Sharing the News - Friends & Family

Friends & Family

Caleb and I decided to tell our extended family and our friends by sending our Christmas card with an announcement in it. The timing worked out perfectly, as I was 13 weeks the week before Christmas.

Front:

Inside:

It was fun to get people's excited phone calls, texts, and messages as they received their cards! 

I also showed this card (or just the "growing 2 feet" pic) to the people in my office - so fun watching the news sink in and see their reactions. One of my coworkers said "WHAT?!" bigger and louder than Caleb did when he found out! lol 

Everyone is so excited and happy for us! Now they are dying to know the gender! We'll have to wait...

Sharing the News

On my way home from work on Monday, the 21st, I stopped at Rite Aid and hoped to God that I wouldn't know anyone in the store, as I was stopping in solely for a pregnancy test - that could be awkward!

I bought a digital test and went right to testing when I got home from work. Within a minute, the test was reading PREGNANT! So I made my final decision on how to tell my husband the news.

We were planning to go shopping that night, so I wanted to change the baby into a warmer outfit than he was wearing around the house during the day. I grabbed the pants and "Big Brother" hoodie I bought a few weeks prior just IN CASE I needed it and made sure Caleb couldn't read the sweater when I handed him the clothes and asked him to get the baby dressed.
While he worked to dress the baby, he was telling me all about what he had fed B for dinner before I got home. I stood behind him listening and recorded a video on my phone - unbeknownst to him. I wanted to catch the look of shock on his face that I didn't get to record when I wore the same look that morning! :)
His reaction:

"Big Brother?? He's not a big brother....(insert me saying that he is)...what?...... WHAT?!"
(Caleb thought the shirt was a hand-me-down from someone else that I didn't realize I couldn't put on B since he didn't think he was qualified to wear a big brother shirt!).
hahhahaha It was priceless!
We are both overjoyed, just amazed at the timing and wondering how we are going to handle 2 kids in 19 months! Guess we will find out quickly!

"Woohoo! Mom just told me the news!!"

First picture as a family of 4! Doesn't B look thrilled!?

Oops we did It Again?!?

Caleb and I decided a long time ago that for our second baby, unless we got to a point where we needed help, we would not "try" to get pregnant. Our plan was to just let God provide whenever He wanted to...
Well, today, Monday, October 21, 2013, I found out I AM PREGNANT! I am in shock. I thought for sure the test would be negative. I really only took the test to prove to myself that it IS negative. I don't feel pregnant. I don't have pregnancy symptoms (though I'm tired - I attributed it to getting up in the middle of the night with a teething 11 month old!). The few things that made me know I was pregnant last time either didn't hit me at all this time, or came a week ago and went away since last Wednesday or Thursday. I'm grateful for the lack of cramps, but GEEZE was I surprised!! I even said out loud to myself when I saw the positive test, "No way... no. freaking. way."
I had laid the in-process test on the counter, planning to get in the shower and check the result when I got out, so as to ensure the test had at least 5 whole minutes to process.... but before I could even jump in the shower, I happened to glance down and see a FAINT second line. I thought I was seeing things. Come on! SERIOUSLY?! I could not believe it!
I made myself get in the shower and wait to look again until after I was out. The whole time in the shower I was thinking about when to tell Caleb, how to tell our families, how many weeks pregnant I'll be on vacation next year, etc. Every few minutes I'd remind myself that the test wasn't even done processing and it is PROBABLY going to be negative because I do NOT feel pregnant, so STOP MAKING PLANS.

Well... upon further review, and after PLENTY of processing minutes passed, it seems we have a positive test, folks!

It may be faint, but there is a line for sure! I'm planning to stop at the store tonight to pick up a digital test just for fun/validation! Who doesn't like to see the word "Pregnant" glowing back at them from a pee stick?!? ;)

YAY!!!! After that, I'm on to telling the hubby and baby!!! A million thoughts are going through my mind. So excited! And nervous! And excited! :)

Friends Gender Reveal Party

The day after we announced the gender of our baby to our family, we had a small scale Friend Gender Reveal! Monday, July 2nd, we had 3 couples (and another friend came later) over for the fun!

Crash, Laurel, Neil & I all wore blue - guessing boy
Caleb, Jessy, Emma, Dustin, Erin & Arayah wore pink - guessing girl!

After dinner, we played an old wives tale game. This time everyone had to guess whether each question (tale) meant boy or girl. Then I'd say whether or not I displayed this "symptom" of carrying a boy or a girl and put the pink or blue sticker on the board accordingly. Turns out, there really is a 50/50 chance of being right when you guess the gender of a baby! I had 11 clues pointing to each!  



Board made by Jessy! Isn't it awesome?!
As my grandfather used to say:
"Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice? OR Hammers & Nails & Puppy Dog Tails?"

Here are some pics from the evening:
Guys and dolls:

Neil and his daughter, Emma

Crash and his daughter, Arayah

Moms and Babies:

Me & Jessy (Emma's mom)

Me with Deanna!

Me & Nicole (Deanna's mom)

After we finished the game while eating dessert, Caleb and I decided to have them put together the gender reveal puzzle we made. This time, as opposed to how we did the family gender puzzle, we left a few key pieces out so they wouldn't read the end of the poem before it was all put together.


The beginning of the puzzle!

The final piece goes in!

Jessy told me later that she has never been so frantic to put a puzzle together in her life! Cracked me up!
Everyone was SO excited to find out he's a boy and his name! As you can tell from the above pictures, we are one of the very few of our friends who will have a boy vs. a girl this year! Lots of ladies for Bryson to choose from, I guess! lol I got some interesting faces from some of these dads when I said that, followed by a reminder that they have guns... UHOH! It begins... :)

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!

Sisters - Gender Reveal

I'm hoping we are far enough removed from the whole gender reveal process that no one gets mad at me (or Caleb)... but one of my gender-reveal plans changed at the last minute. And I can't keep it to myself - this was so fun, and my sisters are absolutely hilarious. These pictures are them to a T; I have to share!

To back up a little, let me remind everyone that we found out the baby's gender a week before our family gender reveal party, therefore making everyone wait - no fun for them (and let me tell you, I was harassed and analyzed that whole week)! Both of my sisters live out of town (8 hours & 2 hours away), but we were all getting together the weekend of our gender party for my younger sister's bachelorette party in Cleveland. The plan was to tell the girls on Sunday morning before driving home to our family gender party that evening. That way everyone would find out the same day, albeit at different times of the day. But that was as "fair" as we could make it, while still being able to announce to Lindsay and Melissa in person.

Fortunately for my sisters, unfortunately for the rest of our family who had to wait until Sunday evening, Lindsay, Melissa & I went to dinner on Friday night upon arrival into Cleveland, before the rest of the party people came. They begged and pleaded and reasoned with me to tell them while it was just the 3 of us so that we could all talk about it and be excited together, versus waiting until we were running out the door at 7am Sunday morning where I would just have to say it and leave - boring!



Lindsay & Melissa YEARNING to know! Who can say no to these faces?! :)

So I called Caleb to get his input on doing away with the fair plan we had and we decided that we would tell my sisters, but keep the fact that they knew a secret so that THEY COULDN'T SLIP! That way if anyone heard them say "him", others would assume it's just because they've always said they think it's a boy. I know how much every thing I said was analyzed when I knew and others didn't for the week, I couldn't take the chance that someone else would accidently give it away! Especially to friends before family knew!



This is when I said, "OK!! I'll tell you!" They said "YES!!!!!"

So this is what I did:

I wrapped up 2 baby outfits - one blue and one pink.



Like my fancy white tissue paper wrapping?! :)

I told them to unwrap the gifts FULLY - as in, unzip the sleepers until you get to the note inside. But I couldn't say the unzipping part because I didn't want to give away what was in the paper, so they both thought they had the "right" one just by looking at the color. It was so funny! Lindsay screams," IT'S A BOY!" and Melissa says, "IT'S A GIRL!" Then they both look quizicallly at eachother, then the opposite outfit, then me. Melissa said, "It's twins?!" hahha! I said, "No! I told you - unwrap it FULLY - UNZIP THEM!" :)

Once they got to the notes, they started freaking out - I heard plenty of "I KNEW IT!s" hahaha

Those girls crack me up! They are SO excited to be having a nephew!

L & M with the outfits & notes they opened. See how happy they look!?

THE FINAL ANSWER:  BOY!



Aren't they the cutest?! Many conversations about names and plans and pregnancy were had over the course of that weekend. As guilty as I felt at first for not being fair (and basically lying about it! I'm confessing now, does that make it better?! :)), I wouldn't change it! It was one of the most fun things EVER to tell my sisters! They are going to be such great Aunties! Love you girls! Thanks for being so excited - and capturing your emotions in pictures! Now we'll NEVER forget your faces when you found out about Bryson Nicholas, the favorite first nephew! :)

IT'S A...

As I said in the Gender & Anatomy Ultrasound post, Caleb and I had our Sonographer write down the baby's gender for us so that we could find out by ourselves if we're having a boy or girl. So we left the doctor's office full of excitement! Caleb couldn't wait to open the note and wanted to do it in their parking lot, while I wanted to go to a more special/private place and put it off just a few more minutes!

We decided to wait until after we stopped at my parents house (which was planned before the appt) so that Caleb could shower (since we didn't want to drive all the way back to our house) before dinner since he had come right from work (he instead helped dad move a desk and didn't need a shower). Before leaving, we showed my dad our sonograms and he lovingly looked at his grandson/granddaughter for at least 5 minutes. He even turned the pictures upside down to better inspect! :)

After 15-20 minutes with my dad, we couldn't wait any longer to know our big news, so we left and went down the road to a parking lot (where Caleb first told me he loved me! :)) to open the note alone in the truck. I told Caleb he had to open it because I couldn't make the decision to actually do it! lol It was such a crazy, life-changing moment, that I couldn't do it! So he asked me if I was ready, and I said, "Yes!.... No, wait!... Yes!... Ok go ahead!" haha I was so nervous to actually KNOW - it's in stone after that moment, ya know!? :) (obviously, it's always been in stone, but now we know the final answer!) It's like getting to the top of a hill on a roller coaster and pausing. Are you ready to fly down it? Yes, but no! :) 
Right before he opened it, we asked eachother what our guesses were... Caleb said girl, and I said boy. Then he opened it....

AND THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!!!

WE'RE HAVING A BABY BOY!!! We couldn't be happier!

I don't think either of us stopped smiling for hours! We were freaking out excited! We couldn't stop saying, "Can you believe we're having a boy?!", "Can you believe we know!?" etc...
Then we went to my favorite steak place, Firebirds, for dinner (had to get a filet mignon for celebration dinner!) where we discussed baby names and all other things baby. While we were eating, I looked at Caleb with a big smile on my face and said, "I am geeking out inside!!!"  Without missing a beat, he answered, "You're geeking out on the outside too!" lol He cracks me up!

We followed up dinner with some baby clothes shopping at Kohls. We both picked out a few things and were watching over our shoulders to make sure we didn't run into anyone we know!  There was one person there we knew so we thought about picking up a few outfits of each gender, but she never came over to the baby section, so our secret was safe!

Here's what we got:
Note: It was hard not to buy MORE! But with 30% off AND $20 in Kohls cash, we didn't look too closely at prices! You only buy your son's first outfits chosen especially for him ONCE! :)

Caleb has talked about (only half-jokingly) buying a backhoe for years, so he thought this was funny. And anything with the word "tough" on a baby boy is adorable!

If you know ANYTHING about my husband, you know he LOVES football...

Close up of one of the onesies! I know we already have the Father's Day gift outfit that says almost the same thing, but these are too cute to pass up for next summer!

A cute cuddly sleeper! Are you seeing a trend? :)

Close up of the sleeper.

I love this cute sweat suit. How cuddly baby boy will be! Even more fitting, the blue onesie has a giraffe mom and baby on it and says, "Mommy loves me". Oh so true! :)

We're still trying to wrap our minds around this news! Everyone is going to FREAK OUT when we tell them!!! There were only 3-4 people that we know that guessed that baby is a girl. EVERYONE else said boy! As much fun as it would have been to have 5 girl cousins within 2.5 years, it will be just as fun to have something different! Now I need to re-learn how to change a boy's diaper!... :)