Planning a baby shower for a second baby is a whole lot different. When I was pregnant with Elouise we literally needed everything. Registering was a headache to say the least. I’ll never forget that the list they give us at the baby store suggested we have close to 300 items on our list. Yikes! We ended up having two baby showers filled with friends, family, and all sorts of games and perfectly planned details. Well, this time around I considered just doing a sprinkle but decided to stick with a standard shower (I’ll explain more about that below). We also barely registered for anything, since we have so many of the essentials. So I was determined to have a low key, simple, no-fuss shower. However, event planning is one of my favorite things, so I knew there had to be some flair to the day. One of the big things I knew I didn’t want to compromise on was the invites, which is why I went with Minted.

Stress Free is the Way to Be

Honestly, sending out invites in one of my least favorite things in the world. After a two wedding showers, a giant wedding, two baby showers, a first birthday, and thank you notes for all, I have addressed my fair share of envelopes in the last 4 years. I’m getting a major hand cramp just thinking about it! Well not only did Minted have the most perfect invite to fit the simple and neutral theme of the shower, but they have the option to include addresses and your return address on the invites. Yes, you heard me right, that means all I did was stuff those bad boys in, lick ’em, and stick on a stamp. Boom, bang, DONE! They even had coordinating thank you cards, which of course I snagged because that is one less thing to worry about. Well even the envelopes for my thank you cards got our lovely return address printed on them. Hip-hip-hooray! Plus I learned a really handy trick, probably from Pinterest, to have a thank you note station at parties. That way when guests are mingling they fill out their own address on the envelop and all I have to do is write the card later. This is the least stressed I’ve ever been when it comes to invitations, and honestly they are so pretty that I can’t even believe how easy it all was.

A Little More than a Sprinkle

So, I really debated over what to call this baby celebration, because I know the popular thing to do for a second baby these days is to have a “sprinkle” instead of a shower. Most baby sprinkles I’ve been to have been intimate and small, which is so nice. But, I have a huge family, so even with them alone I’d have 15 people on my list, and I also have a couple handfuls of close friends as well. So when we were creating the invite list, we were only including the must-haves, and ended up with a grand total of 44 people. Also, most of my friends and family who have done sprinkles were having a baby the same gender as their first. We luckily have all of the big ticket items covered, like a crib, stroller, and car seat. What we don’t have are clothes. The funny thing is that with Elouise we made it very clear that we were particular about the clothing we were going to dress her in. So much so that we didn’t register for any clothing and exchanged a fair amount of the random items people decided to give us. I’ll be honest, I even had a disclaimer on Elouise’s baby shower invite that said “nothing pink please”. This time most of what we registered for was in fact clothes. Now, we still have pretty specific taste when it comes to clothes, like no animals playing sports or driving cars, but this time we actually picked out the clothing items we like. So, since we still need a good amount of stuff for baby boy, I settled on just calling it a plain old baby shower.

Putting together the details has been so fun. There will be lots of white like these felt ball garlands from Hello Maypole, simple greenery instead of fancy floral arrangements, and kraft paper. We will be serving a light lunch and eating in my Grandma’s backyard around a big table family style. I honestly can’t wait to celebrate with everyone, but I know the minute we bring home all of the gifts to our tiny home things are really going to feel real. Eeek!