Exploring the Wild World of Parenthood with a Safari Baby Shower

When you find out you're pregnant, you know you're in a wild ride, and sometimes all the advice that is thrown at you make you feel like you're in a zoo! If you know a mommy-to-be that feels exactly that way, echo her sentiments with a fun safari baby shower.

There are many jungle-themed invitations you can use, or get creative and print animal skin designs on plain white or cream paper and cut it out in a semi-animal skin shape. Put the wordings of the invitation at the back and roll up the invitation. Keep it neatly rolled up with a leather strip or a piece of paper ribbon to simulate a vine.

Set the jungle scene with as many plants as you can borrow. Place wild animal plushies all around the room. Basically, use brown and green as the base colors and mix them up with happy colors like red, orange, or yellow.

Use synthetic vines instead of streamers around the room and decorate them with brightly colored fake tropical flowers. Have a wild animal as the centerpiece for each table and surround it with leaves and flowers like they are hiding in the jungle.

On the buffet table, have little plastic animals scattered among the dishes. Use wooden serving dishes if you have them to serve the food. Vines trailing all around will add to the jungle atmosphere, as will setting the dishes on leaves or flat stones. Wooden serving spoons, bamboo utensils or even chopsticks will bring a “back to the wild” feel to your table. Back the buffet table with mosquito netting with bugs pinned on them.

Any grilled or barbecued food has a wild feel to it, as does camping food. So, barbecued ribs, baked potatoes, walking salads (salads stuffed into hollow apples), sandwiches, trail mix, and s’mores would be great food for this safari baby shower.

A cake is mandatory at any baby shower, and this one is no exception. The cake can be decorated with little plastic animals and a Matchbox jeep to simulate going on safari. If you can find plastic figurines of explorers, throw them in there, too. Let your creativity take play with the cake and create a jungle scene with sugar leaves, a mountain with a smaller piece of cake, and maybe a waterfall and lake with blue-colored sugar for the waterfall and blue jell-o for the lake.

Some games that you can use at this safari baby shower could be a scavenger hunt with two or three groups going off on a safari to collect about fifteen different things, a trivia game based on wild animals, and a net toss to catch a wild animal plush toy.

Some prizes that you could give out could be bags of trail mix, dried fruits, little flashlights, or a disc filled with African music. A perfect favor at this safari baby shower would be a miniature wild animal plush toy with an accompanying cellophane bag filled with brown and green MMs.