Showering for 4, Part III: The Games

This was the logo made for the shower and used on the Evite and signs outside. Look familiar?

Game #1: Everyone had a picture on their backs of a famous set of twins (e.g. Luke & Leia), a famous parent of twins (e.g. Julia Roberts), or a famous person that has a twin, whether or not they're known for having a twin (e.g. Justin Timberlake). They then asked other people yes or no questions to figure out the identity of their pictures. I had Ricky Martin who apparently is the father of twins, and I thought was of medium difficulty. I thought Mark had the hardest one with Ann Landers and Dear Abby, just because it's hard to guess their field (not acting, sports, or music), until I saw Drew's. He had Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski who, as everybody knows, are the President and Former Prime Minister of Poland.

The eyes? The cheekbones? Come on! Who doesn't know that Lech and Jaroslaw are twins?

Game #2: Baby bingo! While Mark and I opened gifts everyone got a bingo card with the spaces occupied by a combination of 1) gifts we might receive (onesies, blankets, something with elephants) and 2) things I might say when opening gifts. I never realized how often I started sentences with "sadly," "thankfully," and "in my defense."

Oddly enough I didn't mention Patrick Swayze even once. Well... until I got this:

But that's just baiting me.

Mark's mom sent us adorable crocheted animals.

Mark off a space on your Bingo card if you have "something with lions."

It's a zoo... plus a dinosaur!

The prizes for the games were socks with crazy prints inspired by my own odd collection of socks, which includes eyeball socks, toe socks (one has cow spots and the toes are udders), as well as socks for nearly every holiday.

Game #3: This was a The Price Is Right style pricing game where we had to rank 12 baby items in order from most to least expensive, and also guess their prices. I think Mark had the second lowest score (you can tell who made the registries).

This card shows the answers, but who knew diaper cream was so spendy?

We ran out of time on our club room reservation so we continued the festivities in our apartment and played the final game. (Unfortunately there wasn't enough time for Lila's chocolate fondue.)

Game #4: Because of my love of TV in general, and 80s sitcoms in particular, Brendan put together two sitcom quizzes. (He and Lila also made TV based games for our bridal shower and one of these was later integrated into Brendan and Jon's awesome online game, Celebrity Guess Who.) The first quiz dealt with identifying the type of floorplan different sitcoms had - whether the kitchen was on the left or on the right of the living room. The floorplans were taken from this site. For the second quiz we were given a blank map of the U.S. and a list of sitcoms and told to identify the city where each show took place. (My favorite two things - geography and TV!) The actual quiz is here. The answers were taken from this site. (There's also a cool map also just showing New York City shows.)

The favors were packets of tea with commemorative "evil David Hasselhoff" seals.

Does KITT also have an evil twin with a goatee?

Showering for 4, Part II: The Attendees and a Photo Essay on Elliott's Mouth

Unfortunately from my limited bed rest sofa vantage point I missed out on getting good pictures of many in attendance including Lila, Kelsi, Brendan, April, Drew, Heidi, Alison, Raelle, and Zack.

Some pictures of the attendees:


Rachel holds a package with a message she transcribed from her four year old daughter.:
"Dear MarKathy, I hope you love your babies. We're making a present just for you. -Raelle"

Lindsey's mom, April, told her she could touch my belly as long as she was very gentle.


Lindsey's dad and local politico, Bryan, with his son Brady.


Rivven as the youngest person ever to wear a Richard Simmons costume. (Halloween was the day before.)

I like to think she was inspired by my Halloween costume from last year. (Mark was the woman who claimed that someone carved a B into her cheek (for Barack) after seeing her McCain bumper sticker, a.k.a. the world's most last minute costume.)

More Lindsey.


Heidi's dog, Strider, is clearly thrilled to be here.



Strider's not sure what to make of Mark's lumbering zombie walk.


I read a card from my mother-in-law while Mark opens the gift.


Justin.

And now, a photo essay on Elliott's mouth:

Uh-oh. Tim holds his son, Elliott whose mouth looks like it could be full of something...

Phew. I guess it was a false alarm.

Maybe not...

Next time... Part III: The Games

Showering for 4, Part I: Baby Shower for My Evil Twins

When I was in the hospital during my first pre term labor scare at the beginning of October, we asked our friends to postpone the baby shower they'd planned until after the babies were born. At the time, my prognosis indicated there was a good chance I wouldn't even make it to 10/25, the original shower date, and I was supposed to be on strict bed rest the remainder of my pregnancy anyway (so no leaving the apartment). But then of course I was released to go home on modified bed rest when it was discovered I had a magical shrinking cervix. Baby shower back on!

Mark with me wearing a "Mom to Be" sash and a dress that looked cute on me a month and a half earlier, but resembled a tent by the time of the shower.

The only problem was that the club room in our complex was no longer available on 10/25. (The club room - a big nice room with a living area, kitchen, and seating ideal for large parties - usually costs $70/hour, but last time we negotiated our lease I got one free use of the club room thrown in. I actually had a potential future baby shower in mind!) So we scheduled the shower for the following weekend, 11/1. The timing was really lucky because I ended up in the hospital for part of the day on the original date (a brief pre term labor scare), and then I had an extendo hospital stay starting 11/11.

Of course I was still on modified bed rest during the shower so I spent most of the time on one of the couches, but I could still enjoy everyone's company.

My typical baby shower position, splayed out on the couch. It's hard to read in this picture, but the pretty sign above me says "Happy Twins to You." I may reuse it in the nursery...

Lila, Rachel, and Kelsi organized a great shower with lots of elements customized to us. There was pizza from one our favorite places, Speederia, which is too far for us to drive to while I'm on bed rest; Matthew made his famous lemonade (alas, gestational diabetes!); and there was also a yummy salad and a pitcher of water made fancy with fresh fruit.

This sign was inspired by the one I made for Mark's birthday in March, whch in turn was inspired by...

...this sign from an episode of The Office in which Dwight was in charge of birthday decorations.

There were pictures of evil twins all over the room. It was an awesome theme. Perhaps they'll end up in the nursery as well...


My favorite evil twin picture.


Next time... Part II: The Attendees and a Photo Essay on Elliott's Mouth