Long-Distance Baby Shower ideas

So, a few weeks ago I mentioned my best friend and her husband moving away across two time zones, and right before she left she told me that she is pregnant. Now that I've had some time to get over the initial shock and mourning that she isn't a 3-minute drive away from me anymore, I have started to think ahead.

Since she's so far away now, and most of her friends are all still here, I've been trying to think up ways to throw her a baby shower in a couple months.

So far, I'm thinking that I'll round up everyone locally for a "baby shower wrapping party". Everybody brings their gifts over to my house, and we wrap baby presents all together as our own little party. My intention is to have a video camera handy so that all the friends can record a little message of congratulations and best wishes. Then, once everything is wrapped and done, I fly out to my friend's new home with all the gifts. She can unwrap, plus we watch the video messages that I recorded at the party.

Does this seem like a good idea?

The next part of this idea is that I am going to need some games that we can play at the wrapping party, just to keep things entertaining. Thoughts?

The only thing I can think of is everybody turn in slips of paper guessing the birthdate/time, birth weight, and birth length... and then have prizes for those with the closest guesses when the time comes. It would be a suspensful game , but I think that would probably be part of the fun.

In any case, I would still LOVE to hear any other ideas/suggestions. I haven't been to many baby showers (nevermind a long-distance one) so it's entirely possible I'm missing something completely obvious.

Instead of flying there, why not have a party for her here and fly her in for the weekend then just ship all the stuff back to her. Or even drive back with her or something. That way at the very least, she can still be involved, and even see some of her friends again.

Don't forget, there is also always Skype!

I agree with flying her in if all possible. You'd have to do it early enough that she could still travel safely but still, I think it would be so much more fun if she were there with you guys!

She's not big on flying, which is why I figured it would be best to go to her. I'm afraid if I suggest she come back to us that she'll drive the 18+ hours each way by herself. Plus, if I go to her, I can cover all expenses easy AND it's an excuse to see her new home.

I hadn't thought of Skype, but that is because I'M weird. Lol! I don't know if I could pull it off so it's fun for all with one person "trapped" in a computer, you know? (Yes, I'm weird.) I'll definitely keep that in mind now, though!

ETA: I agree it would definitely be more fun to have her out with us, but I'm just not sure that's an option with the way some things are.

Maybe you could fly there and drive back and forth with her?

Or, you could always do like you planned and take a bunch of gifts to her, then have everyone get together back home and have a skype party while you are there with your friend and they can see her and see her open her gifts etc. Maybe another friend or two would be willing to go out there with you? I have a friend who moved to Florida during her pregnancy, and then she wasn't allowed to travel so that is how she had her shower was through Skype.

You could plug it into a TV in both places so that everyone was more visible.

Thank you for the suggestions. I'm sure we'll get something to work out.

Does anybody have ideas of good party games for a baby shower?

at my baby shower we played the "what kind of baby food is this" game lol

you take the labels off the jars and pass them around. You'd be surprised how many you get wrong LOL

also we did a kind of memory type game. my mother in law had a box filled with baby items like bottles, socks, brush, pacifier etc etc. and you got a few seconds to look at it and pass it around and then you had to name as many things as you could remember.