Leah’s Sarasota Baby Shower

Late Friday morning, I caught a plane to Sarasota, Florida for a weekend with some of my best friends from college. We all came in town to celebrate our beautiful friend Leah’s baby shower!

(Dress info for those who asked via Instagram: On me – Trina Turk Morena dress via RueLaLa; On Leah – Maeve Lene dress via Anthropologie)

The shower was hosted by our good friends Laurel and Merri and took place at Merri’s dad and his wife’s house. The weather was absolutely perfect for an indoor/outdoor shower so we were able to enjoy the lovely sunshine in the backyard throughout the afternoon!

Baby’s breath for a baby shower… 

Placed in vases decorated by Laurel!

Remember that craft project I said I had to work on last week? It was for a mini book garland for Leah’s baby shower!

I stamped little blank white tags with “It’s A Boy” or baby feet stamps and alternated them with mini homemade blue and gray books that I made simply by cutting up cardstock and old book pages.

(You can see a great little tutorial for a garland very similar to this one on Martha Stewart’s website.)

My early arrival on Friday meant I was able to help Merri with some last-minute baby shower-related to-dos, including grocery shopping for the party food and brainstorming toppings for the grilled cheese bar which was quite easy to do thanks to your delicious suggestions on Twitter. Thanks so much for weighing in!

The grilled cheese bar was a huge hit among guests and also a super simple way to feed a large group of people. Everyone had fun creating their own sandwiches and playing with the tasty additions. I made a sandwich with Havarti cheese, caramelized onions and pear slices and it was heavenly.

Everyone sipped on drinks made with champagne (or sparking water for the mama-to-be) and a splash of various kinds of Italian soda.

The blood orange and grapefruit were my favorites!

Guests were encouraged to bring a book in lieu of a card and write a message to Leah’s baby boy on the inside.

I brought the children’s book Forever Young that included beautiful illustrations by Paul Rogers to the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s famous song, “Forever Young.” I thought it was such a neat find! And if you have a baby shower coming up for a mom-to-be with an rockin’ sense of humor, I highly recommend this book that our friend Kaitlyn brought that had all of us cracking up. (<— Bad language – be warned!)

Perhaps the most special book that made it into the crate was the handmade book. Our incredibly artistic friend Krystal created an alphabet book ahead of time and then guests were each in charge of decorating one page of the book for baby Theo!

I loved this idea and even though the cat I drew for the letter “C” looked more like a cat-bunny, it was a fun little project!

Once we were done decorating our alphabet book pages and eating our grilled cheese sandwiches, we headed outside to play some games!

Before the shower, we were all told to send Merri baby pictures of ourselves and then during the shower, we had to try to match the baby picture to each guest at the shower! It was way harder than I thought it would be and I’m pretty sure I lost.

At least I got one right…

Baby Julie!

On the back of the baby pictures was a quote by Roald Dahl (one of my favorite childhood authors!) that served as a bookmark guests could take home with them.

After games and dessert, it was time for Leah to open presents before some of the guests left and our group of girlfriends was left to hang out with the mama-to-be and soak up lots of quality time with each other for the rest of the weekend.

(Baby Lips lip balm shower favors = So creative! Love it!)

Congratulations again to Leah and Ricky. Baby Theo is already so loved!