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Rainbow Baby Shower

In case you didn’t know, my sister lost her first baby a few years ago. Adella would be turning 5 this year. When my sister had her second daughter, we threw her a rainbow-themed baby shower.  Here are some pics from her shower.

Rainbow baby shower

Baby Shower favors: soft salts. We made a huge batch, divvied them up into these snack bowls, and used double-sided tape to add favor labels (now available on my etsy store).

Rainbow baby shower

The nice thing about this baby letter-guessing game is that it makes a gorgeous room accent. Inside each of these bags is a baby item that starts with that letter.

  • R=rattle
  • A= applesauce
  • I= infant Tylenol
  • N= night light
  • B= bottle
  • O= outfit
  • W= washcloth
  • B= bib
  • A= afghan
  • B= book
  • Y= yarn

yeah, infant Tylenol is a stretch, but can you think of something that starts with an I? Besides, it’s more of a challenge, right?

Rainbow baby shower

We used these clothing items underneath the bags. I didn’t get a picture of them together. My mom made the first 3 things – the red dress, the crocheted sweater, and the little skirt. I found the other 3 on a great sale at Walmart ($1/piece!)

Rainbow baby shower

I made up these game pamphlets and a keepsake page for my sister to keep in her  baby book.

Rainbow baby shower

Rainbow napkins equal party win

Rainbow baby shower

My sister is allergic to corn, so she got a cupcake without a rainbow and everyone else got frosting made without powdered sugar. It was a pain, honestly.

Rainbow baby shower

We served Hot Chocolate and had a hot chocolate bar with something in every color. The blue element is home-made marshmallows (using tapioca starch for powdered sugar/corn starch. These were de-LISH-ous. I’ve made them multiple times since. The shape is actually a pumpkin, but I think it passes as a cloud. What do you think? The dish on the side is mint syrup (For the green element). We had raspberry jam for red, orange was made with pumpkin spice, caramel counted for yellow, and huckleberry syrup was our purple element.

Rainbow baby shower

these are our St. Patrick’s Day decorations. They worked pretty well as decor around the room. The white clouds from balloons just added that much more charm.

Rainbow baby shower

rainbow food table. There was a layered salad in the bowl, and taco bites went on the platter. I honestly don’t remember what went in the glass pan.

Rainbow baby shower

I made the rock candy myself. I need to improve, that’s for sure. My crystals didn’t get as big, and the color wasn’t as bold as those you can find in the stores. They tasted okay, though.

Rainbow baby shower

We played the candy game, where you are given a phrase tied to babies and pregnancy, and you have to guess what candy is tied to it. I had an added challenge (to take more time), guests had to play memory with numbered cards on a poster board. Guests took turns calling out numbers, and I flipped the cards over. When they made a match, they had a chance to guess what that phrase had to do with the candy. This is what we came up with:

the daddy big hunk
choosing baby’s name whatchamcacallit
girl’s name baby ruth
twins mike n ike
contractions now n later
hospital address 5th avenue
driving to the hospital rocky road
maternity nurses sweet tarts
hospital bills 100 grand
triplets 3 musketeers
11 lb babies whoppers
chunky baby rollos
time alone zero
nap time Fast break
baby giggles snickers
diapers, formula, medicine payday
lullabyes symphony
teething crunch
new babies treasures
ultrasound look
preemies runts
collic cry babies
postpartum tears gushers
loves for baby kisses
christmas baby junior mints
loaded diapers toosie rolls
mommy brain airheads
doctor life savers
Baby bump mounds

I’m sure you could play with the candy on one card and the baby phrase on the other. It’d be shorter. Up to you.

Rainbow baby shower

we also had the guests paint peg people for baby to play with when she gets a little older. I think they turned out pretty cute! I painted the guy in the suit in the back, and the orange girl  and Harry Potter with the extra pegs.

Rainbow baby shower

Archives

Happy 2nd, Adella

Two years ago, today, I was waiting outside a door for my sister to give birth to her stillborn daughter. Her angel daughter. She had found out just a few days before that her baby wouldn’t be growing older in this life. She had graduated to the Celestial Kingdom. It’s funny how much and how little can change in 2 years. Adella now has a sister who is growing leaps and bounds and screams and giggles and scowls. But not much else has changed.

I just wanted to share one memory, since I didn’t blog anything while all of this was happening. It’s reserved for my journal.

My siblings and I stepped into the hall for what we thought was a routine check to monitor progress. We weren’t planning on staying for the hard part, since that’s something we figured she’d want to do without a whole gaggle of people. But the routine check dragged on. At one point, the nurse came out and looked so sad and angry and urgent. All of her emotions must have been clashing inside of her. I don’t expect nurses have to deal much with the sad side of delivery, and I think it hit that nurse. Plus, things had escalated a little too quickly, and I don’t think the nurse had time to prepare. Since we had no idea what was happening, we waited in the hall. After a while, we were pretty sure that this was the part we weren’t planning on being here for, but it didn’t seem right to leave, so we just kept waiting. I am grateful for my perspective from the floor in the hall. I got to see the nurses. The hospital has this signal where they tape a picture of a flower to the door to notify the nurses of the situation without drawing attention to the mother and her pain. I will never forget the face of one nurse, as she left the supply closet and saw the door. You could see how much she ached for my sister, even though she didn’t know who she was. I’m glad the hospital had such a signal in place. And I’m glad that instead of having to deliver a still baby in the labor and delivery, they have these sad deliveries in the recovery section. It’s quiet there. No celebrations for all the mothers who get to take their baby home.

I’ll also remember a head full of blonde hair and paper-thin skin. She was real. She had a body. And now she is waiting in heaven.

Happy 2nd birthday, Adella. Do a couple of twirls for me.

Love, Aunt Keira

A Day in the Life, Archives

Happy Birthday, Adella (a post I never published)

This is an old post I never got around to pushing the little publish button for, so you get it now… 3 months later than I intended. I’m great like that…

Most of my family has birthdays during 2 semi-annual spurts. Instead of having family reunions, then, we have family birthday parties. We used to do 2 a year attempt to hold 2 a year (we never seemed to get to the second one… and my birthday falls in that category. I was sick of getting jipped (I’m going to get history buffs and politicals mad at me for that word). So we made it an annual thing instead of semi-annual.

We share gifts with each member of the family (I don’t know how much longer that’s gonna last. I like it, but you never know. When we actually start getting a ton of grandkids/ nieces/ nephews, that will get expensive.)

Last year, we had big plans for the family birthday party… and they all got canceled. Instead we held a funeral for my sister’s stillborn angel.

So this year, as we were sharing presents, we all took a balloon outside and let it go (Yes, I’m going to have the environmentalist groups hounding me now, too). It was a birthday present to Adella.

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How did she thank us? Giant hail balls.

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Grandma (my mom) barely made it in alive! Just kidding, she was fine, but that was still some scary hail!

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At any rate, happy first birthday, Adella. Nice aim.