Showering Babies, III

So for the baby shower this weekend -- for my financial advisor, who is extremely picky and incongrously green (the invitation came with an insert titled "Eco-friendly registry" that informed me she was registered at Whole Foods and Wildflower Organics, as well as pointing me to a number of organic baby goods websites) -- the Organic Cotton Cloud Tee



and monkey pants



from Sckoon.

Added bonus! My carefully edited list of neat organic baby goods:

organic baby by saracarl

It's showering babies, part II

For some reason, it's baby shower season. I hosted the aforementioned baby shower last weekend, I have another one this weekend, and yet another one next weekend. Since the point of showers is to, well, shower the parents-to-be with gifts, I thought in a fit of exhibitionist consumerism I would mention what I'm giving as gifts at these showers.

For the Little Monster shower -- whose mom is also my oldest friends (22 years and counting) -- alterna-trendy, design conscious filmmaker/musician family:

A Wedgehead Uglydoll (I didn't pay full price, but no one knows that...)




A pair of pirate Robeez (the baby will be a girl, but who cares). Based on the dad-to-be's comment "Pirates are very popular right now" I'm guessing they'll be using the gift receipt on this one.


A black Old Navy baby tank



that I modded with a white flocked velvet gothic cross iron-on (the dad-to-be liked this one...)





And a Skip Hop Changing Pad -- the only thing I got them that they registered for.



I didn't go so crazy on the other showers (how often does your best friend have a baby?), so I'll mention those in a separate post.

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...)

Smokin'

So my mother recently purchased a smoker. Being an extrememly frugal person, she feels she has to 1) make her money back on the purchase as quickly as possible and 2) max the output of the smoker each time she runs it. What this means is we have a plethora of smoked delicacies, most sent home as leftovers for us to cook with over the week. As a sample, here's what was on the menu last week:

* smoked chicken and smoked cheddar quesadillas
* smoked portabello mushrooms with smoked port salut melted on top
* enchiladas made from smoked colby, topped with Mexican Garlic Cumin Sauce mixed with Fire Roasted Tomatoes.

Not to mention some random smoked meats.

Smoked cheese is pretty incredible. I don't think we've eaten so well in a very long time.

This week it's Ben's turn to cook, and he's starting with a smoked brisket that is very tasty. Last night's dinner was a stewish sort of creation with more of the fire roasted tomatoes, a lot of wine, and the aforementioned brisket (diced), served over rice. It was delicious!