Dylan's Baby Shower

Well, I guess since Dylan is here now it's high time I got around to posting about the shower we had for him back in September!
My younger sister was the mastermind behind the plan, and all our aunties were the geniuses that found two identical tents for under $20 a piece and got them to my house on time. I was in charge of figuring out how to turn my backyard into the "Arabian Nights" that my sister had imagined, and actually putting it all together! (No, that makes is sound like I did ALL the work, which I totally didn't because my sister Sarah totally came through to help with decorating inside the tents!)

The weather forecast the day of the baby shower called for passing showers in the afternoon, ending in the evening. While that's not ideal for a tent party, I figured we could work it out. We DID have "waterproof" tents after all!

I forgot to take a picture of them actually setup, but here is one of them after I tried to set it up by myself earlier in the week. (I took a lunch break, the wind picked up and, well... that's it upside down.) But you see, should be fine for passing showers, right? Well...
Round about 3:00 those passing showers turned into torrential downpour! So one of the anties ran out and bought every tarp in Target, which we draped over both tents.

Looks nice, huh? Well, we dressed it up a bit. Leading down to the tent we had candles and lanterns lighting the way.

Sarah and I risked life and limb climbing on ladders in the downpour to string up twinkle lights from tree to tree.

That shot is from the house, so it looks miniature... but it looked really nice from in the tents. Which is where the really good stuff was!

Now, I have to tell you that I don't have any very good pictures of inside because I was so busy (and wet) that I didn't grab my own camera. Everyone else had theirs, and I figured I'd clean up and take some shots in the daylight on Sunday. But then... oh, then... well, let me show you the pictures I was able to convince people to send (a remarkably difficult thing to do with a new family member on its way!) before I finish that story.

The front half of the tent was the buffet area.

The back half of the tent was the lounging/dining area.

We put down tarps and then layered those with rugs and piles of pillows of all shapes and sizes. I don't really have good shots of the back half, but you get the idea!

We hung tapestries over all the walls, and draped the ceiling with sarees.

The tents were lit with the candelabra over the dining table, twinkle lights and paper lanterns in the lounging area, and tea lights on the coffee table (which the flowers in the foreground are sitting on.)

You can see there how wet everything had gotten in the 20 minutes it took us to get those tarps up! Fortunately an abundant supply of shawls and pillows kept everyone comfy and dry.

Dinner was a selection of Mom-to-be's favorite comfort foods:

Lasagna, garlic bread, simple green salad, mom's mac' n' cheese, and beef stew!

Everyone seemed to have fun despite the difficulties. Here's the mom-to-be-buried in presents:

Opening took awhile since everything had to be modeled!

All in all the evening was a pretty good success. The rain let up just before dinner was to be served in the tent, and stayed away until after everyone had trouped back up to the house for slumber party time.

And then, OH! and then... well, a couple people were so impressed with the tents that they decided to inflate some mattresses and sleep out there. Which was really cool! Until... about midnight the rain started really coming down again. And it must have pooled up quite a bit, because around 2 AM one corner of the front tent collapsed, spilling water over the sleeping people, rugs, pillows and everything! So you see now why the only pictures I have of the party are the sad ones:

That blue tent isn't supposed to be so lopsided...

And thank goodness we had three days of good strong sunshine to dry out all those rugs!

We are now all affectionately referring to this event as the Baby Monsoon!