Gender Reveal

I'd never heard of a gender reveal before I became familiar with the blogging world and Pinterest.  As soon as I understood the premise behind it, I knew that's how I wanted to tell our family and friends if Baby L would wear pink or blue.  As soon as we found out we were pregnant (and before my mom even knew), I began digging around for ideas.  I saw some really cute ideas and as the date was set, the details fell into place and the invitations were mailed, there was still one small detail I hadn't yet ironed out.

How would we actually reveal the gender?

The most common thing I saw was the cake idea.  The baker makes the inside of the cake either pink or blue and the parents-to-be stand up in front of the crowd as everyone waits in anticipation as it's cut.  Cute, wonderful.  Except I've done that before...at my wedding.  I wanted cupcakes because I wanted everybody to feel a part of the surprise.  So as I was talking it up at work, someone suggested a 'King's Cake' concept where maybe you hide a blue or pink baby in the cake and see who gets it.  Except I wanted cupcakes, remember?  So yes!  Of course, put the baby inside ONE cupcake and as we all toast our sugary goodness in the air, somebody gets to feel extra special for those 4.5 seconds before the attention comes back to Brad and me.  All because they chose the cupcake!  We changed the baby idea to filling because there's just something about the nurse in me that thinks baby-in-cake = choking hazard.

So there we were...ten days before the party, sitting in the Dr.'s office.  One small, itty bitty part of me really wanted to say "screw it, (sorry, Mom) let's just find out".  But then again, I've been thinking about and planning this party for months.  So we held out, gazing into each other's eyes instead of at the big screen everytime the sonographer told us to turn our heads.  We walked out of there with a black and white picture AND a CD all sealed up and didn't peak.  Those two things sat in our apartment for seven straight days and neither one of us cared.  I mean, we cared, but not enough to ruin the surprise.  The picture went to the baker a few days ago and the anticipation built up...

Here's the scene:  25 of our friends and family members gathered around.  Fajitas, beer, sangria for dinner.  Neckties and tiaras for those who wanted to be on "team blue" or "team pink".  Lots of laughter, good conversation and cute kids running (or crawling) around.  Then the time comes.  I give a few instructions -- don't shove the whole thing in your mouth, everybody start together, etc. and then it begins.  "Oh, I think I have it!" Not funny.  And then another one.  Nope.  And then very quietly and coyly, we hear, "No you don't, because it's right here."  Daddy Brad had the cupcake and had very happily smeared the blue filling all over his mouth.  The smile on his face was PRICELESS.   I'm still not sure if he was more proud that Baby L is a boy or that he picked the coveted cupcake.  I started jumping up and down, getting all sentimental and teary-eyed, screaming with excitement and ran over to him.  He's said all along it would be a boy, so it was perfect!  See for yourself...

More pictures to come...plus, the oops-I-forgot-to-post 21 week update (and probably the 22 week one as well)...