Katie's Jungle Baby Shower

My best friend Katie is having a baby! I was given the privilege of throwing her a baby shower, and boy did I have fun with it!!! We chose to do a jungle theme to match the baby's nursery decor.  As usual, once you give me a theme, I pretty much can't help myself from going crazy trying to plan and plan and plan around it.  Her sister, Kelly, the amazing creative paper artiste, designed and made the invitations and the paper decorations for the shower.

They were gorgeous! This photo doesn't do it justice, because you can't really see the dimension of the animals coming off of the card, but you get the idea.  

I had fun designing a menu around a jungle theme.  We had Safari Salad (Spinach Salad with Cranberries, Walnuts and Bacon), Monkey Mushrooms (Mushrooms stuffed with Brie cheese), Wild Jungle Vines (Rosemary skewers of mozzarella, salami, olives, etc.), Critter Crunch Chips and Artichoke Dip, Grilled Vegetables (titled "Zoo you want some vegetables?"), Jungle Fruit Kabobs, Monkey Bread, and Chocolate-dipped Bananas.

Besides being pretty darn yummy, if I do say so myself, it was a great themed menu!

Katie and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning on the night before the shower to finish the food preparations.  We were most entertained by our cookie decorating, and maybe it was the sleep-deprivation, but we had some hysterical giggle moments.  There were some definite flops (most notably the Giraffe with measles) but we kept at it and came up with some cute enough versions.

I'm not in love with them, but they fit the theme, and there definitely wasn't enough time to start over, so there you have it.  Next time, I will START with the detailed cookie-decorating instead of trying to finish it at 3 a.m.! 

I decorated the tables with palm fronds and jungle animals, simple and cute. 

Kelly made the banner, and of course it was BEAUTIFUL!!! I keep saying that I will take some classes from her one day when I have time for another hobby!  But I think with a full time job, a toddler, and photography, baking and book club, I'm pretty set on the schedule at the moment! 

The most important thing was that Katie enjoyed her day and was showered with a ton of great gifts for her and baby Lucas.