Fall Gender Reveal: white pumpkins & paper flowers

This time last year I was 16 weeks pregnant and anxiously awaiting the 20 week appointment on October 24th where we would find out if baby L was a girl or boy! We went back and forth about the idea of a "gender reveal party." I'm the girl who literally melts in a puddle at work when the office has a cake for birthdays (not just my birthday - but the entire month of March birthdays) yeah, so drawing a lot of attention to myself wasn't something I was totally interseted in.

And then once we had decided that gender reveals were kind of silly and just asking for attention, I rolled over in bed one night (I was still able to roll side to side, unlike my later beached whale of a self) and said "HI, so, remember how we don't want a gender reveal? I think we DO want a gender reveal!" And then I never looked back. The planning began that night as I laid awake.

Since we are displaced right now and living out of state while the husband attends law school, this was a perfect reason to get to see a few friends and family.

We had our ultrasound appointment on 10/24/14 and then the reveal was scheduled for 11/1/14. Talk about a week of madness!! I put together this box for a friend and asked her to open the envelope, use the clip, write on the chalkboard, and lace up the hockey skates with pink or blue!! You might remember the hockey skates from our pregnancy announcement here.

Finding out on the 24th and waiting a full 8 days until November 1st was easy about 5% of the time and difficult the other 95% of the time. However, at this point in my heart I was almost completely sure baby L was a girl. We even had our name picked out and occasionally called her by her name before the official reveal. And no, I swear we didn't peek.

I would be lying if I said we didn't think about opening up the envelope and finding out ourselves before the actual gender reveal in front of our families...but ultimately we stuck with the game plan and waited until the first.

One of the toughest moments was getting this text from our friends who wrapped up our box, knowing they had seen the confirmation of our little peanut's gender and knew before we did!!! In this picture the skates are all laced up and the box is full of the pink or blue goodness!

The friends we asked to help us with this were a couple, where the guy attends law school with my husband. His fiance-now WIFE-(how cool! and confirmation again that I wait too long to blog) sent him in with the box. No one in torts, or civil procedure, or whatever legal class it was had any idea that the silver box with the big white bow on it sitting in the aisle held the biggest secret about our new addition!


Instead of keeping it with him, my husband brought the box out and left it with me while I waited for him to finish class.

I then had to sit there in the cafe staring at the box for the entire duration of the class and consider that I could definitely, most certainly, peek and it would be fine - in fact I think I even justified that it could be funny since I always unwrap all of my Christmas presents early and then wrap them back up. But I didn't. (Or did I?.......???)




So for the decorations, the second best part to actually finding out! Because we were finding out the day after Halloween we didn't want to completely ignore the season and go with decor in bright florals as is my usual go to, but instead decided to go with fall neutral colors and pumpkins. We went to a great pumpkin patch near us that had unique colored pumpkins in pale shades of almost pink and blue and white!

We first picked out 30 small pumpkins for each guest to write their name on and place on the table next to either a girl or boy sign to show their guess. Here's our trunk full of white pumpkins. They are cute right?! A good blend of integrating the season but not being stuck with orange everywhere.

And here's how the table came out with two pumpkins - one a baby girl, and one a baby boy that we asked guests to sit their mini pumpkins by. We cut the tips off of the pacifiers and then glued what was left of the pacifier to the pumpkin. Now, although I knew, knew, KNEW in my heart it was a girl I couldn't risk being wrong in front of the whole crowd - so I put my pumpkin on the boy side. My husband was honest and put his by the girl pumpkin. 

 

I also made the chalkboard signs below to hold up once we figured out what he or she is and then a chalkboard sign that listed some of the wives tales. I tell you, I didn't get too much advice when pregnant, but boy did I get quite a few guesses about the gender with very serious explanations as to why they were 100% sure they were right based on how I was carrying, my attitude, complexion, sickness, etc. I think 9 out of 10 people guessed boy. And at the gender reveal almost all of the pumpkins except for 6 were on the boy side!

 

Here's how the table where we stood to find out ended up coming out. We also brought one of the canvases from the paper flower wall take 2 that is now currently housed in the nursery! Also take a look at those pumpkins - they definitely look pink and blue, right!?

And of course no party is complete without some baby head cake pops from Sweets & Treats by Shanelle. 

And.....

  

We were thrilled! Little L's cousin heard the news in Alaska...and was not as thrilled. 

Looking Back: Hockey Baby Announcement

Can't believe it has been almost a year since we posted our baby announcement! We took this photo and shared it with our friends on 10/14/14. We did, however, tell our families right when we found out we were pregant. More about that decision and their reactions later.

The day we posted this on Facebook was also the day that I realized I never before had ever received so many likes on one photo. Now, whenever I post a photo without the baby in it - 3 maybe 4 likes total. But with the baby? Guaranteed 50 every time, and within minutes. It's like Facebook actually quantifies the fact that I am totally old news now.

Anyway, back to the purpose of this post. We met playing hockey at the University of Maryland and hockey continues to be a big part of our lives so we figured why not let the world know we were welcoming a little one by purchasing a pair of baby Bauers from Canada?

I searched and searched online, and the smallest size I could find was from a Canadian seller on ebay. They are obviously way too big right now, but adorable none the less. You'll see these skates again soon in an upcoming post about the gender reveal!

For now, this is just a quick post to document the announcement. I still can't believe I'm sitting here in bed with the little creature cuddling next to me while typing this. I can remember taking this picture like it was yesterday!!!

Any other hockey announcements out there? I'd love to see them!

Babywearing Photos! What? Yes, like a mama kangaroo.

My wonderful photographer turned friend, Heather of Heather Booysen Photography recently took a few babywearing photos of little L and me :) I had never seen or heard of taking photos specifically of wearing your little one, but I wear L so much I really, really, love having these pictures!

Might I add Heather also took our maternity photos, "fresh 48" hospital photos, newborn photos and now these. So, I'm a fan -couldn't recommend her more!

One of the reasons I love these photos so much is because of a photo I found of my mom wearing me. I thought it was so sweet but also hysterical to see how things changed.

First of all, I straight up look like a bag of potatoes. And I'm pretty sure that's a drawstring around my head. I love it! I was only 3 weeks old in this picture <3.














And then here I am carrying L when she was 2 weeks old. I'm pretty sure I was wearing her completely wrong in this photo. I just sat her in there all squished and I think her feet were coming out the bottom where my hands are :O!!

So, these pictures really are precious, right?? Now you can likely understand why I was so excited when Heather told me about something new she was trying with the babywearing photos.

So, before I share the professional pics, a few things about wearing L:

1. I use an Ergo. I tried a Baby K'tan and some sling thing and I just looked like a T-Rex. I couldn't get any freedom with my arms (I know I was doing it wrong, but I just gave up). I seriously looked like this:

From: http://themetapicture.com/missonderstood-t-rex/

2. When L was 2 weeks old - 2 months old the only way she would sleep for more than 20 minutes is if I had her in the carrier. We'd take three walks around the neighborhood - each 2 hours long. Yes, you read that correctly. So I was walking 6 hours a day. And you know what that meant? That my mom got three phone calls a day. However exhausting it was, I was so thankful for a March baby which meant walking outside during the nice spring weather! And thankful that my mom didn't block my number. I'm pretty sure a lot of our conversations went like this:

Me: "So today....wait, I forgot what I was going to say."
Mom: "That's ok, what are you doing?"
Me: "Um...walking, yeah! That is what I was going to say! I'm on a walk."
Mom: "Ok great hunny"
Me: "So what are you doing?"
Mom: "I'm running some errands"
Me: "Cool, I'm walking."
Mom: "That's great hunny"
Me: "What did you say you were doing again? Oh right, errands. I'm on a walk - did I tell you that?"

And that ladies and gentlemen is probably the most detailed, scientific look you're going to get into the mom of a newborn's brain. It has improved slightly, but not much. 

3. L still LOVES to be carried. There are times during the day when she is just fussy and looking at me like "you know what I want." And I reach for the Ergo to strap it on and her excitement is visible. She used to get in the Ergo and fall right asleep, but now she'll stay awake and content for almost an hour and then drift off to sleep for a bit.

  

  

 

4. I carry her everywhere. The Farmer's Market in Colonial Williamsburg, through the entire church service, on every Target run, to story time at the library. I love it, she loves it. Now that she is 6 months, she is probably in it on average once a day for about an hour and a half.

5. I'm thinking about buying the Ergo 360 where she can be carried looking out at the world instead of facing me, but not sure I'm ready for that hefty investment. Anyone have one and think it's totally worth it?

And now...here are the professional pics!

 

  

 

Heather Booysen Photography

http://www.heatherbooysenphotography.com/

Love. Love. LOVE!!

And just because they are adorable:

From: http://www.nyparenting.com/stories
/2012/8/sif_health_kangaroo_2012_08.html

From: http://goodnature.nathab.com/top-ten-
cutest-motherbaby-wildlife-photos-a-mothers-day-tribute/

From: http://www.zooborns.type pad.com/zooborns/koala/page/2/

Recapping the Second Trimester

So this is coming obviously late - but I still wanted to document the second trimester as my lack of sleep is already causing many of my pregnancy memories to fade!

Oh my gosh look at my TINY little belly. And guess what else happened during week 14? I got my MOM CUT! Ladies, you totally know what I am talking about. I had the sudden urge to just chop it all off, I think I said "the baby is just going to pull it all out anyway." But at the same time, I wasn't being entirely practical. I opted for some side bangs that required serious maintenance. Yeah, because if I figure out my hair care routine now it will be a breeze to manage when the baby is here. HA. If you all could only see my locks right now as I'm writing this and the little peanut has been out in the world for 5 months!

I won't have captions really for the rest of these, but wow is it crazy and incredible to look back at these pictures. Little L (what I'm going to call her from now on because so many other bloggers make this look like the cool and SAFE thing to do. Let's face it she's plastered all over facebook and instagram, me not typing her name isn't going to help anything, but I kind of like it - it's like my own Gossip Girl feed with her own little code letter) Ok that was such a serious stream of conscious run on thought I don't even remember what I was typing before. Oh - right, Little L was growing so fast in there!!!

So - as you can tell my haircut went south REAL fast. That's why week 15 is smaller than the others. Looks like a mangly little mess. But I pull myself back together around week 16 and finally bought a pair of maternity leggings as you can't really tell here but cramming my legs into my old tights was like trying to get sausage back in its casing. Yuck, gross reference, but totally true and impossible. Also totally true that I am wearing those maternity leggings right now and will probably continue to the rest of my life. The way they hug my belly is just so comforting. HA, if only I was kidding. And then we get to week 17 the week when my non-maternity shirts started looking a little strange and I totally gave up on my hair cut - cute the remaining second trimester pictures with a headwrap. Cheetah no less. I have a feeling I'll look back on these in twenty years and laugh, or maybe I'm looking back right now and laughing. <-- truth.

Week 18 - my favorite picture. My belly looks so tiny but starting to get round and I feel like it finally popped this week. Oh, and yes I had been feeling little L moving in there since week 13, can you believe it! She was a pretty constant mover and I loved that. I filled up at least two iphones worth of storage taking videos of my stomach waiting for her to move. No lie, I had to get a new phone and my first bout of pregnancy rage came out while doing so - but that's another story and actually really not a time worth dwelling on.  If you're wondering where pictures from week 19, 20 and 21 are...well I felt like a big blob and just didn't take pictures. Regretting it now? Kind of - but I still remember that feeling. I actually understood why they say "couch potato." I got to the point where I could describe myself as nothing other than an imobile potato just laying on the couch. And not even a sweet potoato, a plain one. Another post will follow this one about the gender reveal during week 20 & 21 - my favorite FAVORITE part of the whole pregnancy. 

 

I didn't realize it but my feet were starting to grow - starting from this point forward these were the only shoes that fit and I actually went on ebay and desperately bought another pair of uggs a size up. You know I was desperate if I bought them used (listen used clothes are totally fine, but shoes - oh boy.) Especially UGGS! They are just warm sweaty sweaters for your feet you can't wash. And me and some girl on ebay have that connection now.  Also, you will notice that I have completely given up on the bangs, they are clipped up. And yes, that is where they remain today.

And last but not least, my favorite pictures - week 26. Our matching Jesus Saves Bro shirts from Riley Clay Designs. 

 

Because Jesus does save, bro. :*