I started out on Pinterest to find some ideas and quickly had about four different themes planned when I realized that they all revolved around children's books. Reading with my kids is one of my favorite moments of the day and they both love books. I hope that Nikki will enjoy reading with baby Colton just as much and we wanted to get her library started for him.
I love how this shower turned out and was so happy to get to throw it -- now I just can't wait to meet baby Colton!!
For the invitations, I just put together some images of the characters in several of the books we were using. I made coordinating signs for each of the dishes on the menu as well to tie the food into the book theme.
The menu and book pairings included:
Sam I Am's Green Deviled Eggs - complete with the egg whites dyed green instead of the egg yolks - based on a Pinterest tutorial I found here, you can dye eggs any color you want and it doesn't affect the flavor at all.
Guess How Much I Love You Veggies and Hummus - it was a stretch but it's "bunny food" and I love this book.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - with a quick chili sauce and grape jelly sauced meatball.
If You Give a Mouse a Snickerdoodle - we subbed in Snickerdoodles since they are my sister's favorite.
Jamberry Pies - if you've never heard of the book Jamberry you should look it up, such a cute rhyming story. I made mini cherry, lemon and apple pies in a muffin tin taking some help from refrigerated pie crust for this one.
And from Giraffe's Cant Dance, Gerald's (non-alcoholic of course) Jungle Juice.
We also used Good Night Moon as a guest book, asking guests to leave a message for Mom or baby.
I made a simple diaper cake and added signs from the book Little Blue Truck and found some animal baby toys to add in for extra fun.
One of the best things about the baby shower was the onesie decorating station we set up outside in lieu of playing traditional shower games. We had so much fun decorating onesies with fabric paint and stencils and iron-on transfers and they turned out so cute!