Spring Baby Shower

Spring and new life go hand in hand. With the buds on the trees and the flowers peeking up through the soil it seems like the whole world is starting to wake up.

So when HGTV Gardens asked me to create a Spring Baby Shower table setting the first thing that came into my mind was celebrating new life and the joy of ‘nesting’.

This mama bird made out of flowers is guarding her babies and anticipating their arrival. This centerpiece was so fun to make and really could be used for any spring gathering or even for your Easter celebrations.

I think her ice cream cone nose and blueberry eyes are my favorite!

Little nests adorn each place setting along with a packet of seeds which make the perfect gift for guests.

I’ll never forget how very surreal it felt to be attending my own baby shower after the adoption of our son. Up to that point, baby showers had become a very painful experience. I always tried so hard to be happy for the new mama and to rejoice with them in their joy, but honestly there were many times when I just sat in my car afterwards and wept over my own empty arms.

One Spring afternoon I was driving home through the pouring rain and dreading another upcoming baby shower. I honestly didn’t think I could endure one more game of ‘guess how big my belly is’ or being asked if I wanted to feel someone elses’ baby kicking knowing that I would never get to experience that.

As I drove past the fields lining the highway, I noticed the sun beginning to shine through the clouds.

And then it happened.

The absolutely most perfect rainbow I had ever (or have ever since) seen, formed right over me. It almost seemed like it was following me the whole way home.

It was a reminder.

A reminder of a promise. Not the promise of a baby. Or the promise of a pain-free life.

But the promise by God to never leave me or forsake me.

I didn’t care if all of the other drivers on the road could see it or not, that was MY rainbow.

It brought me a peace that truly did surpass understanding because it made absolutely no sense that I would feel peace in the midst of that deep pain. But I did.

3 months later I attended another baby shower. Only this time, it was mine. And as we played goofy games and opened gifts and cried big ol’ crocodile tears over the miracle of the adoption of the most precious boy in the whole wide world, I couldn’t help but think of that rainbow. That promise.

He didn’t leave me. He didn’t forsake me.

Instead, He gave me the greatest gift.

And then, 4 years later, He did it again when we adopted our beautiful daughter.

These days, baby showers are no longer painful. Sure, they can still feel a little bittersweet. There are things that I will never be able to relate to that other women have experienced.

But I know the truth. The baby shower isn’t really representative of motherhood. It’s just a party with super adorable teeny-tiny clothes, great food and lots of talking.

Motherhood is something else altogether.

It’s crawling across the floor on your hands and knees so you can peer up over the crib railing at your sleeping baby because you don’t want to wake them up but you do want to check (for the 10th time that night!) to see if they are still breathing.

It’s stopping every 5 minutes when you are on a walk to marvel at that neat rock…and THAT neat rock…and THAT neat rock…

It’s having tea parties where you wear funny hats and raise your teacup and say ‘cheers’ to the stuffed elephant sitting to your left.

It’s watching a 30 minute video on subtracting fractions so you can then turn around and try and explain it to your 5th grader.

Baby showers are a blip on the page of motherhood. They are a sweet and beautiful blip, but a blip nonetheless.

And that’s what they should be.

Because it’s those rainbows that really matter. The promises and the prayers and the hard stuff and the sweet stuff and everything in between.

So now, that’s what baby showers really represent to me.

They are simply a grand send off into the ‘real’ party.

Of course, we want that grand send off to be as special as possible though, right?

So to see more details from this Spring Baby Shower and for full instructions for how to make the flower bird centerpiece, head on over to HGTV Gardens!