Ok Ladies,
So my sister(33) just found out she was pregnant a few months ago, a baby that she's been waiting a long time for. I'm going to throw her a baby shower, but it won't be until June or July. Mainly right now I am just going through and collecting ideas for a real blow out baby shower. I wanted to ask you all for any ideas, themes, foods,decorations etc, for a big baby shower. I know you all have some great ideas for me, so let me have them! THANKS!

One thing I had at my baby shower that I thought was great (even though my mom thought it was silly but I made it happen haha) was we got little tiny babies from a craft store and froze them in ice cubes. Everyone got a cold drink before sitting down to open presents and you had to keep an eye on your melting ice cube... whoever's ice cube melt and "birthed a baby" haha was the winner!

I thought it was cool and different. I had never seen it at any baby shower before lol

Hummmmmmm I actually just had mine this past Saturday and the main them was Diapers in fact on the invitation my friend wrote Diaper Shower, it was great I got a great selection of different size diapers that will hopefully last a while.
Also another thing she wrote on the invitation was to bring a freezable frozen dish.
SO I was also swamped with plenty of food that I was able to freeze so that when she does come I won't have to worry about cooking full meals.

You could talk to her about a nursery theme (if she wants one) and go with that for the shower...

OR do something off the wall like a Luau, Mexican Fiesta, Alice in Wonderland (tea party), etc.. You could even take inspiration from a favorite children't book. I've always daydreamed about doing a Peter Rabbit theme.


By the way, CONGRATS TO YOUR FAMILY!!

Thanks guys those are great ideas!

Try a Laua Theme. June or July would be perfect. Everyone comes dressed in aloha attire and you could find many decorations at Oriental Trading Company. I did this for a friend having Twins last year in January and it was a hugh success. I got the mother a real hawiian lea form a local florist and the got the guest the cheap ones. I translated all the guest first name into hawaiian and put them on a name badge. THere were multiple things we did. We didn't play any games as most people going to a shower are sick of them. A good resource for laua's is alohafriends.com. Good luck.

One of my 4 showers was based on rain showers.

Umbrellas and flowers decorated the place. The umbrellas were full of little presents like thermometers, suction bulbs, bandaids, well, you get my drift...

The flowers were filled with door prizes for the games that were played... Like "guess how many squares of toilet paper go around the preggo's tummy"

"How many baby items can you remember" (If you don't know this game let me know)...

I go to the showers for the games, frankly.

Have lots of them, with interesting (and possibly silly) prizes.

One shower I went to had a white elephant exchange for the door prizes--was kind of weird to have people bring their own prizes, but people had a ton of fun with it.

I always like the clothespin game, too, because it meant keeping an eye on everyone at the party.

The frozen food idea is GREAT--but make sure the mother-to-be has freezer space for all of it, or it's pointless :)

Awesome ideas guys, thanks so much. What is the clothespin game?

The clothespin game (that I know of) is everyone at the shower is given a clothespin. No one is allowed to say "baby" throughout the party. If you hear someone say baby you call them out and take their clothespin. Whoever has the most clothespins at the end of the shower wins.

There may be variations of this game though.

But I agree... it is a fun game :)

OH! Heh duh! They played that at my first baby shower

My friend made me a diaper cake and I'm using the diapers now!

Diaper Cakes are adorable, practical, and unique newborn baby gifts!

That's what they look like.

Oh yes, I love diaper cakes, I was planning on doing one of those. Thanks so much for the link. You can never have enough diapers, and all the other little things you add to the diaper cakes. Diapers were definitely my most prized gifts hah, they get expensive having to buy so many .thanks again

We always played the clothespin game with crossing your legs---you'd be surprised how many people do it unconsciously. If they cross their legs, and you call them on it, you get their clothespin.

That diaper cake was really cute!

At my shower I requested that instead of giving a gift card with each gift, ask the guests to buy a book for any age and sign the inside of the book. Jack got so many books! I love it, cause we can read to him all the time and we didn't have to buy all of them. They really can get expensive. Of course, having everyone bring diapers of any size is wonderful, too.

As for games, we played three that were a lot of fun. My shower was coed, so we had a diaper the baby game. Three men and three women had to undress, clean baby food off a baby doll, and redress, and whoever finished first got a prize. We also had a game where my sister-in-law melted different candy bars in diapers and the guests had to guess what kind each one was. Another fun one is to buy whatever bottles your sister prefers, fill them with sprite or gingerale (only a couple of ounces) and whoever can drink it the fastest wins. It's really quite difficult, so if you use more than a couple of ounces it can take a while!
I really liked having a shower for men and women. You don't even have to play games. You can bbq, have some cocktails or beer, and just let everyone mingle. It's a really great way to get dad involved and to see all of your friends at one time. It was amazing to me to see just how many men were interrested in knowing all about pregnancy and babies!

I have a friend who had a baby two months ago, and another who is due in a week - I've done lots of baby showering lately!

Aside from what's been mentioned, here's what we did/considered:

Decorate burp cloths/white onesies - buy white burp cloths or onesies, stencils, and fabric markers. Let guests decorate for baby. It's more fun when the stencils aren't all baby-themed, and don't forget the backs of the onesies!

Diaper raffle - have one raffle prize that is nicer than the regular shower game prizes (we did a gift card) and to enter the (optional) raffle, guests must bring a pack of diapers or pack of wipes. Encourage different sizes. Everyone who brings a pack puts their name in a bowl, and at the end of the shower a name is drawn.

Baby food flavor - Have guests sample different baby foods and guess the flavor

Mystery item - buy small baby items (nipple, spoon, snot sucker, etc) and place one item each in paper bags. Seal the bags and number them. Pass the bags around and have guests guess the contents just by feeling the item through the bag. At the end, mom, of course, gets all the items.

Dirty diaper - Visually this is gross, but it's pretty funny... Buy several chocolate candy bars and melt small portions in the microwave. Spread the melted candy bar in an open diaper, and guests must sniff and inspect to figure out the type of candy.

Oh! And I made a signature book for mom; I went to my local craft store and bought a small scrapbook (blue, she was having a boy) and baby-themed stickers. At the shower the book was passed around and people could write their wishes, advice, etc. The craftier you are the more involved you can get with it - you can make cards to write on instead of pages, you can take the whole thing and add pictures later, you can add decorative papers, personalize with names, etc.

I also did shower favors, and instead of wasting money on baby trinkets that most people were probably going the throw away, I found small bud vases at Ikea for less than $1 each. Then I bought two types of blue Jelly Bellies (again, baby boy), wrapped a small portion of them in blue tulle, tied with ribbon, and put them all in white bags with a footprint sticker and pastel tissue paper. It was a big hit, and really cheap. Here's a link to the vases I bought: IKEA | Vases & flowers | Vases | SNÄRTIG | Vase