rodneygrantgrant: Keep Calm & Carry On...: I MUSTACHE YOU A QUESTION.

----my three best friends (since high school)---

This weekend....how do I begin to explain it?
It's about to be photo overload up in here, friends! Don't say I didn't warn you.

It started out by me dropping Billy off at the airport on Thursday for his annual guys golf trip with his family to Florida, and then receiving a picture of all of them on this massive boat enjoying the 80 degree weather. ?Jealously was written all over my face (or my text message).

However....my weekend? Fabulous.

Not only did I host my girlfriend Marissa's baby shower with 3 other girlfriends, but I also had a big girly slumber party with one of my best friends Angela all weekend. I can't tell you how nice it was to have her company all weekend long since Billy was in Florida! We had so much fun going out with our other girlfriends to the casino Friday night, that may or may not have ended with us dancing like fools in front of hundreds of people, and making a visit to Waffle House at 3am. We keep it classy...not ashamed, not ashamed. Saturday we had a blast running errands together (it had been 70 all weekend!!) and making breakfast in the morning. For a second, it felt like we were back in college again...hangovers and all.?

The best part, though, was the baby shower we hosted on Saturday night. It was held at a gorgeous condo complex in Hilliard and there were about 50 people who came out for it. Marissa and her fiance Mike wanted it to be a couples shower, so boyfriends/husbands and families were invited as well. This was my first time hosting a baby shower, and I have to say I loved it! Seeing all our crafts and little details we worked hard on come together was awesome. The food was good, the booze was flowing, the guests were having fun (it seemed like!), and Marissa and Mike had a smile on their face all night.

Marissa and Mike are having a baby boy, named Maddox, and wanted the colors to be blue and black (she loves the damask print), so we mainly used those colors and added some others here and there.

We knew from the beginning that we wanted all of the crafts/decorations to be functional and things that the mommy and daddy to-be could use in the future. I made a onesies banner that hung from the fireplace out of twine, cardstock, clothespins, and onesies. It was originally supposed to read "baby boy", but the fireplace was smaller than I thought and I couldn't fit it all. All of the centerpieces were filled with toys, stuffed animals, towels, washclothes, etc. and we did a jar filled with "baby wishes" that they can keep and read in their baby room. At the entryway, we made a big diaper cake and had a corkboard that they can use in the babies room as well!

{My parents (left) and I matched really well, didn't we?! haha! It was so funny!}

Our girlfriend made the cutest fruit display out of a plastic baby tub and fruit. How adorable is this?

Being that I'm a huge picture fan (you didn't know this about me, did you?), I wanted to create something fun and unique that the guests could participate in that had the same feel as a photobooth. NOTE: GUESS who brought their camera and realized when she got there that her memory card was at home? ME. YIKES. Thank the lord for my girlfriend Rachel who brought me hers, or else none of these pictures would have happened!

Anyway-I took an old mirror we had lying around the house, removed the mirror from it, and spray painted the frame baby blue. Then I made fake mustache's and glued them on wooden sticks so everyone could pose with them to create a mini, silly photobooth area. I played photographer for the evening and encouraged the guests to let me take their picture throughout the night! Everyone seemed to love it and it's so cool that Marissa and Mike will have all of these pictures of their guests to look back on from their baby shower!!

I may be a little biased, but this was the greatest idea ever. ;)

{only half of them! and at really special times, the 'staches even became unibrows.}

The favors were blow pops covered in blue tissue paper with a sign thanking the guests for coming. Pretzel rods were placed next to them so the guests could have a salty/sweet treat on their way out!

As far as baby games-we decided to fill a big plastic baby bottle with gumballs and candy and asking the guests to guess how many were in the bottle. We also taped the word "BOY" made out of cardstock paper to the bottom of a random chair before the guests arrived, and told everyone to check under their seats to see who the lucky winner was. Being that there was so many people, these 2 games seemed to be enough and were easy enough that everyone could join in.

Both mommy and daddy to-be received some wonderful gifts and the shower couldn't have gone any better. It was so nice having all of our families there with our friends, too.

End result?

Now here I am wanting to plan our future child's baby shower.
But I guess technically I've done that ever since day 1 on Pinterest. Oops!

Linked up with Sami for her Weekend Update blog hop!