Last weekend, the small group I belong to hosted a baby shower for the daughter-in-law of one of us. It was so lovely and seemingly effortless that I want to share it with you.
We didn't want the grandma-to-be to have to do anything, so the rest of us divided up the tasks. The gal whose home we used, assigned duties to the rest of us.
She in turn had a lovely table ready complete with beautiful fresh cut pink tulips.
She also had a couple of pink balloon bouquets around. (Yes, the expected baby is a girl!) She went with the pink and white theme all the way down to the serving dishes, pitchers, and the paper plates and napkins. As the hostess, she also provided lemonade, coffee & tea. One more sweet thing she did was make party favors in the form of little white boxes tied with pink bows, and inside, Hershey kisses. And if that weren't enough, the talented hostess also handmade the invitations and got them mailed.
Another lady in our group was assigned the task of receiving the rsvp's. She kept the rest of us posted on how many to expect so we could plan our food contributions accordingly. We ended up with about 25 ladies.
Another gal was in charge of the dessert, and she decided on two awesome cakes baked and decorated by her talented daughter. One was yellow with a lemon curd filling, and the other chocolate with raspberry filling.
I was given the task of deciding the menu, then assigning items to be furnished by each one.
Here's what I came up with:
chicken salad sandwiches on mini croissants
fresh veggies and dill dip
fresh fruit cups drizzled with key lime pie flavored yogurt
What do you think?
We had a party game ready in case we needed it, but as it turned out we didn't. There was plenty of good conversation, good food, and lots of gifts to be opened!
Finally, all of us turned in our receipts to the hostess, who then divided up the total cost of everything and five of us shared the expenses equally.
A lovely shower, a beautiful day, and a very special brand new mother-to-be!
Here's how I made the chicken salad:
I took 12 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cut them in half. Then I put a large pot on the stove filled 2/3 full with water and brought it to a rolling boil. I then dropped the chicken into the water and let it come back to a boil. Next, I shut the heat off and covered the pot, allowing the chicken to poach for about 10-15 minutes. It is done when the chicken is white all the way through. Next, I took the chicken out of the water and allowed it to cool. While the chicken was cooling, I chopped a couple small onions and about 2/3 of a bunch of celery finely in my food processor. I then cut the chicken up in small pieces and mixed the chicken, celery and onion in a bowl with Hellman's mayonnaise, enough to cover. I then added a little salt and pepper to taste.
