Planet of the Apels: The Summer of Celebrations (part II)

Next up on the list...showers.

After the two weddings in early June, I helped host two showers at the end of June...a baby shower and a wedding shower.

The first one I want to tell you about is Chelsea's Baby Shower, but before I do that I wanted to highlight her Gender Party Reveal that we helped with in March. (Heather blogged about it here, but some people have been asking me to put it on my blog so they could find it easier.)

My sister, Kyle, first told me about Gender Parties. She'd seen several blogs about them...and how they were the new way to celebrate and reveal the gender of your baby to family and friends.

Instead of finding out the gender at their appointment, Cody and Chelsea decided to have the sonographer write it down on a piece of paper and put in an envelope. After the appointment, they brought the envelope over to my house. I was oh, so honored to be trusted with the big surprise! (I didn’t even tell Charlie, though he tried to get it out of me…and then pretended like he didn’t want to know, anyway, after I refused…I was reveling in all the power I possessed for the few hours that day.)

I made the actual cake balls a few days before and doubled this recipe. To half of the batch, I added red food coloring to the crumbled cake and frosting mixture until it was a bright pink and to the other I added blue. My friend, Lindsay, helped me ice the cake balls on the afternoon of the party…okay, I’ll just be honest and say that I tried to ice several and they looked so sloppy...I think icing cake or cake balls is a gift and is definitely not one I possess…so I just let Lindsay ice the rest. As she was icing them, I pulled two blue cake balls and two pink cake balls aside and labeled the plates they were sitting on, since we iced these before "the envelope" was dropped off. I was so afraid I was going to get them confused and ruin the whole evening.

As guests arrived, they gave baby name suggestions for both genders. (And this baby was actually named with one of the suggestions given by Heather! How neat is that?)

Guests were instructed to wear BLUE...

or PINK according to what they thought this baby's gender was.

The pink and blue fare included:

I'm unashamedly copying the recipes directly from Heather's post.

Coffee Punch (dyed blue)
3 cups strong coffee

2 cups sugar

1 pint cream or half and half

1 quart milk

2 t. vanilla

Dissolve sugar in hot coffee. Cool. Add other ingredients. Freeze. Remove from freezer about 30 minutes before party. Mix and serve very icy. (I've mentioned this recipe before.)

Raspberry Limeade

1 can of raspberry lemonade concentrate

1 bottle of cold, carbonated lime water

1 bottle of cold, carbonated raspberry water

Mix those ingredients and enjoy!

(This Limeade is Aaron's specialty, except he uses all lime everything instead of raspberry...but Chels needed a pink drink so she substituted, accordingly. This was my beverage of choice when I was pregnant with Asher and it was responsible for 28 lbs of the 50 lbs that I gained with him. Thank you, Aaron.)

You can see how the inside of the blue cake calls were kind of oozing out, Lindsay triple-dipped the cake balls that Chelsea and Cody would be biting into, so they'd have no idea until they bit into them. These were just for all the guests to eat so we weren't as particular. (Recipe at the beginning of this post.)

Jello Squares

3 small boxes of Jello

(3 watermelon for pink, 3 blue raspberry for blue)

3 Knox Gelatin envelopes

heavy whipping cream

Mix the Jello and the Knox Gelatin together (this will be dry). Add 3.5 cups hot water. Add 1/2 pint heavy whipping cream. Stir. Pour in a 9x13 pan. Refrigerate. The cream will separate and go to the top. Cut and serve. (To say that these were a HUGE hit with the kids would be quite an understatement. Chelsea's carpet can attest.)

Pink Party Salad

1 can strawberry pie filling

1 (8 0z.) cool whip

1 small can crushed pineapple (drain)

1 can eagle brand milk

1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Mix all of that together and refrigerate a couple hours before you serve it.

Blueberry Dump Cake

2 cans of blueberry

small can of crushed pineapple

1 yellow cake mix

butter

Pour the blueberries and pineapple in the bottom of a pan, then pour a yellow cake mix on top of that mixture. Melt 1 stick of butter and pour on top of the cake mix. Don't stir. Bake at 350 for about an hour.

Chelsea bought the pink and blue packages of white chocolate chips from Hobby Lobby to coat the pretzel rods.

Then...the moment everyone was waiting for...after all the guests arrived, I handed Cody and Chelsea the appropriately colored cake balls as everyone gathered for the big reveal!

And it was...