Baby Shower

A few months ago, I got a text from my mother-in-law saying that we should throw Blair (Ryan's brother's wife) a baby shower in October.  Um, ok.  Me?  Really?  I've thrown birthday parties for my kids, but this is a whole different sort of ball game.  So we settled on a day, and got Michael to agree to keep the date open for the surprise shower.

In the meantime, Michael interviewed for a job that would take him and Blair about 10 hours away and got it.  He gave us some ridiculous story about wanting to go back to school, and this job (while starting earlier than they had planned on) was full-time, would work around his school hours and had benefits.  Blah blah blah.  If you guys are just tired of family, just say so. 

Just kidding.  We'll miss them a lot, though.

Luckily our shower date was early enough that they would still be around.  Another week and a half, and they will be gone.

So, I talked to Blair to say we were coming into town to visit them before they left.  Oddly enough, all of Ryan's siblings arrived for the very same weekend.  We got the Christmas family picture at the tree farm (see post below), but kind of ignored Michael and Blair for the whole of Saturday morning so we could set up the baby shower venue.  Everyone responded to their texts that morning saying they had errands/friends to visit/busy in some way.  So much for coming to see them, right?

At 7 pm, we were ready to go.

 I wish I could take credit for the tulle and lights, but they were there already.

We surprised Blair!  We very nearly blew it several times Saturday afternoon, but Blair luckily didn't figure it out.  All the kids did a GREAT job and they didn't say a thing.

My father-in-law had this idea for a game, called, "Make A Baby."  We took pictures of Michael and Blair as little kids and adults, plus all 4 of their parents and cut them into "features"- forehead, eyes, nose and mouth.  Then each table were given a stack to arrange into a face.  It was a riot.

I think this scared Blair a little.  Maybe her baby wouldn't be cute....

But it didn't stop her being excited about all the cute little boy clothes, blankets and everything else.  Kim had this great idea to get onsies from all the colleges family members attended.  The viking helmet came from the college I attended before I met Ryan and transfered.

Michael came towards the end and we got a picture of the expectant parents.  We are so excited for you guys!