Chicago & Carmel Baby Shower Palooza

9.22-23.18

At exactly one month before our due date of 10.22, our family and friends showered us with love in Chicago and Carmel, IN :)

Steven’s sister, Karen, and my sister, Beth, threw us our shower in Carmel on Saturday, 9.22 at their home! With a blue elephant theme and many of our oldest and dearest friends in attendance, our hearts brimmed with joy. Karen prepared the most wonderful favors of “shower” supplies like deodorant, hand sanitizer, body wash, and chocolate with hand written notes. A friend from church, Becky, created the most decadent cake from scratch for us that literally looked like it came from a bakery! Our parents rose to the challenge of feeding 25+ people with a buffet of delicious food. My sister, Eunice, took over camera duty and Beth led our medley of fun games as emcee.

We were also especially touched by friends who traveled from out of state to celebrate with us! My friend, Elle, came over her 1 year wedding anniversary weekend from Ann Arbor, MI, and my friend, Zoe, flew all the way from Boston as this weekend luckily coincided with a weekend her grandma was in town! So blessed :)

Karen prepared a variety of fun activities like smell the “poopy” diaper to figure out what candy bar was smeared on it, “don’t say baby,” guess the flavor of baby food, signing onesies, advice cards, and our personal favorite, a baby bottle chugging content of beer for the boys and lemonade for the ladies. It was absolutely hysterical and WAY harder than it looks. Congrats to Zenas and Zoe for dominating in their respective rounds ;)

The following morning, we drove back to Chicago just in time for our lovely Chicago shower hosted by our dear small group leaders and friend, Love (with the help of our entire small group)! Our friend, Erin, generously let us use her building’s incredible party room, which has the most incredible skyline views of the city. Given Steven has always aspired to be a pilot, Love blew out the airplane theme with the most incredible airplane themed ideas!!

A fueling station (sangria, lemonade, sparkling cider), apple cider donut “lift rafts,” oreo truffle chocolate “runway,” a table to “drop off your luggage” (gifts), incredible homemade favors of little airplanes made from sticks of gum, smarties, and lifesavers connected with a rubber band, little veggie bell peppers that looked like trains, and so much more! Every detail was adorable and we LOVED having all of our closest Chicago friends there to celebrate!!!

So grateful for all of these sweet friends! Can’t believe the next time we see some of these people, we will be a family of three! #BabyChen is the luckiest and we love you all so much! <3