Babbles and Bibis: {flashback} My Baby Shower and Your Next ...

I almost titled this post "Manuela's Baby Shower" but decided against it. ?When explaining baby showers to my Spanish friends and family (the concept hasn't quite caught on here yet), I always say that they are a celebration of the new mother. ?It's true that all the gifts are mostly for baby, but since successive children probably won't get their own showers, it only seems fair to make it all about the new mother.

My good friend Tiffany, one of the first American friends I made when I moved to Sevilla almost 8 years ago, hosted my lovely baby shower at her home in early September 2010, about 6 weeks before Manuela made her appearance. ?I was so touched by all the planning and details that went into the affair, it was truly an amazing evening. ?It was the second shower for our group of friends - a few months earlier I had hosted a joint shower for Stacy and Jennie who had their babes Eva and Ben during the summer. ?(I'll have to post separately about that shindig!)

In addition to my crew of friends, we invited my mother-in-law and her sister (who has a daughter with two kids living in the U.S. and so is quite familiar with the baby shower concept) and they had a wonderful time, too. ?My mother and sister even got together and Skyped in to watch me open gifts, which was really special for them and for me.
We loaded up the car with so many amazing gifts that night - even some that had been shipped in from the U.S. ?Tiffany even organized a really fun game in which all of the guests had to send her a digital picture of herself when she was a child. ?She had a DVD made of all the pictures to play on her TV and we had to guess each one. ?I somehow managed to get them all right!

A couple months after my shower, Tiffany found out she was expecting her own little one - precious Baby Lou. Our friend Rachel hosted a couples' shower for our whole gang the following summer - it was a rock music-themed family barbecue dubbed "LouFest" and it was so much fun. ?One of my gifts to Tiffany were there monthly onesie stickers, made by Sticky Bellies?(but there are plenty others out there), that you can use to track baby's growth.

See how Lou has grown so far:

I also included a bunch of onesies in different sizes to help her with the monthly project, which she is doing great with (I expected nothing less!)

I recently came across this idea on Pinterest which takes this concept to a whole new level, adding background fabrics for photoshoots and an egg carton with tiny colorful socks in each little compartment (adorable idea). ?What a creative idea for your next baby shower! ?Even the basket will come in handy for nursery storage.

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