Babybison's Running Themed Shower

On Easter, my family threw a shower for babybison, with the most appropriate theme of running. From the invites, to the decorations, to the gifts, the focus was on the active life babybison and her parents are going to have. It was ADORABLE! I was absolutely blown away by the cuteness of it all and the work my family put into making the day special for us parents-to-be. Here are a few highlights from this amazing day:

1. The invite. For a few years, I was the only runner in the family. Then Adam got into it, then my Dad picked running up again, then my Mom, then my cousin Anna-Lisa introduced us to her great boyfriend Jason who is the fastest by far of us all and at this point Anna-Lisa and her sister Karin have become runners in their own rights as well. My sister-in-law, Jill and my niece Gwyn recently did their first race down in the Carolinas. So it's fair to say we are a running family at this point, so the shower theme was absolutely perfect!

2. The decor. When I walked into my Uncle Scott and Aunt Kelly's house I was rendered speechless by all the cute items they had set up. First was the diaper cake that my Aunt Donna made. This thing is too cute! A three tired cake make of diapers with shoes and socks on every level as well as a race medal. It's proudly displayed in our living room so babybison's first visitors can see it as well:) Other neat activities included a bib making station and a family tree where each family member made a green leaf on the tree with their thumbprints.

Diaper cake!

First steps today, marathon tomorrow!

Even the water was themed!

3. The games. A few weeks prior to the shower my Aunt Kelly emailed me to ask how many miles babybison had run this far. I thought it was a really fun question and I almost immediately set about doing the calculations (using my dailymile log) to see how many miles she had run, biked, and swum. The totals at the time of the shower were 521 miles run, 224 miles biked and 24 miles swum. I'll be sure to post her final stats after delivery. The game was to guess these answers, with the additional hint of candy jars with the number of candy pieces equalling the number of miles. So fun!

4. The scavenger hunt. Next, we headed out on an Easter and running themed scavenger hunt. With my cousin, Braden, happily helping me with the clues, I was able to find all of the eggs with adorable and useful baby gifts inside. The clues were carefully crafted- I'm actually not 100% sure I'd have found them all without Braden's not-so-subtle clues (like "this way" or "not that way"). The hunt ended with a run to the finish line where all of the extended Monson side family members, including those who live too far away to make it to the shower, were outlined in chalk drawings.

Me, Braden, Aly and the Boomer-dog

Braden leads the charge. Jason helpfully carried a box to hold the loot!

Much needed bottles!

Egg retrieval is a two person job!

Garrett, Jill, Gwyn and Karin here in spirit!

5. The gifts. The gifts ranged from adorable to running themed to useful to all 3 at once! In the spirit of this being a running blog, I must give special mention to Anna-Lisa and Jason for finding this hilarious book on running called "C is for Chafing". It's an alphabet book but each letter is running themed. For example, "D is for DNF" and shows a picture of a guy in the bushes with the caption "his GI tract is churning". I look forward to having Adam explaining GI tract distress to babybison! "O is for 'oh,no'" with a picture of a guy losing his breakfast at the finish line with the caption "this means you ran too hard!" It's hilarious.

The whole shower was absolutely incredible. The time and thought my aunts and cousins put into the theme, the activities, and everyone's thoughtful and cute gifts- it was really touching. My family's excitement about babybison's arrival really reminded me to step back and spend some time being excited- with all the various physical aspects of actually being pregnant (exercise and eating modifications, etc)  and the preparations for babybison's arrival it's easy to forget we're actually going to meet this little person in just a few weeks. Or really, any day! With me being 36 weeks and 2 days, we should be living each day knowing it could be the day! Crazy.

I'm so grateful to have such a great group of people to call my family. Adam, babybison, and I are very lucky indeed.