Sabrina Hill - The Everything Baby Shower Book: Throw a memorable event for mother-to-be

THE
EVERYTHING
Baby Shower Book,
2nd Edition

Dear Reader,
As mothers with six beautiful children and one grandbaby between us, we can say with authority that babies are a great reason to celebrate.

Over the years, we have given or participated in hundreds of showers. In compiling information for this book, we drew on these memories as well as our decade and a half of professional event-planning experience.

Our goal for this book was to offer something for both the novice planner and the experienced shower giver. We wanted to create a guide that would offer two ways to plan. To those women looking for an outlet to express their creativity while they plan, this book offers dozens of themes and ideas that are an eclectic mix of old traditions, new trends, and a bit of whimsy. For the women who cant find another minute in their schedule to be creative, there are shower ideas that simply require following the directionsno creativity required; its all there.

Whichever way you choose to use this book, we hope you remember to plan with joy the arrival of a new life.

Warm Regards,

Sabrina Hill
& Joni Russell

Welcome to The EVERYTHING Series!

These handy, accessible books give you all you need to tackle a difficult project, gain a new hobby, comprehend a fascinating topic, prepare for an exam, or even brush up on something you learned back in school but have since forgotten.

You can read an Everything book from cover to cover or just pick out the information you want from our four useful boxes: e-questions, e-facts, e-alerts, e-ssentials. We give you everything you need to know on the subject, but throw in a lot of fun stuff along the way, too.

We now have more than 400 Everything books in print, spanning such wide-ranging categories as weddings, pregnancy, cooking, music instruction, foreign language, crafts, pets, New Age, and so much more. When youre done reading them all, you can finally say you know Everything!

Answers to
common questions

Important snippets
of information

Urgent
warnings

Quick
handy tips

Editorial

Director of Innovation: Paula Munier

Editorial Director: Laura M. Daly

Executive Editor, Series Books: Brielle K. Matson

Associate Copy Chief: Sheila Zwiebel

Acquisitions Editor: Kerry Smith

Associate Development Editor: Brett Palana-Shanahan

Production Editor: Casey Ebert

Production

Director of Manufacturing: Susan Beale

Production Project Manager: Michelle Roy Kelly

Prepress: Erick DaCosta, Matt LeBlanc

Design Manager: Heather Blank

Interior Layout: Heather Barrett,

Brewster Brownville, Colleen Cunningham

Visit the entire Everything Series at www.everything.com

2nd Edition

Throw a memorable event for the mother-to-be

Sabrina Hill and Joni Russell

Copyright 2008, 2000 Simon and Schuster. All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced
in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions
are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

An Everything Series Book.
Everything and everything.com are registered trademarks of F+W Publications, Inc.

Published by Adams Media, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322 U.S.A.
www.adamsmedia.com

ISBN 10: 1-59869-552-5
ISBN 13: 978-1-59869-552-6
eISBN: 978-1-44052-444-8

Printed in the United States of America.

J I H G F E D C B A

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
is available from the publisher.

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

Interior illustrations by Michelle Dorenkamp.

This book is available at quantity discounts for bulk purchases.
For information, please call 1-800-289-0963.

With Much Love to Our Families: David, Ashleigh, Kevin, and Chelcie Hill. And to Lloyd, Josh, Jen, Haley, and Lauren Russell, and Meredith and Nate Snyder. And to Dad, Irving Schoenfeld. Your love and support mean everything to us.

Contents

Acknowledgments

LIKE THE BABIES these showers celebrate, a book requires care, nurturing, and expertise to be born. This book was no exception; it was the result of work and input from many loving hands.

To our first-round editor, Lloyd, who added and subtracted commas, hyphenated and colon-ed phrases, and corrected innumerable spelling errorsour second-round editors have no idea how much trouble you saved them.

To Ashleigh Hill, Chelcie Hill, and Hilary Norcott, who fact-checked and formatted every chapter.

To our agent, Andrea Hurst, who matched us to this project and expertly guided us through the publishing experience.

To our editor, Kerry Smith, for her patience and encouragement.

To our development editor, Brett Palana-Shanahan, who brought us from the words on a page to a book on the shelf.

To the entire staff of Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Company, especially Lorraine, Len, and Morgan, for two perfect cups of Sumatra/Ethiopian Blend and two sublime currant scones every morning (the only way to start a writing day in our opinion), and to John and Faun at the Los Gatos Gourmet for the picnic-style lunches we ate desk-side so we could continue to make deadlines.

To our children and their spouses, who accommodated our writing schedules, stuffed envelopes, and shared in the ups and downs of authorship.

To our husbands, David and Lloyd, who read, reread, and reread again the many drafts of our work. Your critiques, financial support, and confidence in us got us through this process.

Top Ten Baby Shower Myths
Busted in this Book

Baby showers are for women only. Not so! Baby shower fun is dictated by the activities, not the gender of the guests. Anything from tailgating to a scavenger hunt can become a shower idea.