Cowboys and Indians

Last weekend was our baby shower, and it was the awesomest day we’d had in a while (rivaled only by what was, admittedly, an epic Easter Sunday, see here). We have such sweet friends, and when we told them that we wanted the shower to be a rockin’, co-ed, day of fun, they came up with just the thing to fit us perfectly: a Cowboys and Indians backyard BBQ.

Bandanas and boots made the food look even better; of course, this was just the pre-meal. The BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, BBQ baked beans, bacon wrapped green beans, coffee cake, and apple pie was still to come.

One of the coolest things about the party was seeing special touches from each of our friends scattered throughout the party; from the decorations to the coffee cake to the diaper cake. We saw the personalities of each of our friends in different parts of the party, and that was as fun as the party itself. Nice teamwork everybody!

Not only that, but they all actually dressed up to make the theme complete. Exhibit A:

Sarah (right) seems to be channeling the denim spirit of her Oklahoma roots; and Jackie (left), who is an Aussie, is presumably showing off a bit of the ‘outback’ spirit :). With the denim, plaid, and pigtails, you’d never guess we were in England!

Others were a little more creative with the theme:

Simon (right) seemed to misinterpret the ‘cow-boy’ theme; and Eric (left) thought that no good Western would be complete without a Mexican… I’ll leave it to my student affairs buddies to comment on the diversity issues involved.

Nicki was the only one sporting Indian garb, but Candice did technically come to the party as a Native American too.

Somewhere in the middle of the party, there were games… and good ones too. The first was a bottle drinking competition. I had the idea of trying to bite a bigger hole in the nipple in order to suck more out (there’s a sentence I never thought I’d type).

I chomped and chewed, but it was not going to give… there was no way to cheat, I was just going to have to attack it the old fashioned way. After what seemed like 10 minutes of nursing these baby bottles, no one was even halfway through, and a few people were even complaining about tongue cramps :)! Don’t worry, no people (or nipples) were seriously harmed in the playing of this game.

As for the next game, I’m not so sure the same can be said… the level of competition definitely escalated… take Jonny for example… he seems fun loving enough when watching the bottle game:

But during the next game, in the heat of competition, the gloves came off (or stayed on, depending on how you look at it) as we battled it out…

Sadly, I did not prevail over Jonny… here he is celebrating… thank you, by the way, to whoever took this picture, priceless:

(Sorry, Jonny, the pictures we got of you simply demanded an overarching narrative).

Thanks everyone for an awesome shower. Here’s one last photo of us with a ‘project’ gift from the shower… it looks even better hanging over the crib :).