The Baby Shower

The baby shower is over--hallelujah! Here's a summary of how it turned out:

This is the invitation. My father-in-law did the cute illustration of the baby and they turned out really well I thought.
Last minute, we decided to make creme brulee french toast (instead of quiche) and it was a hit! We were first introduced to this recipe during our 4th of July celebration we had at Noah's Uncle Bud's cabin. It is super easy, all preparation is done the night before (all you do is bake it the morning you intend on using it), and it's so tasty! Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons corn syrup
6 (1 inch thick) slices French bread
5 eggs
1 1/2 cups half-and-half cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon brandy-based orange liqueur (Grand Marnier or orange juice)
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Mix in brown sugar and corn syrup, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Pour into a 9x13 inch baking dish.
2. Remove crusts from bread, and arrange in the baking dish in a single layer. In a small bowl, whisk together eggs, half and half, vanilla extract, orange brandy, and salt. Pour over the bread. 3. Cover, and chill at least 8 hours, or overnight.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Remove the dish from the refrigerator, and bring to room temperature.
5. Bake uncovered 35 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven, until puffed and lightly browned.

We topped the french toast with sliced fresh strawberries (no need to add sugar), and sliced almonds.

My sister-in-laws made these booties (which are a royal pain in the neck to make) for our party favors. They turned out great! We filled each bootie with Hershey kisses wrapped in toole. The pattern for these is below. Here's how to do it: We printed the pattern out on 8 1/2 x 13 card stock, folded them using a bone folder so the creases were well defined, punched small holes for the laces, glued them together with a hot glue gun, laced them up with thin ribbon, and used a make-up sponge to antique them with dark brown ink.

We had the shower in my backyard. under the only tree that provided shade.
This was the table. We served our guests the french toast and orange juice/ water, then they dished themselves the fruit, bagels, and cream cheese. I finally got to use my table cloth I got for my wedding 7 years ago and found a plastic cover for it at Wal Mart in the fabric section of all places (you don't want to spill creme brulee carmel on your best table cloth). We bought the flowers at Costco. Rather than play stupid games, we just visited at ate. Things turned out really well.