Mitchell to Morgan: Mexican Baby Shower: Nacho Libre

I love throwing baby showers for friends - it is so fun and so exciting to get to bless someone and throw a party that is excellent and shows you something of their personality. One of my best friends, Ana, had a baby yesterday (He's totally perfect) and in early December we threw her a shower to celebrate his coming. What a wonderful time it was to bless Ana who loves others so well, and to bring her different friends together - from church and family, to her past and present colleagues. It was a really fun and diverse group.

Ana is my party planning bestie - we throw parties together for other people so I knew this party had to be just as fabulous. Thankfully her other close friends are awesome: her mom and sister joined our team, as well as Rebecca, Sarah, Irene, Lindsay and Hanne. AND on top of that 4 of her coworkers showed up 2 hours early to help us set up, and I don't know what we would have done without them.

Ana was super helpful and let us know that she's love a Mexican theme (being Mexican herself) and would like for it to be in the party room at my Dad's condo (which she booked, so easy for us!). Thusly directed we got to dream to make this party perfect. For Ana's wedding shower Irene (another party planner extraordinaire) and I had thrown her a Tex-Mex Wedding Shower and for our other friend Lindsay, Ana and I had thrown a Fetus Fiesta, so it seemed important that we had more of a theme than just Mexican. Knowing that Ana was having a little boy and that the Father to be loves super heroes, it crossed my mind that a Nacho Libre themed party might be perfect. After checking out Pinterest we determined that yes, indeed. That would be awesome. You can see the board we created for this shower here. We didn't stick too closely to the Mexican Wrestler theme, but had some fun with some moments that reflected it. For Ana's wedding she made some beautiful graphics and centered much of the designs around lips and a beard to represent her and Josh, so it seemed fitting to add a small mustache to represent Elliott. Those ideas helped guide us.

Not having my graphic girls available (since the party was for her) I was tasked with making up invitations. I really wanted to use this idea that we'd found on Pinterest and had intended to spend the money to purchase them but at the time that we were sending out the invites the webpage for this company on Etsy had disappeared. I can see that they have since returned but as I had no way of contacting them, trust me we tried many ways!, I created my own version. I take no credit for the ideas or the design, just the execution.

We sent out the invites via email to those without facebook, and in a facebook event for those with FB. When you're using Facebook it's important to have a graphic you can add to the top of the event page, which is rectangle in shape, so I created this graphic as well.

Ana's amazing mom Benita was doing most of the food for the party so we just needed to plan the sides, the drinks and the decor. We started the purchasing for the party early. My favorite website, Pick Your Plum, turned up Aces and we got a lot from them. Using some lanterns from PYP and some from parties past we decked the entry hallway out to welcome people in, in our signature colors to match our invites. The lanterns were strung up between two light fixtures and they looked fabulous.

Ana has two friends (Maria and Carol) who specialize in balloon sculptures - they do amazing work and after I gave them the theme and showed them the invite they created an amazing Arch with pacifiers, bottles and mustaches -it was such high impact. It looked amazing. We centered the arch over the first beverage station right at the entryway.

We added mustaches to the orange and white striped straws (PYP) and added a variety of colors of washi tape to glasses to spruce them up a bit. We had sparkling water to mix with San Pellegrino and berries for a fun and tasty drink (also healthy, since Ana's focus through this pregnancy has been health!). We left a cute apple crate under the table for the empty cans. Ikea also helped decorate our tables - I'd bought plain red table clothes for the party and grabbed a variety of tea towels and fabrics in their red and white spanish pattern to spruce up the tables. It really made the tables look pulled together without having to spend a lot.

We used stripes of material as runners for the major food table in the same patterns as the napkins. We strung up garlands that I bought at PYP (way easier than making them) and placed Luchador masks around the windows (in keeping with our theme) that we printed off from the internet and put together ourselves.

We hung up red tassles in the center of the room and added our crowing touch, the red hot chili pepper Pinata to the center.

I bought tons of flowers which we spread around the room, so cheery!

For our sweets we had my favorite Mexican drink, Horchata, a rice and cinamon drink that Benita made for us, Bunuelos (made by Irene), and Tres Leches Cake (made by Benita)

We grabbed prizes at TJ Maxx and these were hot commodities!

When we weren't eating or opening gifts we played some games - Sarah made us an awesome trivia crossword (seen above), we measured bellies, and collected pins (with crossed legs). Ana requested that we play games, and we had so much fun playing - the trivia was hard, but it got people talking and playing in teams, so that was a win for sure!

We created a seat of honor for the mama-to-be and a place for all the presents! The Balloon ladies had created some extra bouquets of balloons to go around the room, which were so fun to look at.

We had to work with what the room had, so we tried to make the christmas tree as mexican as possible :)

Our diaper cake!

The many presents!

And this is the lovely mama-to-be, my dear friend Ana. Ana, it was a pleasure to throw this party for you, with your many wonderful friends. You love others so well and I am so proud to be called one of your best friends. You are going to be one amazing mom and I am so thankful to get to raise kids along side of you!

Ana and Maria (one of the amazing balloon ladies)

Myself and Ana's mom, Benita. I love doing things with this lady!

Lindsay, Ana & Benita (Lindsay is the bomb to throw parties with)

Ana opening her sweet gift from her old starbucks coworkers - amazing wrapping and better yet, the onesie inside was personalized with their store number and a baby drink order. So cute!

Ana with the starbucks girls! (Alerica, Ana, Stephanie, Natalia and Augie)

And my personal highlight of the party (which had me laughing so hard I couldn't breathe or walk for a moment) Ana hitting the Pinata - it was so much fun. SO MUCH FUN. And so funny. I don't know what it is about making a pregnant woman pummel a paper pepper to get candy, but that just tickled my funny bone.

And that was our Nacho Libre themed shower - man it was fun! And now for your dose of cuteness, because the whole reason for this party was Elliott's arrival and he's here! and so sweet! Good job Whittons, he's gorgeous.