Massive, massive thanks to my amazing friend Stephanie who organised our baby shower a few weeks ago. We were thoroughly spoilt. There were balloons and bunting, decorations and cakes, giant sandwiches and baby games, presents and laughter.

Look at that cake. I think you need a close-up.

Vanilla sponge with strawberries, cream and meringues, topped with burnt sugar. I was tempted not to share.

We played pin the dummy on the baby. I didn't win, but at least my friend Danielle - mum of two - showed us that it is possible to give baby a dummy while blindfolded and disoriented. There's hope for us newbies yet. 

We were presented with another cake to take home: vanilla sponge with cream and raspberry jam. Very fitting for a little baby girl with all of those ribbons and hearts and teeny tiny fondant baby booties. 

We guessed the presents. This one, daddy says, is a cricket bat. He is optimistic. 

It was in fact a GroEgg, which is a brilliant room thermometer nightlight whatsit that lights up according to the temperature of the room it's in. We've had it on since we received it (about two weeks ago) and have been constantly worried that our room is orange, "a little warm" for baby - averaging 22'C. Isn't this supposed to be England, the land of the cold and rainy?! 

Incidentally, it is exactly what he wanted and was as thrilled as he would have been if it was in fact a cricket bat. We also got an attachment that goes on top and turns the basic egg shape into a lazy sleeping owl that lights up. As you do. We also received selection of beautiful books, a handmade baby quilt for the car, lots of gorgeous teeny tiny clothes (how does a person fit into them?!) and some other baby essentials. Thank goodness we had the car with us - we had lots of things to take home!

Other party games involved sniffing nappies to determine the ingredients of popular baby food purees. Can you tell I'm very wary about this?

I don't know what was so funny, but it had something to do with tuna flavoured baby food. Gross. 

And my one contribution to the whole event: I made everyone a box of cupcakes to take home. Two chocolate and two vanilla cupcakes iced like hydrangeas and roses. I particularly loved the two-tone hydrangea piping which I blatantly copied from this blog post (at Glorious Treats). Yum. 

I'm so glad we decided to go ahead with this; we very nearly didn't do anything to celebrate! So now we have all the gadgets and goodies, and plenty of little baby hats and whatnots; we just need to add one baby. Tick tock!