Mama Dinner

In addition to celebrating years of friendship with my college friends, our 2009 ladies weekend trip from a few weeks ago also celebrated one of us becoming a first time mom. Many of us had already celebrated Baby L with a shower a week earlier, but we wanted to surprise the new mom-to-be with a unique something just for her.

In our emails before the trip I affectionately referred to this idea as planning the "mama dinner." It was not really meant to be another shower, more of a celebration of this new chapter for Soon- to-be Mama L.

Shower or not, the surprise afternoon started with ice cream and an invitation for Mama L to join us for a pedicure and special dinner. We were all going to be together regardless of the invite, but it was a nice way to start the special celebration. After pedicures we headed back to our hostesses house, while Mama L was relaxing the rest of us prepared a special table and finished up dinner and dessert.

Orange gerber daisies matched with green apples and seedum blooms from the yard created a summer centerpiece.

A large hosta leaf was the base for place card apple and each place setting (we even broke out the fine china).

We shared pasta and green salad with fresh vegetables, lemon cake with raspberry for dessert, wine and sparkling cider for Mama L. After dinner we presented Mama L with a basket filled with warm fuzzies and notes for her to use and read pre and post baby.