Little Monster Baby Shower

baby shower stuff

I have to brag.

I threw a baby shower this last weekend, and I think it went off quite well.

My friends Rosa and Bryan are having a daughter in July, and Bryan had registered OurLittleMonster.com. Given this sort of opening, who wouldn't throw a great shower? The invitations which my co-host prepared had a small drawing of a monster on them, with the words "Please join us in welcoming Bryan and Rosa's New Little Monster".

One of the wonderful changes in baby showers is this trend towards "couples" showers, instead of all women. Get a group of intergenerational women all in the same place, and for some reason we lose our minds. Pink everywhere. Stupid games. Yuck. On the other hand, a couples baby shower implies alcoholic drinks. And many fewer and potentially cooler games.

The party was hosted at Cork & Company, a wine bar in downtown Austin (see -- drinks! wine! Perhaps not so nice to the guest of honor, but great for the rest of us!), which has a menu of wine by the glass, sample, or flight. Flights of wine are interesting in and of themselves... While having a party at a wine bar was not the cheapest option in the world, this one worked out surprisingly well. Our party -- 25 or so people, so not that large -- took over the entire front of the bar, started an hour before the bar officially opened, and only cost us what we ordered in drinks. Because Cork & Company doesn't serve food, we were able to bring in our own food -- fancy cheese and crackers from Costco, and Monster cupcakes (see examples above).

I am particularly pleased with the only game we did. I had Rosa and Bryan scan in pictures of themselves as babies and toddlers, printed up duplicates, and then put out small permanent markers in a rainbow of colors for people to "graffitti" them into "little monsters." The parents to be voted on the best one, and we gave away bottles of wine to the best ones. (I should try to scan some of these in -- some were quite ingenious...)

All I had to do for decorations was a vase of flowers (again, Costco) and an UglyDoll propped on the table.

Everyone had a good time, which is the point of a party, right?

Easy. Cool. Fun. Feel free to borrow at will. (And if you follow the kaboodle link at the top, you'll see a lot of other ideas that I ended up not using...)