Gender Reveal Party

On Saturday, March 31st, we had our Gender Reveal Party. I've been getting things ready for weeks and was beyond excited to share our exciting news with our closest family and friends. (As a side note, if I wasn't able to invite you-I'm so sorry. I tried to keep the party small since I knew I would be hosting it pregnant and thank-goodness I did keep it small because with all the bed rest I've been on it would have been difficult to have more people. Do know that if I could have invited everyone, I would have. Nic and I appreciate all the love and support we have received from everyone and you all mean the world to us!). Sabrina came over in the morning and we went and got our nails done. It was really nice to spend some time with my sister getting pampered.

After that we came back home, had some lunch, and got back to the final touches for the party. Amy came over and helped too. While I made tissue pom poms (in record breaking time) Amy and Sabrina blew up balloons, decorated the stairs with tissue and pom poms and made an adorable back-drop for the photo booth. Lindsay also came over and helped out a ton. She helped Melinda from CakeGoodness set up the dessert bar. She hung up some of the poms. She even blew my hair dry for me while I did my make-up. While she was doing my hair and I was sitting there in my white dress, I had flashbacks to my wedding day. I was wearing white, getting my hair done, and felt extremely happy and excited for the future.

My parents showed up a bit early too thank-goodness. My mom decorated the TV area, my dad made the punches and they both made all the food while I frantically finished getting ready. Tyler and Laura got there a bit early too so they helped out as well. It was so nice to have so much help and I don't think everything would have come together so perfectly if they hadn't all been there.

We had so many details to make our party special. We had a Gender Poll where everyone wrote down their guess, everyone filled out wish cards for our baby. We had pink and blue props for our make-shift photo booth. (This was a HUGE hit with the kids). We had all our baby's ultrasounds hanging up for people to take a look at. We had pink and blue punch, pink and blue barefoot (the one with the baby footprint on it) chamapagne. We had themed food: ta ta's (chick-fil-a nuggets), hamburgers (how they sometimes describe girl parts during gender ultrasounds), weenies under the covers (pigs in a blanket), and balls (risotto cheese balls). We also played an old wives tale game. Sabrina had a bunch of old wives tales that we went through and for each answer she either put a blue or pink onesie on the poster board. All along way more wives tales had pointed toward girl, so I was surprised when most of the ones that I had never done before like the ring on a string test said boy. Girl ended up winning by only one.

After the game, we gathered everyone around and Nic got his family on skype for the big reveal. A bunch of people had complained about us knowing before hand what the gender was saying that the whole fun was seeing our reactions. We originally found out before the party because Nic wanted the moment to be private. I wouldn't have minded either way, but if I had to do it all over again I would do it the same way. It was really special to find out in a more intimate setting and have a few days to take it in on our own, but mostly, I liked doing it this way because instead of dealing with our reactions, we got to take in every one else's. I so wish I had taken a photo because that moment was priceless. I hope I never forget that moment when everyone first found out we are having a boy. It was one of the best moments of my life.

After the reveal, we took Team Pink and Team Blue pictures and enjoyed all the delicious desserts. Then we all talked, took more photo booth pictures and Nic and I opened some presents. We also caught up with Nic's family who celebrated the news in Australia. Nic and I ended the night by reading all the wonderful wishes for our little baby and talking about how much fun we'd had. It really was such a special day!!