IT'S A BOY: Gender Reveal Party!

"When 'having a few people over' turns into a full-blown party with a meal and a photographer and explosives" would be another appropriate title.

I'm not sure how this always happens to me, but I just love a good party. It's a blessing and a curse. A blessing when we get to celebrate something awesome...a curse when it gets on top of me and is suddenly stressful but because I did it to myself I don't get to be stressed.

A couple weeks before I knew we'd be having our anatomy ultrasound, I asked Josh if he thought he'd have time for something like this. The last thing we needed was another scheduled 'thing' on a weeknight but he said he thought it would be fun, and so off I went.

I created a FB Event.

I bought pulled pork + buns from Sam's Club.

I ordered 3 dozen pink and blue cupcakes from Wal-Mart.

I texted a photographer friend to come take pictures.

And the rest of the details just kind of worked themselves out! We did the whole party outside since it was a weeknight and needed to be quick for everyone's schedules...plus the 'main event' needed to be outside so this kept everything in the same place and I didn't have to deal with getting the house 'ready.' Decorating a couple tables in our backyard was something I hadn't done before (and in extreme wind!) so it was a fun challenge...and it was also surprisingly super pretty out there. 

I used decor stuff I already had and borrowed Jamie's wedding lace to decorate the tables. I bought a girl version and a boy version of my favorite Burt's Bee's onesies, to return whichever one wouldn't be used for baby. I also bought a vintage-looking Peter Rabbit book for friends to write inside the front pages...gender neutral (my least favorite thing to try and shop for!) and timeless, the first book on baby's bookshelf!

I decided the best way to get Josh involved in the party was to let him shoot his AR. In my experience as an entertainer, the best way to get a party started (or keep a party going) is to get out the guns and start blowing stuff up. I don't make the rules, it just is what it is. So I asked Josh if he could pick up the correct ammo + tannerite on his next trip to Thiessen's and I ordered four pounds of pink and blue powder from Amazon. Next I had to find a trusted friend to set up the whole explosion, ensuring it would work correctly. Our friend Brent spent the night before our party secretly testing out the pink color-explosion to make sure the blue one would go perfectly, and of course it did!

It was fun to find out differently than we did with Mav (the blood test at 15 weeks, a phone call from a nurse saying, 'It's a boy!' followed by a phone call to Josh...I was happy to know so early, but it was a little anticlimactic) and it was fun to have our favorite people here to celebrate this baby with us. Plus, an excuse for a party.