Colorful Rain Showers

Two couples in our Sunday School class recently had babies so we decided to throw them a joint shower/sprinkle. 

One baby was a boy and the other a girl. That combined with my not volunteering to plan it until Wednesday (when the shower was Sunday) made for some interesting and busy days of crafting. A huge thank you to my wonderful husband who worked tirelessly alongside me to pull it all together. 

I decided to go with a rain cloud theme with various shades of blue and pink. 

I designed a quick invite and sent it out via email. 

I knew I wanted the rain drops to play a prominent role in the decor. I found a shape I liked and printed out tons of copies on different colors of card stock. It took me a few Netflix episodes but I got them all cut out. I used them for a backdrop and on the centerpieces. 

Our class is normally set up in long rows of chairs but that wouldn't be conducive to a shower. Nathanial headed up to church on Friday afternoon and set up some round tables. 

I found some blue tablecloths and then went about creating the centerpieces. I had a clear vision in my head and thought it would be simple to make some tissue paper clouds and attach the rain drops. The clouds were a disaster. There was tissue paper everywhere and no shapes resembling a cloud. So I ended up buying poster board and cutting out cloud shapes. I attached the rain drops with fishing line and tape. I used floral foam in buckets and a dowel rod to attach the rain clouds. Once I set them up on the table, I added some kisses to cover up the foam and fill the buckets. 

I also put some notecards out on the table with watercolor backgrounds and each couple's names. The idea with those was that we would "shower them with encouragement." 

By far, my favorite part of the decor was the rain cloud backdrop. I was overwhelmed with all the other details, so my amazing husband assembled it on his own. I loved it! 

I wanted something on the doors but thought there were probably enough clouds. I opted to make diaper wreaths. It was my first time but not my last. There were easy to put together once I got the hang of it. I cut out foam core initials for each wreath and then mod podged cute scrapbook paper on top. I loved how these turned out too. 

I was thrilled with how everything turned out and had such a good time celebrating these sweet babies. In fact,

I loved the theme so much that I was a little sad to trash the decorations at the end. Unfortunately rain clouds don't go with the decor in the rest of our house. 

Escaping

I'm usually not a Monday hater but this one was particularly hard after such a great weekend. My birthday is coming up this week so my family joined us Sunday afternoon for an early celebration. 

We started the festivities at a local escape room - The Lock. I've been wanting to check out an escape room for a long time and it did not disappoint. For those unfamiliar with the concept, escape rooms are an adventure game where players are locked in a room and have to use elements of the room as clues to get out. We played a multi-room scenario where we had to escape jail cells and then the overall jail. It was such a blast! We got out with 25 seconds (of our hour time limit) to spare. We probably would have had more time if we didn't spend 10 minutes trying to communicate with the staff that our walkie talkie was dead, which as it turns out was just turned off. There were so many funny moments but I can't say much more without giving away hints. I loved how the entire family worked together. It was an experience we won't forget. 

Afterwards we headed back to my house for cake and presents. 

My mom set the cutest table. 

And then Nathanial surprised us all with confetti cannons. Ever since I ran the Route 66 Half Marathon (with confetti) I've been obsessed with confetti. We'll be finding confetti pieces for a while but it was well worth it! 

He even got a giant cannon for me to shoot off. Confetti rained over me and it was fabulous. 

 

As usual, my family spoiled me with all kinds of awesome gifts. They also have a knack for finding truly unique things. This year, they found an awesome LED lighted hat perfect for early morning running and soap with a hidden jewelry piece inside. 

If the celebration was any indication, this is going to be the best year yet. I'm a lucky girl.