popcorn baby shower

 I have a new friend in our neighborhood.  She and her husband moved in about the same time as we did.

Their first baby is due next week, and my Visiting Teaching companion and I wanted to throw her a baby shower.

We'd planned to hold the shower at my companion's house, but the night before the shower she came down with the flu!
Quick change of plans...the shower was at my house!
It was a lot of work, but so much fun.   I started decorating first thing in the morning and it was fun to see it all come together.

 We kept the treats simple--just different kinds of popcorn.

White Chocolate popcorn:
Pop a bag of butter popcorn.
Melt almond bark in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until it is liquid.  Pour over popped corn and stir to coat.  Let cool until set.

Peanut Butter Popcorn: (Got this from Shannon's blog a long time ago)
Pop a bag of butter popcorn. 
In a microwave safe bowl, combine 
1/2 cup  peanut butter, 
1/2 cup light karo syrup,
and 1/2 cup sugar 
Microwave 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until melted.
Stir into popcorn and let cool until set.

My companion's husband made the caramel popcorn for us; I don't have the recipe for that one, but it was delicious!

I used a lot of decorations from Nicholas's room.  This little wooden car was a toy my Grandpa made me for Christmas in 1995.  

For the popcorn and soda labels I just took frames from my house and put a piece of white paper behind the glass, then wrote on them with dry erase marker.

(And yes, we still are waiting for the painter to come!)

I'm not a big fan of most baby shower games. 
 So we kept it simple again and just did a little activity where we all wrote sweet notes of encouragement on newborn diapers--so the new mommy and daddy have a little something to make them smile when they're changing the sixth diaper in the middle of the night. 

We also played a get-to-know-you game because many of us didn't know each other.  
I rounded up pennies dated the past 15 years.  (And discovered I had a strangely high amount of 2006 pennies...)  
Each person took a penny  as they came in.  Then when everyone was there we went around the circle and told the group something that happened to us or something about us from the year that was on our penny.  

I think everyone had a good time, and it was fun for me to see that I could do something like this, last minute and everything.