Baby Shower

Last Sunday (April 6th) we had our baby shower, with the help of Erika and Simon.

The shower was a great success, largely thanks to Erika and Simon's help and efforts, and it proved to be a very beautiful and memorable day for us.

The top photo is a flower arranged by Erika. 

I love the tiny socks hung from the line ;-)

Close-up of the flowers...:


Close-up further... Hey! There is a little bird perching on a flower and looking up at baby socks :-)



Amar was in charge of making NZ scones. He kicked off at 7:30AM and, before 10AM, he had baked 3 batches of scones (2 batches of plain scones and 1 batch of cheese scones).


I was in charge of baking cookies for "thank-you gifts" for the guests - I made three kinds, ANZAC biscuits (from NZ), chocolate & almond biscottis (from Anneli's recipe), and Earl Grey tea cookies (from a recipe in my Japanese baking cookbook), 6 batches in total. (I had baked them the day before.)


I packed these cookies in small bags and tied curling ribbons:

And I made a little thank-you note to go along with each package, in which I mentioned why I chose to bake ANZAC biscuits: "ANZAC biscuits, which are primarily made of oatmeal, coconuts and golden syrup, were allegedly made by Australian and New Zealander women for the Australian and NZ Army Corps (ANZAC) during WWI. In Australia and NZ, they eat these biscuits on ANZAC Day (April 25th), a day to commemorate the soldiers who fought for the war... And this date just happens to be our baby's due date!"

Erika was in charge of making salad and quiches --- she had prepared the pie dough for 5 quiches the day before, prebaked them on the day's morning, and finished baking the quiches at our place. Simon was in charge of decorating the house --- and so Erika and Simon came to our place around 11AM, and worked all the way through until 3PM, when the guests started to show up.


Everybody loved and complimented on Amar's NZ scones, and Erika's quiches and salad. They were all really delicious!


Portraits of some of the guests:

(We had about 30 guests including children, so the pictures here captured only some of them. But as things turned out, we couldn't take photos of everyone --- so they are all we have.)

After enjoying food and chatting came the time of the party's highlight --- GIFT-OPENING!

There were so many gifts put in front of us, and it was really "as if the birthday and Christmas and the New Year's Day had come all at once" :-)

When I was about to start opening the gifts, Amar stopped me to greet and say thank you to everyone for coming to our baby shower, which I found great and was grateful to him later. My only regret is, however, that I (we) forgot to say thank you to Erika and Simon in front of everyone, mentioning how much time and efforts they have devoted for organizing and preparing for our shower. So, Erika and Simon, let us thank you here at least, so that the guests of the day can see how great you two are and how much we appreciate your friendship.

These two pictures above are from Mayuko

Opening the gifts...  ... and look at this happy smile on my face ;-)


And here are all the gifts collected together on our big dining table --- despite its big size, the table is almost full with so many lovely gifts!



It was really a wonderful day for both of us, and we truly are grateful to all the guests for sharing our joy, anticipation and excitement, as well as their lovely gifts. 

And above all, we want to say thank you again to Erika and Simon for making this happen --- we would have never been able to have such a beautiful and wonderful baby shower without your help!