Our Gender Reveal Party

As previously mentioned, we planned our gender reveal party to celebrate our second baby this past weekend.  It was such a fun way to surprise our family and friends...and ourselves(!!) about what to expect for our little studerbaby #2.

So we gathered our supplies, sent out our invitations, & ordered our cake.  Our gorgeous cake was made by our friend Crystal, who also happened to be the only non-hospital employee that knew the gender of our little baby.  She kept it a secret (even from her hubby) for 10 days.  She's awesome.  I also easily crafted up my mustaches and hairbows (thanks to pinterest, obviously) to allow party guests to display their gender guess before the cake cutting.

I also did some intensive googling to look up Old Wive's tales about how to predict what gender your baby will be.  I posted my pregnancy side effects by Old Wive's tale to help our party guests make more of an "educated guess."  Boy-baby side effects include:  no morning sickness, low heartbeat rate, and the Chinese Lunar calendar prediction.  My girl-baby side effects included:  sweet&salty cravings, slow leg hair growth (!hah), and Brandon's sympathy pregnancy symptoms (which included a 10 lb weight gain since my pregnancy!  thanks honey<3)

Then we invited our friends and family for brunch and mingling before the big reveal.

Aunt Uch & Aunt Kitty anticipating another nephew

the grandmas with a split decision

soon-to-be-baby-friends!  Stacy & I letting our baby bumps play together

Grey showing his cousin Caleb (& Caleb's mum Heather) all about Goodnight Moon.

The mummas and the babies.

Grey and his serious best friend, "Jojo!!!" 

Booboo is hoping for a little baby brother to knock around

Aunt Nina giving the mumma and baby bump a squeeze

After a lot of snacking and chatting, we proceeded with the final gender reveal guessing-tool of the "Wedding Band & Thread" experiment.  The Old Wive's tale states that if a wedding band suspended over the baby bump swings back & forth - you'll have a boy.  If it swings in a circle - you'll have a girl.  The final decision:  it moved back & forth.

hahhhha, my face.

Booboo, big brother, keeping a close eye on Dada's wedding band!

All the party guests had an option to change their guess one final time (no one did) and we took some quick team pics.

Then we moved to the big finale.  The Cutting of the Cake!!  Which really can only be shown appropriately through photo progression.

There is also a video...and I'm warning you that if you are at work or your child is napping...turn DOWN the volume.  When we pulled that piece of cake out; people went bananas.  My friend, Kate said afterwards that Brandon and I looked at each other and smiled when we saw it was a girl; so calm and internally excited like any parents do when they find out.  Brand and I actually talked about it that morning that we were excited to find out, but either way would have been wonderful.  We know how blessed we are to get another baby at all.  And then, as you'll hear in the video, everyone else at the party basically lost their minds...my sister Tasha said that she looked around at one point and was afraid someone was going to throw a chair through the window or rip their own shirt off.  I guess the anticipation build-up during the party was just too much.  hahha.  okay, you've been warned.

*At the start of the video you hear Gigi (grandma) Marianne saying "girl, girl, girl" that is just her praying.  And then at :02 she makes the hugest gasp of all time because she saw the inner crust of the cake and thought it was pink.  There's when I explain to the rest of the party that Brandon & I can't even see what color is inside.  (My mother-in-law has all brothers and only a son...she was pretty hopeful).

Shout outs to Stacy Stahl for her cellphone video of the cake cutting which had us cracking up for an hour afterwards.  And to my baby sis, Tash who took all the photos of the day, thank you<3 

So, we're having a baby girl.  Gemma Rose.  It feels good to know there will be another girl in this house.  It feels good to know that Brandon's world is about to shrink in a few months when he's introduced to a little girl who will hold him higher than any other man in her life.  It feels good to know that Booboo will learn to be kind and gentle and sensitive.  It feels good to know that Gemma will learn from her big brother to be daring and adventurous and strong.  Get strong, Gemma...we're all waiting patiently for you.