You Are My Sunshine: Vegan Gender-Neutral Baby Shower

They say it takes a village to raise a child and this weekend I was reminded how many special people are in our village. Daniel and I have moved around a lot during our 9 years of marriage, so making deep friendships has been more challenging than if we had been in the same place this whole time. So, sitting with a room full of wonderful woman, all there to show me they’ve got my back when I need it, was very encouraging.

My friends Ensley, Stephanie, Lindsey, Liza and Rachel organized the most fantastic baby shower to celebrate the upcoming arrival of Baby Deane. The theme was “You are my sunshine” and the colors were gray, yellow and white. There were advice cards, flowers, banners, a cloth-diaper cake and the most amazing vegan spread of eats. Ensley even dusted off her baking gloves and made some delicious vegan lemon cupcakes! Yummy, thanks girl! Everything was amazing – We had a fruit platter, chick-pea salad, pitas, crackers, veggies and dip, green salad, quiche, and some amazing vegan cheeses made by Nicole. When you can eat everything on the table, you know it’s going to be a good day!

That cloth diaper cake yoh!!!

Liza organized the games and they were so much fun. Most people know I love games. I used to be WAY more competitive than I am now though. Now I can enjoy a game and lose, but before….ummmm not so much. And speaking of losing, my team got zero points and lost, but we had fun! I did try to suggest a sudden death round, you know, “winner takes all” but the other teams who had points would have none of it. Hehe. We played “Minute to win it” style games like looking for a lost sock in a very full diaper bag, putting a diaper on a stuffed animal one-handed, balancing baby blocks on our heads and drawing family portraits of the Deane family on a paper plate against your head. I need to have a word with some of the artist’s impressions of my growing family. Mmmmm. 😉

Not bad for one handed!

Rachel read from Psalm 127, shared about children being a heritage from the Lord and prayed for us and our little one. She made my flower crown (gorgeous right!?) and personalized thank you cards for me to send out! I can’t thank you enough for all that time and effort! She is a fantastic artist with a heart for hurting people who has her own Easy shop called MercyCreatesShop – check it out here.

Then I got to open present after present of amazing books and goodies for Baby Deane. We are so excited to get them all set up in the nursery, ready for baby. I am so grateful to everyone who came and for their generosity. I also need to thank the dads, grandparents and baby-sitters for looking after all the little ones so the mamas in the group could celebrate with me. Thank you!