21 weeks

HELLO BABY BOY!!!

Yes, this week we found out that you’re a boy!  And I must admit we REALLY REALLY wanted a boy. It’s not that we don’t want to have a daughter but we were both really hoping for a boy first and we got our wish!  Not to mention, I would say 95% of people asked told me they thought you would be a boy from the day they found out I was pregnant so I guess some people just know.

There may have been other things that happened this week but none are even worth mentioning in comparison to the results of our gender reveal party so I’ll jump right to that. Blake and I loved the idea of having a gender reveal party, actually Blake was the one who first mentioned it just a few days after we got engaged and I was showing him how to look up wedding and party ideas on Pinterest. He came across a gender reveal party photo and asked if we could have one… that was 7  months before we even got pregnant but hey, my man loves any reason to celebrate!

There are tons of different gender reveal ideas including colored cake or cake pops, opening a box of colored balloons, popping a balloon filled with a single color of confetti, etc. We finally decided to have a silly string reveal where each person at the party had a can of silly string and sprayed us with it all at the same time. We thought this would be a fun way of finding out the gender because it gets everyone involved and we all find out at the exact same time.  So who buys the silly string?  Enter my dear friend Blair. She’s due a month before me and is having a little baby girl, so I thought it would not only be fun for her to find out first but I also knew that Blake wouldn’t be able to pay her off for the information before the actual party. She also wrapped each individual can… they turned out so cute!

Next we had to decide on a theme and again we were overwhelmed with different ideas from the internet and Pinterest. Bows or Bowties? Team Pink or Team Blue? He or She? Cars and Trucks or Ribbons and Bows? Ties or Tutus? We loved all of those ideas but none of them really seemed to be a good fit. We were throwing ideas around about how to incorporate the beach theme and Blake mentioned the word grommet, which is the slang word for a little kid surfer. Immediately, I jumped on it and created a whole surf themed party playing off the phrase “Baby on Board” relating to a surfboard and instead of “He or She?” we used surfer slang terms “Grommet or Mahina?”

From there we went onto the details, adding surf-themed and beach-themed decorations, seashells, pink and blue/turquoise colors, sand buckets, beach towels, etc. It was so much fun to decorate and luckily, we already had most of what we needed at home.

We wanted to have a voting board so we used one of the turquoise frames from our wedding and the surfboard that was supposed to be at our head table (but we ended up just not using it) and Blake added a plywood chalkboard to create our homemade voting board. We also ordered small surfboards from the same company that we got our escort card surfboards, and I hand painted blue and pink waves on the boards and added pins to the back. Each person wrote their name under either the “GIRL” or “BOY” side then took a pin in that coordinating color to wear during the party.

As you can see, the votes were pretty even although I did have a quite a few people tell me they voted girl just because they were trying to even things up… just in case it really was a girl and she grew up with a complex because no one believed she would be a she. Luckily, we didn’t have to worry about that. 🙂

We also added a couple activities for people to do during the party. We had a stack of cards that had “Words of Love for Baby Roberson” and also “Words of Advice for Blake and Meghan”… we still haven’t read them all because we’re trying to read them through when we’re together and that only happens a few hours every other day but we’ve loved reading the ones we’ve been through so far.

We also had “Diaper Thoughts” where we had a bunch of newborn diapers in a vintage bassinet passed down to us from my aunt. We asked people to write a funny note or message to us for those late night, middle of the night, and early morning diaper changes when we can hardly keep our eyes awake and maybe just maybe a funny joke will keep us awake and alert for the next few moments.

Then we played a game we called “3am”… it’s 3:00 in the morning. Baby is crying. Needs a diaper change. It’s completely pitch black in the nursery because you’ve installed every room-darkening shade Lowe’s carried in order to maximize nap times. While successful in blocking out every ray of light possible, now you find yourself unable to see a thing and stuck in a difficult situation: Do I change the baby in the dark or turn the light on and ruin all chances of it ever going back to sleep?  You decide to go with the former, risking bodily injury to yourself after tripping over infant toys and bouncer seats in order to increase the likelihood that Baby will continue sleeping after your ninja-style quick-change.

The task was: (1) take the baby’s onesie off, (2) change its diaper, (3) put a new onesie back on. We were judged on directional accuracy of diaper and clothing, appropriate form, and safety. Blake was the first one to complete Step One, but in doing so he also broke that poor little babydoll’s neck resulting in docked points. He then proceeded to put the diaper on over one of it’s shoulders, and during his attempt at re-dressing with the clean onesie, he also shoved an arm and a leg through one leg whole while holding Baby upside down by the other foot.

We obviously know who the winner was.

Next, it was time for the big reveal!  You already know what it is (obviously you’ve read this far already and even if I hadn’t written it at the top of the post I know only my mom and my aunt Laurie ever really read these whole posts and they were there so sorry there aren’t any surprises this time.) We did our big silly string reveal on the back porch. Everyone had a can and everyone shot their can at us at the same time while Blair and Ty took photos and a video of the whole thing.

BLUE!!!! The dog was a little freaked out but he could fend for himself. Us on the other hand?  We were covered head to toe in icky sticky wet blue silly string.

Happy 21 weeks Baby Boy!