Co-Ed Baby Shower for Wentzels & Cienski's

This past weekend, Jon and Claire hosted a lovely co-ed baby shower for us and our good friends the Cienski's! When Claire offered to put something together, I couldn't say yes fast enough. She and Jon are excellent party planners so I knew it would be a special event! Check out the adorable invitations they sent out below. I love how they focused on celebrating the guys, not just the ladies!

("FNG" means new guy)

Claire very creatively combined the themes from our two nurseries into one fun event! Baby Wentzel's nursery theme is international travel (which also happens to be a passion both couples share). So she set out a huge map that tracks both family's travels and invited guests to write on it and circle their favorite places.

Yay for having baby boys in Korea!

As a party favor, we decided to print post cards with travel photos from Italy (where the Cienski's were stationed), Japan and Korea. People loved them!

Instead of signing a guest book, our friends were encouraged to slip notes of wisdom into these two class bottles. I thought the message in a bottle was a cute idea!

Also, to go along with that theme, they provided a huge spread of catered dishes from our favorite Thai restaurant out the gate! SO delicious!

Jon contributed a cooler full of "Baby Boy Blonde" beer that he brewed himself. This is a new hobby that he and our brother-in-law Sam have taken up. I have it on good authority that it was delicious!

Baby Cienski's nursery theme is storybooks. So for the entertainment, Claire stuck nametags on everyone's back with the name of a well-known storybook or literature character written on each. While we were socializing and eating, we were supposed to ask others yes or no questions to help us guess what character was on our back. We used to play this game all the time in youth group and it usually took no more than 10 minutes. But many of these were pretty challenging and so it kept us occupied and entertained throughout the entire shower. James was The Grinch. I was Super Fudge - which was really hard because I'd never read this children's series before. Thankfully, they let me fudge the rules and guess the name purely because it was a type of food. haha

For the most part, we just hung out and talked with friends. Unfortunately, it was extremely hot and muggy outside and we pregnant ladies couldn't tolerate being out in it for too long. So we decided not to open gifts at the shower, and instead gave a big blanket thank-you and opened them later at home. Over all, it was a wonderful shower! We are so thankful for Jon & Claire and how they keep taking such great care of us here in Korea. We are very blessed to be a part of a squadron that is already so eager to shower us with love!

Special thanks to James' parents and grandparents who surprised us by sending our baby gifts to Jon and Claire so we could be surprised at our shower! You all are so sneaky! We are now feeling much more prepared for the eminent arrival of our little bundle of joy.