Blueberry's Shower

The Saturday we left for vacation, also happened to be the day I hosted 27 women in my house for Courtney's baby shower.  Woops - poor planning on my part.  Luckily I had two co-hosts (Beth and Linda) and tons of help from all of the ladies in Courtney's Bible study, so besides having to juggle a little between packing and party-prepping, it really wasn't too stressful.  And we actually couldn't get into our vacation rental until Sunday and we drove through the night, so the party didn't actually interfer with vacation at all. 

I was really excited for this shower - Courtney is one of my best friends, and you only get to host a baby shower for your best friend once so we went all out!  Courtney and Ian have been calling their baby "Blueberry" since they found out they were pregnant, so I thought having a blueberry themed shower would be absolutely perfect! (It helped that they are having a baby boy of course.)

So here's a few details from the party (most of these pictures were taken by Esther Schwander, one of the big helpers from Court's Bible study)

The beautiful mama to be! Banner made by Esther

I'm not good at coming up with things on my own or designing anything, but luckily Beth happens to be amazing at designing things and I was able to find an adorable apple themed party online (my main talent is copying) - so I sent Beth a bunch of ideas and she came up with all of the printables for the party.  Aren't these little tags adorable?!?

We did a brunch shower - which was perfect for our blueberry theme, and perfect for serving a huge crowd on a small budget.  I found this pseudo cake ball idea on pinterest, they use a donut hole instead of having to make the actual ball.  Esther made these for us and I thought they turned out perfect (and she said they were much easier than regular cake balls).  We also served blueberry muffins, egg casserole bites and hash brown casserole. 

We also had a yogurt bar - this was the only food item I was responsible for.

And of course, brunch would not be complete with out lots of coffee!

Another pinterest idea - Beth and I made these yarn balls a few nights before the shower.

Blueberry candy sticks

Courtney's family and friends are spread out across the county, so it made the most sense for her to just do one shower and invite all of her loved ones in to town on one day.  She made sure Beth, Linda and I were up for the challenge, which of course we were, but let me just tell you that our house was full!  I was a bit worried about space, but I think everybody ended up fitting nicely, and even though it was a big group, hopefully things still felt somewhat intimate for Courtney.  And again, since we had so much help, it was actually one of the least stressful parties I've thrown.

You can't tell fully by this picture, but this girl was surrounded by presents!

This doesn't have anything to do with the actual shower, but I thought this picture was so sweet!  Weezie (Beth's mom) held Hank most of the shower while Ben packed upstairs.