baby!

I couldn’t wait to put together a shower for Matt and Regan and a few months into her pregnancy I started to search Pinterest for ideas.  I decided to do a co-ed shower and went with a BaByQ theme, and add in the fall elements.  Orange is one of Regan’s favorite colors also.  We would grill and have lots of side dishes and goodies.  My daughter- in-law, Laura, helped me with some of the decor and the baking.  My best friend, Irene made plans to be here a few days before the shower to help get ready and it all came together very nicely.  I was so grateful for their help!!!

So here are some pictures of the decorations, some I made from scratch, some were downloads from Etsy and I revamped them to add in more of a fall theme, and some were bought.

My mantle was already decorated for fall, so I just removed some of the things I had up there and added in the shower decorations.

As you can see, her name is Adelyn Jean-Marie.  Marie is my middle name, so I was thrilled when they told me they were using it for Adelyn’s middle name too.  The Jean was my MIL’s middle name.  I made the bunting with a free printable alphabet I found and cardstock.  I have lots of supplies from all the scrapbooking I used to do that helps when I want to design banners, buntings or signs.

The framed metal sign came from Hobby Lobby.  It was so appropriate and I gave it to Regan for the baby’s room.  Painted pumpkins with polka dots and the letter A on the biggest one were perfect for our theme and adding the babies breath brought more femininity to the look I wanted.

These painted Ball jars were easy to make.  They are painted with chalk paint and then sanded to give them that used look.  I wasn’t real sure where I would use them at first and loved them on each end of the mantle with the babies breath in them and the little blackboard signs …Miracles Happen and Our Wait Is Over…Praise God!

I decided to hang this adorable little onsie on the shelf over the couch and embellished around it a bit.

Here is a look at the table…not too fancy, but you can see the bunting I used by the table that was part of the BaByQ decor.

I put this centerpiece together for the table using a faux white pumpkin that was easy to cut the top off of and then add in all the flowers and pinecones.  I sat it on a tree trunk slice of wood to make it look more finished.  I also gave this to Regan to take home.

The cupcake stand is made of cardboard and I painted it to match our colors and added ribbon along the edges.  I had used this stand for my DIL, Laura’s, baby shower too, but it was different colors. I love to get more use out of things like this, so always save your projects for parties because you can revamp them to use again!  The cupcake picks were part of the download I purchased from Etsy and I just backed them with the orange cardstock.  The cupcakes were a gluten-free, dairy free chocolate with buttercream frosting.  They were yummy!

These are gingerbread cookies.  It was my first attempt at using Royal Icing so they turned out pretty good.  It was a bit tricky trying to get the lines on the bottles just right, but no matter, they were also so good.

I made this sign for the front door out of a chalkboard I got at Wal-Mart for less than $2.

Here is our mama, Regan holding a pillow I made for Adelyn’s nursery and next is a soft little blankey I made for her too.

I had to give Regan something with animal print on it because she LOVES animal prints, she was even wearing an animal print dress for the shower.  I have a friend that did the monogram on it for me.  It’s made of fleece and minky fabric, so it is really soft.  This was my first baby blanket and I was quite pleased how it turned out.

We had such a fun day!  Regan got lots of great gifts to add to her other shower gifts and presents, not to mention several hand me downs from Laura, that were our grand-daughter Holly’s.  I hope you enjoyed seeing the decor and could sense the joy we have over this miracle baby.  More to come!

Much Blessing,

Brenda