As some of you may already know—and others of you might be finding out for the first time—Maya is expecting a little bundle of joy in January 2010. So, being the girls that we are here at Southgate Coins, we decided that we wanted to surprise Maya with a celebration for the coming birth of her daughter. Read on to see how we schemed and planned for the event and to hear how fun the party was.
I (Crystal) love baby showers, and ever since Maya told me about her pregnancy, I’ve wanted to throw a baby shower for her. So, when Marie pulled me aside and told me we needed to throw Maya a baby shower, I was just tickled with joy. Marie was the ringleader from the start: setting it up so that the shower would be on a Saturday, so she could trick Maya into thinking she wanted to go Christmas shopping with her. Rusty and Marie scheduled the party to be at their house. Marie intended to give us (Nicole, Cara and me) her garage door opener so we could park in the garage. However, even with all the planning, we forgot to get it from Marie. Luckily, Rusty asked about the garage door opener—to which we replied that we didn’t have one—and he gave us his to use. Thanks, Rusty. If you didn’t remind us, we would have been surprising Maya in the front yard! After that, all went well and we surprised Maya when she came into Marie’s house—under the guise of seeing Marie’s new remodeled kitchen. See how sneaky it all was!?
The night before the party (Friday 11/13/2009) I went shopping with Marie to pick up the cake from the Nothing Bundt Cake shop. After picking up the cake, we went to Scolari’s and got some of Maya’s favorite drinks for the party. We were then off to Marie’s house to do some pre-shower setup
On the Saturday of the party, after Marie left to go “Christmas shopping” with Maya. Cara, Nicole and me closed up shop, and hightailed it to Marie’s house to finish the last-minute setup and hide out for the big surprise. And surprised Maya was! She had no clue what was going on when she walked into Marie’s house. Finally, the girl that is always in on the scheming side of things was truly surprised.
We started the party off with gift giving. Marie seemed to get anything purple-colored for the expected baby girl—purple is also Maya’s favorite color. There were pajamas, and soft, fuzzy blankets—and spit-up blankets—a little Peter Rabbit plushy toy and Mrs. Potter’s Peter Rabbit book, and Marie’s very favorite children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit.
Then it was my turn. I gave Maya a hot-pink boppy pillow for her and the baby. Cara was the next one to present her gifts to Maya. One of them was something that every parent needs—a pack-n-play. Along with the pack-n-play, Cara got Maya a book to help build the baby’s library called Love You Forever, and a cute stuffed giraffe plushy toy. Nicole presented her gifts last. One was a picture frame that will display the baby’s foot and hand prints on either side. She also contributed to the baby’s library with two Disney books: The Little Mermaid and Cinderella. Of course, she also had to give the baby her first bib, which is pink and leopard print, with Girls Rule printed on it. So many presents for a little girl not even born yet.
Now, here’s Nicole to tell you how she schemed for the party and about the fun games that we played.
Getting ready for Maya’s big surprise took much preparation and participation from each of the girls (except Maya of course). My part of our devious surprise party was to pick up the necessary food and balloons, and to organize the fun games we were to play! I was the only one at Southgate that didn’t have to work that Saturday, so everything flowed together perfectly allowing me to spend the day ordering food and getting everything together.
My first stop was of course the baby store, because as everyone probably already knows, I’m very-last-minute and I still hadn’t even gotten the new mom-to-be a gift yet! Baby shopping was definitely a new experience for me!
After that, I ran to various stores getting supplies for our games and I picked up Maya’s pink and white balloons.
For the food, Marie, being the sweetheart she is, gave me money earlier that week, and we decided to go with some of Maya’s favorite appetizers: Buffalo wings and Skillet Queso dip from Chili’s Restaurant. We also got an amazing pizza from Brugo’s, which we all love.
I very soon had a car full of delicious smelling food, making my stomach twist with hunger, pink balloons that were taking over my little car, and what minimal space I had remaining held a jumble of presents, ribbon and tissue paper (of course I wrapped everything in my car haha).
As 3 o’clock rolled around, I went stalker-status in the McDonald’s parking lot, waiting for Marie to take Maya away for a supposed day of “Christmas shopping.” Finally, I got the call that they were gone and I hurried to the store to help Cara and Crystal close. We then transferred all the goodies from my car to Cara’s. Then we were off racing to Marie and Rusty’s house, and after several u-turns, we got there in plenty of time to set up for the big surprise.
Cara will discuss with you later about all the yummy food and cake, but I’m going to now share with you about the fun little games we played after we all ate! First, I had filled a jar full of pink (of course) M&Ms and topped it off with a pink cheetah-print ribbon. I made everyone guess how many were in it. These games are always fun because the number is always so unexpected! Maya guessed the lowest with 150 M&Ms, and Marie was the highest with 350 M&Ms. After Cara and I quickly counted them, it was quite entertaining to find out there were actually 453 M&Ms! We were all way off in our estimates! Next, we played “How good are you?” where we all had to guess when the baby’s birth date and birth time would be, and what her length and weight would be. This was a lot of fun for all of us because we all had very different guesses! We let Maya keep all of our estimate sheets, so when the day actually comes she can see who was the closest!
Next, the most fun we had was the baby-name game. We had 2 minutes to try to come up with a baby girl’s name starting with A and ending with Z. The trick was we couldn’t pick the same name as anyone else, or we lost a point! We all were amused by some of the silly names we came up with, which included Bertha, Helga, Oprah, and Ursula. Of course, the mom-to-be won the game, already having lots of baby-name practice over the last few months!
Now, here’s Cara to let you know more about what we ate for dinner and tell you about the delicious cake for dessert!
After the presents, it was time to eat—which is one of the Southgate girls’ favorite things to do. We all sat around the table and passed around the pizza, which was a little to hot to eat right away. So, we dug into the queso dip, salsa, tortilla chips, and wings from Chili’s. Once we all started eating, we realized how thirsty we were, so Marie brought out one of Maya’s favorite drinks—sparkling apple-grape juice. To make the occasion even more fun, Marie also had little champagne glasses for us to drink the juice out of.
After eating, as Nicole said earlier, we played a few games and then it was time for dessert! Knowing that pumpkin was one of Maya’s favorite flavors, Marie got her a very yummy pumpkin-spice bundt cake with cream-cheese frosting. As the rest of the girls dug into the pumpkin-spice cake, I (Cara) dug into my little individual chocolate-chip-flavored bundt cake—since I’m not a big fan of pumpkin. Marie, Crystal, and Maya drank eggnog to wash down their slices of cake, while Nicole and I chose between root beer and lemonade.
After scarfing down our dessert, it was time to pack all the presents in the car and head home. After many hugs, thank-yous and goodbyes it was time to go. It was a great night that I don’t think any of us girls are going to forget anytime soon.
We cannot wait until the baby arrives because we all know that Maya will be more than ready for her precious little daughter.
Best wishes,
Crystal, Nicole, and Cara