Pana/Penguin Baby Shower

We started the month of July with an Illinois trip, which was kicked off by the "social event of the season" . . . our first baby shower!

It was an experience not to be missed, which is no surprise given that the organization team was none other than the fab four: Aunt MB, Aunt Chris, Aunt Deb, and Mom Spangler. They were all dressed in black and white in accordance with the penguin theme and they overlooked no detail.



The shower was held in Aunt Deb and Uncle Darren's pink palace, and the table was extravagantly set for brunch with little baby chicken salad sandwiches, baby pigs 'n blankets, baby quiches and a little baby carriage Aunt Deb and Uncle Darren had carved out of a watermelon!

Cousin Bailey, the gourmet chef, supplied the mini desserts that were absolutely decadent. There was also a bouquet of "bootie flowers." If you look closely, you can see that the flower are actually little baby booties that Aunt Deb rolled up and fastened to the stems!

After eating ourselves silly, we moved to the sitting room for games. Everyone at the shower brought a baby picture that was put on a poster board, and we had to guess who everyone was! There were some tense moments when Rach admitted that she was having a hard time finding Susie, who was also having a hard time picking out one of the pictures of Rach, but in the end we both managed to figure it out.

Next, we played a game that involved the story of Mr. and Mrs. Right where we had to pass the prize from person to person depending on the directional words in the story. It may sound simple, but once we all got going it was pretty funny to watch everyone scrambling.

The final game involved a CD the fab four had made of songs with the word "baby" in the title. We all had to name the song and the artist who was singing it. We all had fun singing along with the songs we knew, and the CD was a big hit. Who knew there were so many good "baby" songs out there?

Then it was time for the presents. We made quite the haul! If we'd had any doubts before, this shower reminded us once and for all that Jackson is going to be one very spoiled little boy. We got blankets and books and clothes, and much much more. There were way too many things to mention, but it's all just so darn cute!

As you can see, we were just surrounded by baby accessories; even our present-helper, the ever stylish Camy, could barely keep up with all the gifts. Thank goodness for Aunt MB taking notes for us, or we would never have been able to keep it all sorted out.

The biggest present was a stroller-car seat combo from GG and the sissies, and we couldn't fit it into our car in the box, so we took it out and assembled it with some help from Grandpa Coach.

We had a blast at the shower, and it was so nice to see so many of the family members we don't get to see nearly often enough. The Fab Four went above and beyond to make it a special day . . . if you are reading this we can't thank you enough (but we are still working on the thank-you cards!

Rach and Suz