Gender Reveal Party Post!

OK, I know the gender reveal party was over a week ago. I could've done this last Saturday, but I'll be honest... I decided to be incredibly lazy and basically sleep all day long. I'm still exhausted, but it sure was nice to not do anything! :)


We started planning this party awhile back, but it really came into full swing the entire week of Spring Break. The week I was on bedrest I got to do a lot of research and make notes of what I wanted to see happen with this party... so luckily we had a game plan going in. (And of course we still managed to run behind... I swear that's how it always happens!)

>br/>Some gender reveals have the parents in the dark as much as the guests... the sonogram tech puts either "boy" or "girl" into an envelope and the parents take it to the baker. Then, they don't find out until the party. Now I'm sorry, but I was just not OK with this idea at all. I won't lie when I say Michael and I completely relished in the bliss of knowing before anyone else and being able to go to Babies R' Us and scout out all the fun boy stuff: just the TWO of us. Several people seemed to really take issue with the fact that we didn't share as soon as we knew, but I don't regret at all that we were selfish and kept it to ourselves for three whole days. This was a moment that we can never get back and was completely one of a kind. Even when we have baby #2, it won't be as special as this was because this baby is our first! I can't imagine loving anything more than I already love my little man... but I'm sure it's possible! :)


Michael had originally wanted to put envelopes under each chair with "It's a..." written on them, and then "boy" or "girl" written on the inside in one envelope. This seemed like a great idea, until I started to really think about it. As upset as people got that we didn't share, it seemed like a terrible idea to give one person all that power of announcing to everyone what we were having. It just seemed like we would be asking to hurt someones feelings, which we would never purposefully intend to do. So, at the last minute, we went back to our original idea of baking cupcakes with the colored frosting piped into the middle. I think it turned out PERFECT! Everyone got to find out at the same time, and for the most part everyone seemed happy.


I was actually going to try my hand at baking a cake - I had my design and colors all picked out, including the tools I needed and everything - and then I backed out at the last minute due to cost. I went a little overboard on some other things so I went the cheaper route and made cupcakes, haha! I'll post the recipe on here later - I had a couple of requests. They really were delicious! :)


The day of the party I was up at 6 am thanks to a certain occupant of my body. He seems to think that when mommy is sleeping, he should be partying. No little boy, when mommy sleeps, YOU sleep! I have a bad feeling about this... I finally caved and got up around 8 to start making the cupcakes (which took MUCH longer than I expected, but hey, I've never made cupcakes and buttercream icing from scratch before) while Michael went to go pick up the tables and chairs we rented for dinner. Now, when I said I hoped we had good weather for this party, I didn't think to include a request for non-torrential winds. Next time, I will!


I had spent 2 hours the night before making these gorgeous bouquets from some bunches of flowers we bought at Costco. I had these adorable table arrangements in my head (see the first picture for examples that never made it to my tables outside...) and they wouldn't stay up due to the wind. We even had to staple down the tablecloths, lol! I think I'm probably the only one that got really hung up about the fact that I couldn't hang the quilt on the fence closest to the house, I couldn't hang the onesies on a line above the quilt, and my flowers and balloons never made it outside.


The inside of the house was incredibly festive though!! My dear bff Jessica helped me clean the rest of the house before guests started showing up... I'm being really careful about what products I use (I've completely switched over to Method, all organic products) so she helped me out when I needed a more serious cleaner or wasn't two people but needed to be. :) Inside, we had my appetizer table that consisted of some of my cravings: fruits, queso, guacamole (LOVE!), salsa, and sour fruit belts from the candy store. Yes, the candy store. PS - if you want some amazing strawberries, go hit up Sam's. They were delish! Michael made hamburgers on the grill, and home made french fries in the fryer... as well as peach cobbler for dessert (per my request for about a month and a half now, haha). He had a very handy helping hand in piping the cupcakes after I stood and mixed and baked for almost 2 hours. I have the most amazing husband ever, seriously I do!! We made everyone wait until after we ate to find out the gender... which they weren't all too happy about but obliged without much complaining. ;)


We had asked that everyone show up wearing either blue or pink based on what they thought our little monkey was going to be... and you can see by the pics below that blue WAY outnumbered pink! It looked like my classroom, no lie! Haha! After we took the pictures, we served the cupcakes (which Michael almost dropped... that was sooo scary!) and had everyone bite into them at the same time. My cousin Matthew ate half the cupcake in one bite trying to be the first to find out... I'm fairly certain he succeeded! Needless to say, we are super excited to be the parents of a little BOY monkey!! I never thought I'd be so excited to be having a boy, but I think deep down I always wanted a boy first. I remember talking about having a boy first years ago, so that when I have a girl (hopefully next time) she will have an older brother. I always wanted an older brother... here's hoping my future daughter will have one! (If not, my future second son will at least have one, ha!)


I bought a Pooh book at Barnes and Noble to have everyone sign... I'm not sure everyone signed it but I'm hoping between all the showers and everything that he will have messages from all those we hold special in our hearts! I think it's a really fun way to show our sweet baby boy how much he was loved before anyone even got to meet him. :)


I'm pretty sure I've rambled enough for tonight, so without further ado: here are some of my absolute favorite pictures. I put together a slide show of all the pictures all the way at the bottom, but I just wasn't feeling uploading all of them on here. That was just going to be way too much work! ;)


Enjoy!!