The type of shower depends on the age of the Mother and the amount and ages of people who attend; I hosted a baby shower for a coworker last year. It was coed so it was not too silly. A couple of things I did: I had a book set up on my desk a little out of the way and asked everyone to put in good thoughts or suggestions for the mother. I then had beads and string and people put the beads on the string to represent good thoughts and the Mother wore it (or had it in her hand) during delivery. It was a big hit. We didn't play games as it was a big group and most people wanted to socialize. I just had guess the baby food and how many pieces of candy in the bottle but they were off to the side ie people saw the items and guessed as they passed through; it wasn't everyone sit down and guess. Unwrapping the gifts takes quite a bit of time and we had cake. Time-wise it worked out well. Good luck.

There's no trick to it. It firms up on its own as it cools. I've had success by nuking frosting at 50% in 5 second increments until it's just barely just liquified. I test by stirring. It only needs to be warm enough to be dip-able. In my mind, (your mileage may vary) warming the frosting in a shallow, flat-bottomed container, barely bigger than your cubes, would be less messy than pouring... you could dip one side at a time, and if you worked quickly, your finger marks in the frozen cake would fall out as it cooled. I learned this trick from an awesome book I bought my niece and nephew for Christmas. They describe the technique on pages 18 & 19, which you can see by clicking on the "search inside this book" link, entering the work "microwave" in the search pane, selecting the second search result, and turning to page 19 with the right hand arrow. (For the record, the book is way fun!) I tried this dipping technique with cupcake frosting and the results were so flawless that the ladies I served them to assumed I'd done something very difficult and fancy. The punchline was that it took less time to dip (from scratch) cupcakes into warmed white Duncan Heinz frosting (with a bit of yellow food coloring and lemon extract added) than it would have taken to frost by the traditional method. The frosting firmed up a bit and they looked beautiful. This book also demonstrates a stupid-simple technique of drawing a design on a paper template, slipping the template on wax paper, melting some colored wafers, spooning them into a ziploc, cutting a tiny hole in the corner, and drawing on the wax paper. To see an example, enter the word "monarch" in the search pane and see pages 77-79. Or just buy the book. It's a fun jumping-off point for the imagination.

Last 3 baby showers I went to played: Let each person pull a length of toilet paper off a roll, the one that's piece fits around mom-to-be the closest wins.2nd game, fill a bowl with uncooked plain white rice. Mix in several packages of loose safety pins. Hold the bowl over each persons head, they reach up and grab a handfull of rice and pins. The person who grabs the most safety pins wins. You need a 2nd person to be standing there with a bowl or styrofoam plate that the player can dump their handfull of rice and pins in and it can be counted before dumping back in the rice & pin bowl. It is a lot of fun when you can get male guests to play too. 3rd. game have a list of items used for baby, scramble words and see who is first to unscramble correctly all words. You can see I have been to baby showers with the past 6 months. Oh, nice suggestion, ask everybody to give a book instead of a card with gift. I found a baby cloth book at one of the craft shows I did for last baby. Mom-to-be really liked it.

Will you also be serving other food apart from sweets ? I think the fruit is a good idea, although I wouldn't bother dipping it in chocolate (more sweets). I'd also have trays of little moist crustless white bread sandwiches, or those made from a slice of white together with a slice of brown soft bread, again crustless with fillings such as: egg salad & lettuce, pinwheel sandwiches made from cream cheese with an asparagus stick and cut crosswise, stacked and checkerboard sandwiches made from alternate crustless brown and white bread slices filled with patés and smooth fillings, then cut crossways to make little striped sandwiches, and small glass bowls of pickles and nuts rather than candies. I haven't been to a baby shower for a while (lol) but I'd include other light food besides cake if I were doing it. Here are some ideas from a family buffet we had while on holiday. The food is probably a little too substantial for serving at a baby shower but you might scale down something you see here: - served warm platter. This prepared by a chef friend. Platter includes radishes and plums, decorated with grape leaves. . I'd made miniatures of these. Good Luck ! SharonCb