My baby shower

I'm so super thrilled to share the amazing baby shower I hosted a couple weeks ago at home! I organized the whole thing {with the help of my supporting husband} and threw a party for my girlfriends I shall never forget! I set up a dessert table for a tea party, and decorated the living room accordingly {mostly in blue but also with hints of yellow}, and was so delighted with the result! I decorated the walls and mirror with a blue pram garland, put a couple balloons, and then... the masterpiece, the table! I used a blue tablecloth made of paper but which imitates fabric, it didn't look like paper at all! Then I threw some white confetti all over the table, and started setting up the food, which was all made by myself! Vanilla cupcakes, lemon tarts, brownies, oats cookies and berries smoothies. 

The centerpiece was the cake, can you recognise it??? It's our wedding cake!!! OMG, now it's when you think I'm totally nuts, but I was so deeply in love with our cake {mainly because I designed it myself from scratch and turned out wonderful}, that I decided to keep it after the wedding, which resulted in me keeping the cake in my room for... 9 months! xD Oh well, I said it, and now you can think whatever you want! Of course one of the layers was missing, it was the only eadible one, which we ate for breakfast on the morning after our wedding! The other three layers are made out of pure sugar, so you can't really eat them! And those are the ones I successfully kept in my room without any particular purpose, just because it was a too beautiful and meaningful a cake to throw it away! Well, as it turns out, my baby shower arrived, and I had this great idea of finally giving a use to the cake! You may remember it had light pink details, so what I did was painting those in blue {ok, my hubby did, he is such a handyman at home, I figured painting a cake wouldn't be much of a challenge for him, and I was right!}. The result was absolutely stunning. The dessert table would have never been the same without it. And, yes, you guessed it right, once again I just couldn't throw the cake away, so it's now in Liam's nursery and I have no idea how long I'll keep it there for...! 

On both sides of the cake I put a cake stand with 6 cupcakes on each. I was originally planning on doing carrot cupcakes but they require a bit more time than other more simple cupcakes, so with everything I had to do, I finally decided on easier vanilla cupcakes, with blue coloring for the icing. On top of each cupcake I put GORGEOUS personalized stickers with the message "LOVE, the Lau Vives family". These stickers are from one of the cutest stationery shops ever: Tiny Prints. Let me tell you more about this. About a month ago, I received an email from them, saying they'd love a collaboration with my blog, and asking me whether I had any special event coming up, seeing how their main business is event cards. And, of course I had something special coming up! Nothing less than my baby shower!!! I couldn't believe my luck. As soon as I looked more into Tiny Prints' website, I realized just how cute everything they have is, and how blessed I was to be given this amazing opportunity of working something out with them for my baby shower. We exchanged several emails and finally decided I would be getting baby shower invitations, the stickers I just talked about above, and baby shower game cards, everything personalized, of course! I chose which designs I wanted for each of the sets, and personalized the whole thing with their super easy to follow online application, which allows you to change text, colors, and much more, until the point where your card is totally unique! These are the gorgeous invites I came up with...

And these are the baby shower game cards I got...

And a close-up of the stickers, which I also used on the envelope I sent the invites with. I still have lots of these left, which is a good thing, since they can be used for whatever!

If you ever have an event coming up and want flawless invitations, announcement cards, etc., Tiny Prints is really one of the best choices out there. Their price is very reasonable for such good quality and lovely designs, and they do ship worldwide. All my friends congratulated me on the pretty invites, I myself actually liked them even more than my wedding invites, can you believe it? The stickers were a success as well, they really made a difference both on the envelopes and on the baby shower itself. The game cards were lovely as well and it was so nice to have all my friends fill them out with good wishes for my baby! Too bad I was too excited to remember to take any pictures!

We also played a very fun game, guessing how big my belly was! I gave each of the girls a blue tape about a metre and half long, and asked them to cut it so that it would fit my waist perfectly. Well, it turns out my belly may be quite small after all, because all of them cut the tape bigger than my belly was!!! The winner was my friend Carla, who almost nailed it, and is who had the shortest tape among them all :)

I got {or should I say Liam got} loooots of presents, I loved every single one of them! I even got presents sent over from the UK from Soraya who couldn't make it to the baby shower, and from Marta who couldn't make it either. It was such a lovely party, I enjoyed myself so very much! 

Thank you girls, I can't wait for our next party, how about for Liam's 100th-day celebration? The one-year mark seems way too far away :p

Modeling for Oysho Maternity

Listen up, ladies! Oysho has finally launched a Maternity line, including some nighties and underwear, perfect for pregnancy and nursing! Best news of this, though, is... I'm the model of this new line! We took the pictures a couple weeks ago, when I was 6 and a half months pregnant. For those of you who don't know the brand, Oysho is part of the Inditex group (the ZARA group), and specialises in pajamas, underwear and beachwear. It is one of my all-time favorite brands for both pajamas and beachwear. The nice swimsuit I was wearing here is from Oysho, and even though it's not specifically designed for pregnant women, it's so elastic it fits wonderfully.

Oysho Maternity is a very small collection really, but it's a great start! Hopefully by the time I'm pregnant with my second this will be a huge line :D There's two underwear sets, three nightgowns and a robe. I got to keep the grey underwear set and the nightgown of the same set, I love them! Both the nursing bra and the night gown come with easy-to-open cups for breastfeeding, and they are super comfy!

You can check the whole collection on Oysho's website.

Wedding Wednesday: Our wedding video!

I think this is sadly going to be the last post about my wedding. I've truly enjoyed sharing everything about it ever since J proposed on October 14th, 2012. I'm glad the whole thing is forever going to be stored here in my blog, so that even I myself get to look at it anytime! I've shared the proposal, our pre-wedding pics, our save the date pics, all the wedding planning, my bridal shower, and finally the pictures of our big day, not only in Barcelona but also of our wedding reception in Hong Kong! But life goes on, and now a whole new exciting chapter will unfold: parenthood! I'm looking forward to share this new stage with all of you. For this last post, I reserved a very special something: our wedding video! {the short version, that is!}

I cried so much the first time I got to watch this video, it brought back so many memories of one of the happiest days of my life... {My wedding ranked first on my list of happy days until the moment I saw my baby for the first time on ultrasound, that was... THE BIGGEST JOY I'VE EVER EXPERIENCED!}

Anyway, I loved the video a lot, and watched it over and over with J, crying all the time. Marrying J was really the best thing I've ever done, I had never been so happy in my life as in these 8 months since we got married. I hope you like the video, I still like to watch it every now and then :)

Our Hong Kong wedding reception (II/II)

Here is the second part of our Hong Kong wedding reception, which is technically the first, since these are the pictures of what we did on the morning before the actual reception. We went back to the our university, City University of Hong Kong, a very special place for us since it's where we met and became classmates back in 2008, and where we started our relationship in 2010. Our bridesmaids and best men came along to take pictures with us, and it was a really nice morning, being back to that place where we spent three years, now in our wedding gown and suit and with our best friends sharing our joy.

I was wearing the dress I had originally bought for our wedding in Catalonia, but which I finally decided was not pretty enough! I'm so glad I got my other dress, the one I actually ended up using for the wedding, because I think it suited me way better, even though this one is nice, too!

l finally got to have a pink peonies bouquet!!! Peonies are my all-time favorite flowers, and I had wanted them for my wedding bouquet so badly, only to be told by my florist that peonies in October were like impossible to get, and even though we could try getting some from the middle-East, the quality couldn't be assured. That's why I finally gave up and sported a mini-roses bouquet, which was actually lovely and matched the whole dress very well, so I was very happy in the end. But anyway, having the peonies in Hong Kong at last was a dream come true!

One thing I got really upset about was the fact that my make-up artist (who was doing my hair as well), totally made up my hairstyle!!! OMG, I couldn't believe it when I saw the result. We had done trials a couple times, took pictures, and got everything settled, and then she did a completely different thing!! I didn't scold at her or anything, she's a very nice girl and I'm sure she just got messed up, but it was so unprofessional... This is not the hairstyle I had chosen for this day, but oh well...

I'd like to thank Tune, Leo, Raymond, Herman, Chloris, Marie, Connie and Sherry, it was lovely having you sharing this day with us! The boys and Connie had already traveled all the way to Catalonia for our wedding in October, they really are way too amazing!!!

As usual, I have soooo many pictures, and had to chose only a few... Hope you like them and get the feel of what the morning of our Hong Kong wedding reception was like. It was a wonderful day, taking into account it was December 29th!

Pink or blue?

At 6 months pregnant, it's about time to reveal if I'm carrying a baby girl or a baby boy... 

And... it's a boy!!!

We're elated at the thought of our son joining our family in just 3 months, it's a dream come true!

Our little baby boy's name will be Liam. While we liked several names for a girl, we had a hard time coming up with one both of us liked for a boy! We finally decided upon Liam, and we love it!

We took the pictures this last Sunday, and though it was a bit windy, I think they came out pretty nice! Hope you liked our gender reveal announcement! I know I kept you guys waiting for a long time :)