Our oldest sister will be having a baby boy here in a couple of months, so we decided to gather with just the sisters and some close friends to celebrate! This is actually our sister’s seventh baby and sixth boy, so we just did a small baby shower(aka baby sprinkle) to honor this pregnancy and gift some fresh baby necessities.
As usual, we threw together some last-minute simple decorations and I think it turned out darling! If throwing a baby shower sounds stressful to you, we would like to encourage you to just throw perfection out the window. Focus on pleasing who you are doing it for. It’s all about the little details and making the mama-to-be feel special.
Baby Sprinkle vs. Baby Shower
So often, we see images of picturesque baby showers on social media. You can tell that hundreds of dollars was spent on the decor. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, especially if you can afford that! We also love to get inspiration by those Instagram accounts, but at the end of the day, the goal of a baby shower is to make sure that the mama feels seen, supported, and loved.
Our mother hosted this baby sprinkle. It was so nice to gather together at our parent’s house to celebrate their grandson that is due in May! All of us brought something to the table and helped decorate the space to surprise our sister with an evening dedicated to her.
It’s so much easier to put together a baby shower or sprinkle as a group effort. If you are hosting the event, it’s so much less stressful to delegate other close friends or family to bring something to the table. Usually everyone is wondering how they can help anyway. Do not feel bad asking for help with the food at all!
Another bonus to having a sprinkle instead of a full-blown shower is the quality time you spend with the pregnant mom and the cost. When you just invite all of the closest friends, it keeps the celebration more intimate and cheaper!
Vegetarian Menu
Our sister is a vegetarian, so we based our menu around that. We had vegetarian chili with fresh bread, fried fish with mashed potatoes, pinwheel sandwiches, sushi bake, fruits/berries, and desserts to go with tea. There was quite a spread of food to enjoy for dinner! There were also other snacks, like chips with salsas, nuts, and chocolates.
After enjoying the delicious dinner together, we all had lots of cups of tea with the delicious dessert. There were two different kinds of cakes and some cookies with almond flour. Our sister-in-law made an impressive cake that we cut into before snapping a photo. The other cake was a honey cake from our local Russian store that was melt-in-your-mouth tasty. The cookies was made by another older sister of ours. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos of the dessert, but it was all so beautiful and yummy!
Side note- I keep referencing all of my sisters and it can get confusing. If you’re wondering how many sisters we have, there are six of us in our family. There are always lots of helping hands when planning any party, as you can tell. 😉
Baby Shower Activities
Our cousin took charge of the activities at the baby sprinkle, and she did a wonderful job! We played some Bible-based games, like matching parents with their children in the Bible and guessing who said different verses from the Bible about children. Afterwards, we sang some songs together, as we usually do whenever we gather together. We sang some of our sister’s favorite hymns and also some lullabies in honor of the baby boy. We ended the night with opening all of the gifts and praying for our sister and blessing her with words of encouragement.
Honestly, I think that what we do at baby showers is way more important than how everything looks! Though the decorations add festivity, having a good time together, laughing, and blessing the pregnant mama is what matters most. We are not saying that decorations don’t matter, just that they’re not the only thing that matter!
Everyone probably knows that, but it is so easy to get carried away with how everything looks, instead of being in the present and enjoying the company of all of the women that gathered. Especially in today’s social media age where everything is shared online, the temptation to make everything look perfect and spend way over the budget is high. Though it’s nice to make the baby shower look pretty, that is not the ultimate goal of a baby shower or sprinkle.
Decorations
First of all, Inna arranged some gorgeous bouquets for this baby sprinkle and the flowers are what made the house feel so festive and joyful. She picked up most of the stems from Trader Joe’s, like the chamomiles, baby’s breath, hydrangeas, and the purple accents. We added in calla lilies from my front yard, which was special. The floral arrangements turned out whimsical and elegant at the same time!
Another sister had a balloon arch on hand, so we pumped up the balloons and hung it on the arch leading to the dining table. This added a fun touch that all of the children especially loved. We also hung up some baby boy outfits on the curtain rod in the living room, as seen in the beginning of this post. Lastly, we had this vintage wooden rocking horse, which was a cute accent on the dining table. This was the perfect baby sprinkle decor piece! Who knows, maybe the baby boy will be riding this rocking horse at Inna’s house in a year or two:)
We all had a lovely time together at our eldest sister’s baby sprinkle and it was fun to throw together some simple decorations and have a pot luck style vegetarian dinner! We hope to inspire you to focus on making celebrations about the people and time spent together instead of the Instagram photos and Pinterest-worthy decorations!
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