Baby Shower in a Box!

The week before Finn's arrival, we FINALLY received our baby shower in a box! I say finally because that box took quite the trip around the world. My friend Anna, also known as hostess with the mostest, came up with this idea, organized the shower and mailed off the box in mid-FEBRUARY.  I know we live in Germany, but it normally takes about ten days to two weeks for things from the East Coast to arrive. Instead, this box went to Amman, Jordan, Baghdad and then back to the United States before arriving in Berlin two months after it left Pensacola.  Quite the traveler!

Anyways, we had a blast at our shower, even though everyone was around the world.  I didn't know much about the contents of the box, but kept hearing bits and pieces about it from various friends and family members, all of whom were having a blast completing their tasks at hand. Anna literally thought of a way to bring every part of a normal baby shower to us, even if our friends and family weren't there.

Around Christmas, I sent Anna a list of guests that I would like to invite and their addresses and around the new year, she sent out a package of activities to each guest.  Each package included

• an invitation to the shower
• a wooden shape for decorating
• a paper onesie with well wishes for the baby on it
• a card where they could guess the birth date, baby's weight, and height
• two newborn diapers where guests wrote messages for us to read during late night feedings
• instructions on how to participate in the shower

Guests were given a deadline to complete their activities and mail it back to Anna.  Then, once Anna received all of the packages, she packaged them all up with a few extra things for me, including decorations for our apartment and instructions on what to do. 

Then, when the package arrived, it was shower time! Anna had created a Facebook event and I invited all of the guests to join the group.  Since we hadn't told anyone the name, I had asked for name guesses earlier in the week.  Reading them was hilarious because some were so outrageous, but others might be added to our list if we have another baby boy.  Anyways, we also set a date and time for the event and then when the time came, I logged on to Facebook Live and started the shower. 

Mike joined me and was a big help! I don't think he was too interested in it at first, but got into it as we started reading people's responses.   It was so amusing reading everyone's responses.  The late night diaper messages were hilarious, the well wishes were endearing and Mike had fun filling in a calendar for people's due date, height and weight guesses.  There were lots of inside jokes and pop culture references, as well as many loving and thoughtful wishes, all of which made us smile and laugh.  I had already opened the gifts that people sent us since our due date was quickly approaching, so I gave our viewers a little tour of our house with all of the various baby items scattered about.

Once we come out of the newborn fog and I'm not nursing around the clock, we are going to hang up his alphabet over our nursing station. 

I'm going to use some ribbon to tie these all together as a little keepsake for Finn to read once he gets older.

We ended with many thanks to all of our friends and family for helping shower our little guy with so much love! While we would have loved to celebrate in person with everyone, the combination of us living abroad and our friends and family living all over the world, that was nearly impossible.  This was the perfect solution!!

Luckily for you, Anna has an Etsy shop where she sells her Baby Shower in Box kits, as well as kits for bridal showers and birthday parties.  I know I'm a little biased, but this is such a great idea for military friends, family who lives far away, and anyone who has friends or family far and wide!