101 Dalmatians Baby Shower

I can't believe that my sister's baby shower was FIVE months ago or that it's taken me this long to share her party with you. Honestly, I started thinking about what type of shower I wanted to throw before she was even pregnant. As she's a teacher, my initial inclination was to plan a Dr. Seuss themed party and I even started pinning all sorts of food and decorating ideas.

Then, she found out she was having a boy. I knew a small part of her was secretly hoping she would have a girl because all of her nursery ideas were girly and she seemed really upset about the "boy" options. I started looking around and stumbled across this set.

My sister was extremely attached to a Pongo stuffed animal her whole childhood so I knew she would fall in love with it. Of course, I was totally right. I decided to embrace the dalmatian vibe and carry the theme over into the shower.

At first, I was a bit frustrated because it was much harder to find inspiration for a dalmatian party. There are tons of Dr. Seuss baby showers splattered across the internet, but very few featuring dalmatians. Many of the ideas you'll see below were completely my own after hours of brainstorming. In the end, I was SO GLAD that I made the change. I loved the decorations and food choices that my mom and I came up with and thought the party was a super sweet way to celebrate my sister and my soon-to-arrive nephew.

Be Our Guest
I found the idea for my invitations on Etsy and really wanted to just order them and let someone else do the work. Unfortunately the creator closed her shop and was not taking orders. This resulted in me spending HOURS re-creating the idea in paint and powerpoint programs. Once I was satisfied with my work, I ordered the invites from Vistapint. I was ecstatic with the outcome, they looked great! I used the same fonts and colors to create stickers for the favors.

Front

Back

Sticker for favors

Food
101 Dalmatians takes place in England, so my idea was for the main course of the meal to be like an afternoon tea with small sandwiches, salads, chips in fancy paper cones, and a pitcher of citrus brewed tea. For appetizers I went with multiple "puppy chow" mixes and a "dalmatian" cheese ball with crackers and veggie sticks. Finally, I created a dessert table with a 6 layer dalmatian cake, dipped oreos decorated to match the theme, and sugar cookies shaped like bones that were individually wrapped as favors.

Cookies and Cream Puppy Chow

Red Velvet Puppy Chow

Chex Mix

Snacks served in dog food bowls from the Dollar Tree

Lunch Buffet

Finger sandwiches featuring turkey and bacon, ham and cheese, tuna salad, chicken salad, and vegetarian hummus pitas with mayo, mustard, and pickles on the side 

Chips in paper cones (I LOVE paper cones...)

More chips

Baby greens salad, fruit salad, and pasta salad

Missing from photos was one of the foods I was most "proud of" as it was my own original idea - a white cheese ball (mixture of cream cheese, white cheddar, and ranch dressing mix) with sliced olives pressed into it to look like dalmatian spots!

Homemade 6 layer cake - frosted in butter cream with black fondant spots

Slice of cake

Top: treat bags with red candy balls and kisses with custom stickers reading "Katrina's baby shower"
Middle: Cups of cookies and cream ("dalmatian") ice cream were served with the cake
Bottom: Bone shaped cookie favors

Close-up of the favors

Chocolate dipped oreos

Decor
As you can see, this party was all about the dalmatian doggies. I used dog bowls from the Dollar Tree for food, made centerpieces out of empty cans to look like "Kanine Krunchies" (the dog food advertised in the 101 Dalmatians movie), and put a copy of the 101 dalmatians book on each table. My mom went a little ebay crazy and purchased about 50 little dalmatian happy meal toys that we also used for table decorations and for a game.

Table decor

Another shot of the centerpiece and decorations on each table

We used one copy of the book as a guest book, the others were given as favors to any kids attending the party

I love dessert tables. I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to different set-ups and ideas because I love them so much. For my sister's shower I had the idea to create a banner over my dessert table out of actual baby onesies instead of paper cut outs. I purchased 3-6 and 6-9 month size onesies in colors to match the party and used my Cricut to cut out the letters and circles.

Onesie banner with dalmatian print fabric backdrop and tissue paper border

Dessert Table Setup

Close-up of one of the onesies

My sister really seemed to enjoy the shower and I was so pleased with how all the planning turned out. Happily for us all her pregnancy ended with a planned c-section (due to my sister's pre-existing heart condition that needed monitoring) and I now have a beautiful, perfect nephew to celebrate the upcoming holidays with.

My sister and I
(baby bear was hanging out on my back while I bustled around setting up)

Gender Reveal Party

This has been a crazy thing for me to wrap my head around, but my little sister is having a baby! A few weeks ago she and her husband went for their 20 week ultrasound and decided to find out the baby's gender. She was very excited and wanted to have some type of fun way to tell us if the baby was a boy or girl. She came up with the idea of making cupcakes with either pink or blue frosting as her "big reveal", but ended up having to work longer hours (and wasn't feeling well) the day before the ultrasound.

I love to plan a party, even a small one, so I volunteered to make the cupcakes for her. I thought it would build more suspense if the cupcakes were colored and we actually had to unwrap/bite into them to see the color, so that's what I did!

I don't know how I managed to take every single photo at an awkward angle, but I did...

Vanilla cupcakes from this incredibly simple, but delicious recipe that  you mix  in the food processor

Pink and Blue!

Ready to bake...

Topped with a simple chocolate ganache to completely cover the cake and conceal the color!

My girls happened to be extra cooperative that day, so I had some fun setting up a little tablescape for her as well. This was a very small scale event (she was just "revealing" to myself, my husband, my daughter, and her step-kids), but could easily be adapted for a full family event!

Pink tablecloth, blue fabric "runner" from my fabric scrap bin, cupcakes on display, and pink/blue gift bags  with a small gender specific gift (baby hats!)

Mommy Tips: Breast-feeding basics

I skipped a week of mommy tips, but now I'm back again! Before I start a post like this I want to remind any readers that although I am a pediatrician and some of this advice inevitably comes from my medical knowledge and experience (it's impossible to separate mommy and MD when it comes to some issues), nothing you read on the internet should ever serve as a substitute to discussion with your own pediatrician! I offer these tips as mommy sharing, not medical advice.

1. If you know you want to nurse your baby, try to read up on it or meet with a lactation consultant ahead of time to give yourself some background. An easy book I read was put out by the American Academy of Pediatrics and had a lot of basic info. I also spent time with a hospital based lactation nurse learning about proper latch.
2. Let your delivery room nurse know you plan to breast feed and that you want to try to nurse your newborn as soon as possible after birth. Don't be afraid to remind them when the time comes. For both my deliveries the nurses were great advocates.
3. It will take time for your milk to come in (72 hours or more is normal!), but colostrum (early, yellow, fat amd calorie rich milk) is there right away. Keep trying to nurse every 2-3 hours to get your body stimulated to make more.
4. Make sure you drink plenty of water and eat enough food, breast-feeding places a lot of demands your body! I didn't do so well with this the first time around and my supply dropped because of it.
5. If you need to supplement formula in the beginning because of jaundice, excessive weight loss, or your baby is too hungry, it's OK. Don't beat yourself up! You can still catch up with the baby and get rid of the bottles in no time.
6. Be prepared for pain. Even if you have the perfect latch, it takes time for your nipples to "toughen up" and you will have to deal with soreness, cracking, and potentially bleeding. Have some lanolin on hand!
7. Even if you have a long maternity leave (or will be staying home), its a good idea to get the hang of breast pumping early so you have milk available if you need to be away (or want your partner to give the baby a bottle overnight so you can get a little more sleep!). I've used only Medela pumps (hospital grade, Pump in Style, and Freestyle), but hear good things about Avent brand as well. To save money, check with your local hospitals about pump rental and with your insurance company to see if a pump purchase is covered.
8. Pumping can be a lifesaver in the beginning once your milk comes in if you are becoming engorged or if you are lucky enough to have an awesome baby like mine who goes to bed at 8pm and doesn't wake up until at least 3am. I made the mistake of not pumping excess with my first, went back to work at 3 months, and ran through all of my excess milk by the time she was 5 months old. Living day to day with only what I pumped the day before was super stressful and pushed me to start solids sooner than I planned. This time I started pumping excess within the first week after birth and now have a stockpile of 40 bags (3-4oz per day) of frozen milk.
9. Use pumping to try and mimic the baby's feeding schedule to keep your supply up - if your baby nurses every 2-3 hours, pump that often too! If you have a job that makes that difficult (residency made it IMPOSSIBLE), do the best you can and try not to stress. The more you stress, the harder it will be to let down while pumping.
10. My safety tips for using pumped milk are as follows: use or freeze anything you store in the fridge within 72 hours, frozen milk is good for 3 months in a regular fridge/freezer or 6 months in a dedicated freezer, and thawed milk is only good for 24 hours.
11. When my supply dipped with my first baby (I tried the progestin birth control pills and was in residency which means I was not pumping nearly enough, was always tired, and wasn't staying well fed/hydrated), I took the herbal supplement called Fenugreek to boost my production. This stuff comes as a tea or as a capsule - I took the capsules and really thought it helped. I've also heard of drinking ONE very hoppy beer (IPAs work well) per day.
12. The best tip I can give overall is to be calm and enjoy yourself! Trust your body and your instincts about what is working for you and your baby. Breast-feeding is awesome nutrition for your baby and will definitely help you loose the baby weight and get yourself back into shape.

OK, I definitely have more tips, but I think this post is too long already. I am going to break this topic down and come back with breast-feeding tips that are more targeted (pain, pumping, weaning, supplies, etc) soon. Happy feeding for now!