SURPRISE! IT'S A.....

BOY OR GIRL?

Obviously, the grand theme of the party! I made this banner using doilies and letters cut from cardstock using the Don Juan cartridge of my Cricut Create machine and strung them together using stolen fishing line from my husband's tackle box. Woohoo!

The guests further declared their thoughts on whether it was a boy or girl by drinking pink or blue punch. I kind of went with an Alice in Wonderland theme on the punch jugs and love it. I think we'll be using this theme for Piper's upcoming 1st birthday party!

The grand war. Boy or girl? Mommy and Daddy were on opposing sides which made it SO FUN! We had the guests divide up for group shots. Why? So that we could post a HUGE pic of the losers on www.frozenexposure.blogspot.com! KIDDING! They aren't losers, they just...weren't right. Okay okay, I love you guys!!

Below: The all-determining cake!

When guests arrive in their pink or blue shirts (thus declaring their side) they see the "girl or boy" sign on the door (I threw this together, with the help of my Mom) using my Cricut Create machine and some 12x12 pink and blue cardstock. If you have time, it may be fun to dress it up by hanging little blue and pink pacifiers, etc., from the bottom! Or copy the ultrasound pic of the baby's face and have it hanging below it.

Daddy totally thought it was a girl. Mommy thought it was a boy. Both of us were equally surprised and shocked, though!

For anyone who is waiting to find out the gender of their baby, I HIGHLY recommend having a gender reveal party! Last year, we had our family meet us at 4D Peek in Franklin, TN to reveal the gender of Piper (we were 16 weeks along) and it was really fun, but I don't remember the suspense being as rich as it was with the gender cake (no pun intended).

This go around, just knowing that the ultrasound tech knew what it was, and that Josh knew (Josh is my sister-in-law's boyfriend) who baked our cake (he did such an awesome job!!!!), was so tough, because we knew we could corner him at any second and find out if we wanted to (or just peek into the envelope containing the results). But then seeing the cake in person, and KNOWING the answer was right there, but hanging out with family, taking pictures and playing games was so great, and everyone had their guess on whether it was a boy or girl so it was crazy suspenseful! You can tell in the video, I hit this point where I was loving the excitement and suspense so much that I didn't just immediately cut into the cake. I wanted to delay it as long as possible, because it was so fun guessing.

There are options on revealing the gender of your baby. You can:

1) Have someone you trust let your florist know the results and they will deliver a bouquet in the middle of the party that is the color that represents the gender;

2) Have someone you trust get the results and get blue or pink helium balloons and conceal them during the party, and during the big announcement, release the balloons;

3) Take the envelope with the concealed results to your baker and let them make a cake with neutral icing on the outside, but when you cut into the cake, the cake batter is colored pink or blue.

We obviously went with the cake option and I don't regret it because you see pink or blue balloons all the time. You see pink flowers or blue flowers all the time. But seeing the cake throughout the party, KNOWING the answer is within it, and then cutting into it to see this shocking pink or blue color that you aren't used to seeing in a cake, it's just this HUGE, overwhelming thing that makes you SO happy. So....=) AH!

Thanks so much to Savannah and Tish for shooting the videos!