Baby Oh Baby Dinner

Welcome to my oldest daughter's new home.  

They moved in last December and she has 

been willing to host parties ever since - 

I trained her well!!!

Today we are throwing a baby shower dinner 

for my youngest daughter who is expecting 

a baby boy in three weeks.

I spent all day blowing up balloons 

and decorating with them.  

The only way to do this is to purchase an 

electric balloon inflator and a balloon tying tool 

which are both reasonably priced.  I purchased 

a variety of balloons online, but my favorite 

was a kit that included some large and small 

and metallic gold balloons.  

It came with a 

plastic garland that I could tie the balloons 

onto.  (It recommended just slipping the knots 

in the holes, but they kept falling out so I 

tied two to three balloons together with curling 

ribbon and then tied the ribbon into the holes. 

It came with enough plastic garland to do both 

of these.  I loved using her chandeliers in the 

kitchen to create a second garland.

The tablescape today centers around a beautiful 

white and gold board my son custom made for 

me just for this event.  If you have been following 

me for a while, you know I love to create wonderful 

chocolate, cheese, and charcuterie boards, so this 

was such a thoughtful gift.  He told me he is making 

me another one because he says my daughter will 

never give this one up!

It's so beautiful it could sit out on either of 

our counters permanently.  It is an eight food length of

quarter-sawn oak, whitewashed, with a gold foot on it.

It will be fun to 

arrange all of my ingredients for the pizza 

oven on it.  

 Chocolates of 

every kind and fruit filled the board, along with 

some fresh flowers in blue Ball jars.

I glittered HE on a few Hershey bars to add to the board.

The board featured two cakes, the white one made 

by my oldest daughter, and the chocolate strawberry 

one made by my daughter in law. 

They have both been watching Cake by Courtney videos 

and are making stunning cakes.  The white one is Courtney's 

Biscoff cake (oh my!) and the chocolate one is Courtney's 

Strawberry Nutella Cake.  All of her recipes are amazing 

and she has such wonderful and instructive videos.  

She also teaches classes in Salt Lake City, but we hear 

they sell out immediately.  My 4 year old loves watching 

her videos and knows all of the tools and language, 

and gets up in the mornings begging to make cakes!

It was really fun putting it together in her beautiful 

and spacious kitchen.

The daddy to be loves Calvin and Hobbes, and 

they are naming this little one Calvin, so I 

made some cute cookies for them.

I have the best group of friends, and we always 

support each other putting these kinds of

events together.  One is missing tonight because 

her father just passed away, but she sent food 

for the shower anyhow.

They made a Winger's Sticky Finger Salad,

and a fall fruit and nut salad,

and two kinds of sliders.  They asked what her favorite 

food was, and I said she loved sliders, so they made 

ham and cheese sliders and pizza sliders.  They were 

a huge hit and just the right size with everything 

else we had.

My other daughter in law made the blue and white 

sugar cookies in the background.

The Mama to be is ready to pop, but so excited!  They 

have been trying to get pregnant for some time, 

so they are thrilled.

She was absolutely spoiled in every way, but one of 

her favorite gifts were these Calvin and Hobbes 

prints for the nursery wall.

Thanks for sharing in our joy with her baby shower. 

It takes a village to raise a child, and the whole 

village came out to support and love her.

I told my woodworking son I want to come work 

at his shop for a while.  I have always wanted 

to learn woodworking skills and when I was 

eight years old I asked for a saw and wood.  Now 

that I have a woodworker in the family, I need 

him to teach me.

I will be posting this with

Tablescapes Thursday.