Surprise Baby Shower for Chelsea

I have the cutest neighbor and friend Chelsea. She moved here in October, and I am so glad she did. I seriously love her! She is having her second little guy this week on Friday, and a few weeks ago I decided to throw her a surprise baby shower. I don't know why I had it in my mind to make it a surprise, but I just did. I got in touch with her husband Spencer to get things going. He thought it was a great idea, but he warned me that Chelsea takes pride in spoiling surprises. He told me I had to be very careful in my conversations with her because she is pretty quick to catch on. That made me nervous, but I went ahead with the plans anyway. We have the greatest group of girls in our ward that often get together, so I invited everyone! And pretty much everyone wanted to come. I was so excited. I wanted to have it at the Olive Garden and do lunch, so I made the reservation for all 18 of us.

The shower was on Saturday. Thursday night of that week Chelsea and I went to the rec center to work out. On the way there she asked me if I had a baby shower when I had London. I told her no, and then we talked about how you usually don't have a baby shower for the second child especially when it is the same sex as the first. But we both agreed a baby shower is always welcome! Then we each told about the baby showers we had for our firsts. One of her baby showers for Benson was thrown by her mom at the Olive Garden for lunch. When I got home and told Steve about this conversation he was convinced Chelsea knew all about her baby shower I was about to throw. I didn't think so though. That night at 11pm I realized I didn't have any milk for the girls in the morning. Chelsea ALWAYS has milk, so I texted her to see if I could come get some. And of course she shared, thanks!

Then it was Friday, and I still hadn't asked her to lunch yet. I wanted to wait until even Saturday to do it, but Steve convinced me that I should at least give her one day notice. I did know her plans though, so I knew she would be free. But that was tricky too. She told me earlier in the week that she had a baby shower on the same Saturday as hers. I asked her to see the invitation and saw that it wouldn't conflict with hers. Then a few days later she told me she had another baby shower to attend on that same day. I was dying! But luckily those two showers conflicted with each other, and not her own. I'm glad she told me about her plans, because Spencer sure wasn't up on what was going on! So Friday I went over and thanked her again for saving me with the milk, and told her I wanted to take her out to lunch the next day as a thanks for being such a great friend. I told her I wanted to go to Olive Garden because I had been thinking of it ever since our conversation on baby showers. Good, right? She accepted!

That night Spencer texted that me coming over and asking Chelsea to lunch seemed a little obvious that something was going on. He thought she might be cluing in on the whole thing. At that point I thought if she knew then she knew, and there was nothing I could do about it. And even if she did know, she would still love it. But I still didn't think she knew. Follow that?

Saturday the plan was for me to go get her around 11am to go to lunch. At 10:45 I ran my gift over to Rose who was heading to the Olive Garden early to get everyone situated. A few minutes after I got home, I saw Chelsea outside walking around with Benson and right by Rose's house. I texted Rose to give her a heads up. Rose watched out the window and ran out to her car when Chelsea had her back to her. I watched Rose drive away and I saw a few other girls drive by too. I just knew Chelsea was waving to everyone as they drove past her on their way to her baby shower.

At 11:15 Rose texted and said there were 12 ladies at the restaurant and I decided it was time to head over. When we got there I texted Rose to let her know. We walked in and I asked for a table for two for Amy Baker. The hostesses knew just what to do and Chelsea laughed that I had made a reservation because there was no one at the restaurant yet. Funny! We walked through the hall and when the room opened up we saw two tables filled with friends and they all shouted SURPRISE! Chelsea's reaction was priceless! She was completely surprised. So much so that she started to cry. It was very sweet! We had a delicious lunch and she received some cute and thoughtful gifts. I think she loved it. I was so proud of myself and quite relieved that I had pulled off the surprise!

Chelsea blogged about this surprise shower HERE. Check it out for her side of the story and some pictures from our wonderful friend Emily.