Family Gender Reveal Party

We decided to do something fun for the gender announcement...

So we sent out invitations to our family members that asked them to wear pink or blue, according to their guess on the baby's gender.



Caleb's whole family and half of mine - missing my sisters and their spouses.



I decorated the house in pink and blue and tried to come up with as many pink and blue foods as I could - we had watermelon, strawberries, blueberries, pink lemonade, blue water (a couple drops of food coloring), strawberry creamcheese pie & blueberry creamcheese pie (which ended up a little purple - I did my best! :)). I even had my nails done in pink and blue the night before the ultrasound.

Almond Joy & Mounds... know the difference? ;)

While everyone was hanging out waiting for dinner to be done, we had them play a little fill-in-the-blank game. We gave each person a printout of 20 or so old wives tales and they had to guess boy or girl for each one. Many of the theories no one had ever heard of before, so it was fun! My sister-in-law, Kristen, got the most right!

  

Boy's room

 (Funny how even in families, the boys go to one room and the girls hang out in the other! See above and below...)

Mostly girls room

Dad Winn & Laci

Emilie & Rylie

Drew & Addie

Mom Farrell & Leah



Crystal admiring the sonogram banner I made



Laci and me!



Though everyone was mad that we didn't announce the gender at the beginning of the night, we had come up with a surprise way to announce after dinner. We made up a poem, wrote it onto thick poster board, and cut it up into puzzle pieces. It was hard to write a poem that wouldn't give away the gender if you just saw one or two pieces, but we wanted to make sure everyone would find out at the same time - at the completion of the puzzle. We should have kept a few key end pieces out even, but oh well! They finished the puzzle and FREAKED OUT!

"DADDY CAN'T WAIT TO SHARE HIS TOYS"

IT'S A BOY!!

As soon as everyone was assured they guessed boy correctly, they wanted to know his name. If you remember back to my 19 week post, I told how Caleb and I hadn't 100% decided on the middle name, because I wanted to use a family name and he wanted "Alexander", just because he likes the name.

So when our family asked, I wasn't sure what to say - Caleb jumped right in and said that we're naming him Bryson Nicholas! I cried. So special to me to use my Grandfather's name.

Everyone was so excited! Hugs all around!

Then I got out the clothes we bought at Kohl's and showed everyone his first outfits!

After we told everyone the baby is a HE, I was able to add the 3rd letter to my "family" necklace! YAY! I love personalized things, so this necklace is one of my favorite possessions.

These pendants have since been discontinued, so it looks like I'll have to give all my kids names that start with a B, C, or N! lol

Overall, one of the most fun & exciting nights of Caleb's and my life!

We are ecstatic to be having a baby BRYSON!