Gender Reveal Party

In June of last year (2011), I was facing the half-way point of my pregnancy and eagerly anticipating the discovery of whether baby #2 was a boy or a girl. I had seen previous examples of gender reveal parties and knew that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to throw a special party, especially to celebrate my newest little one. Most of the parties I'd seen consisted of guests slicing open a cake or biting into a cupcake to reveal the hidden colored filling or batter. While this is an adorable idea, I'm always trying to find slightly new ways to do an event.

I started with pink and blue of every decor I could get my hands on!

We had pink and blue balloons, and some of them said "It's a boy" or "It's a girl" on them. I made signs to hang everywhere. I bought decorations for each gender. There were even pink and blue daisies on each table. Pink and blue was everywhere- down to the tablecloths, silverware, plates, and napkins. We even had kool-aid in both pink and blue for everyone to drink! I considered serving the foods that I had been craving, as a personal pregnancy touch, but I didn't figure that everyone wanted to eat salsa, pickles, and oranges. So, we ordered pizzas instead.

I strung the ultrasound pictures across the wall, but made sure to hide the gender revealing ones:

I asked all of the guests to wear pink or blue to showcase their guess for the baby's gender:

I, myself, stayed neutral and tie-dyed my own tank top blue an pink (didn't turn out as great as I hoped) and painted my toenails for the special occasion:

Finally, rather than having guests bite into cupcakes, I decided to have them bust open cupcake pinatas! I bought one girl pinata and one boy pinata. I filled each with lots of candy, and then one candy bar in each pinata had a sign taped to it revealing the baby's gender. This way, even when the pinata was opened, the guests still had to search for the right candy bar- more suspenseful in my opinion!

Surprise! Baby #2 is a boy!!! And we surprised everyone even further by announcing that we decided to completely change his name from the one we had been announcing all along! 

(Jaydon, my cousin, wearing the pinata as a hat.)

"You mean I'm having a baby brother?"

(Oh! How much of a difference 9 months makes! Josiah has grown so much!!!)

My best friend was just 3 months ahead of me in her pregnancy and she was also having a little boy:

Less than 5 months later, my baby boy, Micah James arrived!