the baby shower

When it came to planning our baby shower, we knew we wanted our friends and family to be there.  My husband and I started planning ourselves and then delegated tasks to some willing friends. The main tasks for us was finding a place and also food.

The venue was a bit of a pain.  We were not willing to spend that much but needed a space that could fit everyone in San Francisco.  We were estimating about 40 people so our condo was out of the question.  We wished our condo had a community room so we actually booked a day at a friend's community room.  We had been to a baby shower there before.  Weather was awesome while we were looking for a venue so my husband had his heart also set on the mini SF Giants field.  We also booked there.  It was just a mini baseball field with no real restrooms and tables or chairs so it seemed like it would be a lot of work to set up. Not to mention if it rained then we would need to move the location last minute.

Carol had been to a baby shower in the South Beach Harbor Community room so she helped us look into that. It was the right size and right price, so we confirmed that location. It was perfect.  It was close to home, had a playground right next door, had tables, chairs, and a restroom, and tables outside for people who wanted to be outside.  The only issue was parking.  We tried to mitigate it by scheduling the shower on a Sunday so that at least street parking would be free.  It was also hard to find since it is actually Pier 40A and lots of people ended up at Pier 40.  Also Pier 40 is not next to Pier 39.

We decided to go with City Smokehouse for catering and it was a hit.  We had chicken, beef brisket, mushrooms, beet salad, rolls, and mac and cheese.  People loved the BBQ and it was super easy.  It is not cheap though and we had contemplated just doing Costco roasted chickens and some Trader Joe's frozen food. We had so much food leftover.  Next time we don't need to order the same number of servings as attendees.  We still have leftovers frozen.

The theme was dictated by the Paperless Post invite Jacqueline helped us find and send out.  It actually matched our wedding invitations.  The e-card had woodland creatures on a wooden background.

Carol took the lead on most of the decorations. Jacqueline also found and bought supplies. Jess did drinks

 Cynthia organized all the games and desserts with the help of my mother-in-law

The baby shower was fun. It was great to see all our close friends and family. 

the gender reveal

So it has been a while since I wrote.  I cannot believe that my due date is almost 2 weeks away!  Time flies but this last leg definitely felt super slow.

Since then a lot has happened. we did an informal gender reveal where we didn't find out the gender right there during the ultrasound appointment.  We had the doctor and the sonographer circle the gender on a note and sealed it until we could open it at dinner.

We went out to dinner that night to Aveline.  We used to watch Top Chef religiously and the chef at Aveline was a fan favorite on one of the seasons that we followed.  It was nice that we were not in a doctor's office and no one was explaining the anatomy of the baby to us.  We were having dinner and chatting about the baby between courses.  I looked at the note second so I saw my husband's reaction first.  I had actually thought it was a boy, but it's a girl!