Two weekends ago, we had our baby shower. A whale themed baby shower at that. For those who follow along on Pinterest–you might have figured out that we have a sea/whale theme for our nursery, and our colors are aqua, red, navy, and white. (Hopefully, I’ll be sharing our vision board with everyone next week). I helped my mom plan the shower–she’s not a party planner nor does she enjoy entertaining people. We are 100% completely opposite when it comes to that department!
The first thing I did when we started planning was look up whale invites. Luckily, I stumbled across Stockberry Studio just by doing a google image search for “whale baby shower invites”. Their whale invites were exactly what I had in mind. Colors and all!
I worked with them to create all sorts of printable items for our shower (some were print on demand, others were custom). Sadly, I didn’t take photos of all the paper goods. They were amazing to work with and best of all very inexpensive (and can do custom work to make your party one-of-a-kind)! 
My friends over at Martha Stewart Crafts sent a wide variety of red, light blue, and dark blue hanging decorations. I wanted these hung up earlier in the week, but that never happened.
Instead, he was hanging them up right before everyone got to the party–well before a majority of our friends and family got to the party. We had a few friends show up a little early and I could not be more thankful for them–they all helped out and finished setting up the shower! My friend Robin from Simply Southern Baking snapped this shot… it looked like Jon was dancing!
After he finished hanging the decorations he ran to go grab the catering. We decided to go with Chipotle Catering. One of my big cravings this pregnancy has been all things Mexican, so Chipotle was a natural fit since I eat it at least once a week at the very least! They recently started doing catering, and provide EVERYTHING in the price. Seriously–everything you see is what we got and more.
Sadly, this was the only photo I took. We had chicken and fajita veggies (in hind site we should have done half order of veggies and more chicken or another meat since we had lots of veggies leftover and not a lot of chicken–like one piece). They also provided black beans and pinto beans, white rice, and brown rice, plus all the salsas, lettuce, cheese, and extra guacamole! You could make a bowl, a hard taco, or a soft taco. Most made a bowl since that’s easiest. It was so good, and easy clean up. Yes, they even provide the chaffing trays and sternos. When I say they provide everything they provide everything!
When we were planning the shower my mom asked me what kind of cake I wanted and I replied… I don’t want cake. I want a dessert bar. I somehow convinced my mom to make her famous cheesecake cupcakes (they are so good).
She also made vanilla cupcakes (and I frosted them with vanilla buttercream). We had a big martini glass full of Hershey Kisses, hazelnut crisp sticks, and colored m&m’s. 
And we can’t forget the Publix chocolate chip cookies. If you ever visit the south you have to go to our local grocery store and get their chocolate chip cookies. They are amazing… everyone loves them so I knew I needed them on our dessert bar! 
Oh and my sweet neighbor (who couldn’t make it) made chocolate cake pops! How darling are these? 
While everyone munched on food we asked everyone to fill out their wishes for the baby. I loved this idea the minute I saw it on Stockberry Studio. Way better than a traditional guest book, and we had a great time reading them after the shower! 
We also asked our guest to bring a package of diapers if they would like to participate in the diaper raffle. We raffled off 2 $50 gift cards to World Market. We were so blessed and got 18 packages of diapers! I think we should be good for a few months… I mean weeks!??!
We also created a Cricut Iron-On Vinyl Onesie bar. I pre-cut lots of Iron-On vinyl and dyed onesies and set up a station for everyone to create a oneise or two for the baby! It was a big hit–even the “non-creative” people loved making the onesies. More on this later in the week.
Then it was time to open of the gifts. I wish I would have taken a photo of what our front room looked like… it looked like gifts threw up in the room.
Beyond blessed.
We asked all of our friends and family to give a book instead of a card to help build the baby’s library. Go Dog Go! seemed to be the popular book. In the photo above we are reading the one that my inlaws gave to us!
Our family friend, Grandma Betty, made us this beautiful blanket in the nursery color (aqua).
We got a wide variety of gifts and some cute clothes for our little guy. In case you didn’t realize, we are big Pittsburgh Steelers fans, and my parents made sure that their grandson had lots of Steelers clothes to wear during his first year! 
My friend Christine, from Cook the Story, made this beautiful knot blanket. Nothing like a handmade gift! 
And of course I had to share a few photos of fellow bloggers who attended. Here I’m pictured with a few of my Central Florida Food Blogger friends; Robin, Wanda, and Christine.
And here are a few of our Central Florida DIY Blogger group; Sarah, Rachel, Kelly, and Wendi!
Everyone left the shower with a bag of “kisses from the baby”!
Jon and I got a photo together at the very end. We were both so tired and over the moon. On a high from all of the love we received from our family and friends!
After everyone left. Lola jumped on my lap as I put my feet up. I finally got to take a photo of the little bandana she was sporting for the shower. This is what the nursery fabric will be!
I rested on the couch for a while. I was beyond sore and just as tired if not more so than Lola who had such a sleepy face in this picture!
Here is a cool pinnable graphic in case you like what you see and want to pin this to a baby shower board for later use!
A big thank you to my friend Ashley. She took all the photos of us opening gifts plus me with friends and family, and helped blow up balloons, set-up food, etc!
I have tons of tutorials to share and even some details that weren’t included in this post. So stay tuned over the next few weeks as I roll them out! At the end of the day I could not be happier withe how the baby shower turned out!
Disclaimer: Their are affiliate links in this post.
