Pregnancy Adventures: Finding Out the Gender of our Baby and a Look Into our Gender Reveal Party

Excited mom and dad to be immediately after our 20 week scan....just days before our gender reveal party and excited to find out if its a boy or girl!

One year ago today, we invited our friends and family over for a gender reveal BBQ (or as we called it, a BaByQ). Gender reveal parties are a fairly new thing and we didn't care if we were having a boy or a girl but I love to entertain and figured this would be one of the last chances to do so for a long time to come! I also liked the idea of sharing this moment with my loved ones and was extremely inspired by all the fun ideas on Pinterest and the world wide web and I used the excuse to get creative! 

Only two people - not including our midwife and ultrasound technician - knew what was in my belly - and it wasn't Perry or I! Junior Senior is what we called the baby bump. Perry's last name is Senior so it was a fun play on words! We were pretty convinced that Junior Senior was going to be a girl because lots of signs were pointing to girl and we haven't had a boy in my side of the family for a while - all my cousins are girls, my sister had a girl, my cousin had a girl etc etc. After our ultrasound, I said to Perry "I just got a really strong feeling that its a boy!" and he said he did as well but we didn't want to get too excited. I had delegated my sister to be in charge of the secret as she was also baking us a cake with the appropriate color icing on the inside. She contacted our midwife who told her what the ultrasound revealed and she was the only one that knew (except for a close friend of hers that she accidentally spilled the beans too...I would have probably had to tell someone too!).

I loved the idea of using silly string for the reveal as well so I stocked up on pink and blue silly string with the intention of returning the ones that we would not use. The only way we could tell what color was in each can of silly string was by the color of the lid. So I asked my sister to take the appropriate colored silly string aside and take half the lids off and replace them with the lids of the other color so that we wouldn't know what was inside.  So in the end, half the cans had pink lids and have the cans had blue lids but only one of those colors of string would come out of the can! I was nervous about this idea not going smoothly (what if someone changed the lids at the store?) but luckily it went well. One of our guests got really excited and couldn't wait ten seconds to see what was in their can of silly string but the others followed right after. Here was all the excitement so you can see for yourselves (Warning - there are tears of joy - ahem ugly crying ahem! I had an excuse: I was pregnant!)

We would have been happy either way - a healthy baby is all we really care about - but I must say we were pretty darn excited to find out we were expecting a real Junior Senior!!! The best part is seeing Perry's delayed reaction! I love seeing the look on his face when he realizes he's going to have a son around the ten second mark! Priceless! 

So here is a closer look at all the details of the party and some ideas for anyone who may be wanting to throw their own party. The decor was quite simple...use pink and blue everything and any baby items you may have and voila, you've got yourself a gender reveal party! This can easily be done on a budget by using your local dollar store! Here's what we did:

We took long pieces of pink and blue fabric and draped them over the fence to create a backdrop . We then took baby clothes and baby items and used them as props.

I made the sign in the middle using a poster board that I cut out into triangles. I painted the triangles pink and blue and used sparkles for the letters. I attached them to the "clothesline" using clothes pegs.

We draped the tables with pink and blue fabric as well. This table was used for fun activities. I used chalkboard paint and pink and blue chalk for the signs. I also used pink and blue water beads for decoration. It was a very cheap option as we already had the vases and a few water beads go a looooong way once they have expanded!

We had a section where people could write down name suggestions for both boys and girls just for fun even though we had the name picked out years ago...yes, someone did actually suggest Lennon...a friend named Yoko...coincidence?!?

Cupcake or stud muffin? Place your ultrasound photos on display to add to the decor!

I painted the clothespins..pink on one side, blue on the other, and the guests pinned them on themselves with the color of their gender guess facing out.

We also had a 50/50 draw...here is some more pink and blue decor! Pink and blue candy can be used for a candy buffet which is always popular!!

The food tables were also decorated with pink and blue fabric and water beads (and some baby blocks)

pink and blue cups and straws...I also had some pink lemonade out and was hoping to find blue lemonade but couldn't find it anywhere!

pink and blue plates, napkins and cutlery

We also had some fun with a little play on words! Couldn't forget the pink and blue balloons!

The beautiful and delicious cake that my sister made.

The icing inside was blue. We used the silly string for the big reveal but this is a fun idea too. Lots of cake ideas on Pinterest!

We asked guests to wear pink and blue if they so wished...You can see a lot of blue in there! Perry and I also dressed in pink and blue!

Some action shots from the moment we found out that IT'S A BOY!

Couldn't forget decor for our little garden! The funny thing is while we were setting up, the blue one kept spinning! We took that as a sign!

Unfortunately this is the only photo I had of the cans of silly string! As you can see I had the blue on one side and the pink on another and I just got my sister to mix up the lids for the reveal.

It was a lot of fun throwing this party but I wouldn't necessarily find out the gender if we were to have another baby in the future...or maybe I would. I became so attached to the little boy that I was carrying, talking to, reading to, and singing to him, referring to him by his name and just generally bonding with him that I got worried about there being a mistake, as the gender is never 100% guaranteed and the ultrasound technician only spent 20 minutes with us when the anatomy scan is usually 45 minutes to an hour long (apparently). Following the party, there were three occurrences of people I know and some ladies on Facebook mom groups that ended up birthing girls when they were told they would have a boy. Eventually I stopped caring and accepted the fact that it could be a boy or girl and even started joking about it and thinking it would make for a funny story if a girl came out! I remember even when  I was in labour, a nurse asked me if I was having a boy or girl and I said "its supposed to be a boy but who knows?!" so it was quite funny when he entered the world and we received confirmation that the ultrasound technician was right all along! As mentioned, we would have been happy either way! 

Hope you enjoyed a look into our gender reveal party and found some inspiration for yours if you are planning one! For more ideas, check out my Gender Reveal Party Pinterest board. 

Happy Monday. Have a great week everyone!