While Larissa and I were on the mainland last week visiting with family (on both her side and mine), Larissa’s family surprised us with a baby shower. The “surprise” portion of this was no small feat: Larissa is notoriously difficult to surprise.

The closest I’ve come to surprising Larissa was when I gave her an antique secretary desk as a Christmas present a year ago. She had no idea until Christmas Eve, when she followed me downstairs at my parents’ house and found me putting the finishing touches on it.

The way the family managed the surprise this time around was pretty ingenious. Larissa had contacted her cousin, Kristal, asking if she and her husband wanted to get together while we were on the mainland. Kristal invited us over for dinner.

A couple of days later, Kristal mentioned our dinner date to her mom. Aunt Anneliese suggested that they could jump on that opportunity and turn it into a baby shower. Pretty much all of the female sisters, cousins, and in-laws were able to make it work. So we went over on Thursday and had dinner with Shaun and Kristal, and about fifteen minutes after we’d eaten there was a knock on the door and the house flooded with women!

(Larissa cried! It was cute and sweet.)

I spent the evening with Shaun, watching sports highlights and talking about music, books, and movies. In the meantime, Larissa was being showered generously with gifts. Along with all kinds of newborn diapers, toys, and clothes, we also received a brand new car seat! So that’s one of the Baby Fund items crossed off the list. We’ve been taken care of so well that I think the Baby Fund is more or less fully funded at this point. I may have to direct future writing profits towards something else! :)

Thanks so much to our extended family for the baby shower and all of the wonderful gifts.

For more pictures and another write-up of the evening, check out Aunt Anneliese’s blog post. She also has a tutorial on how to build your own Diaper Cake, like the one featured in the picture above.