gender reveal party -- the deets

warning: picture heavy post! i probably should have broke this down into two...but too late now!

i am so happy we went through with the gender reveal party! it was a blast to share such a special moment with our family and closest friends! we had such a good time and i think it was fun for everyone else as well! here's a play by play, complete with details...

invitations - please ignore the fact that i took a picture of it with my phone. it was a PDF file and i couldn't attach it to a post, so you get this. one day, i'll take a picture of the actual invitation, since that's the only picture i DON'T have...

 i had my very talented friend carli create the invitations and i printed them at fedex/kinkos. i mounted them on cardstock (on clearance!) from target.

decor -

• paper straws from sweet lulu - these were definitely a splurge, but so worth it in my opinion. they were so fun!

• gender votes (bows and mustaches) -we just finished unpacking everything so we had plenty of cardboard boxes headed for the trash. i decided to cut one up and paint it with chalkboard paint. it was free and pliable enough to stick pins in it. worked perfectly. i cut mustaches out of grey felt and tied simple bows from pink and orange ribbon. 

 

• photobooth props - i printed these on paper (from ohhappyday) and traced them onto foam. the pirate and batman were most definitely the crown favorites. unfortunately, there weren't many girly ones to choose from, so they were kinda lame.

•  a while back i had created a bunting banner for a photo shoot that unfortunately never happened so i quickly decided this was the perfect opportunity to use it! the ribbon bunting behind the banner is the same fabric i used for the bows. i purchased a small "jelly roll" of fabric from michaels, cut the strip into thirds, and tied it on jute string. it was a perfect backdrop to the bunting banner.

•  the big reveal - like i mentioned before, we had plenty of moving boxes destined for the trash so we saved the largest box and i wrapped it in black craft paper and wrote on the front with chalk. i took it to a party store, along with the envelope from our perinatologist and had them fill the box with the corresponding color of balloons. i had a friend pick up the box to avoid a spoiled surprise.

of course an obligatory shot of the photo booth/reveal station

• paper products - i purchased hot pink and teal/blue plastic plates from hobby lobby. i had originally planned to get these at the dollar store, but hobby lobby had better quality and prices, thanks to their 40% off coupons!

food - let's be honest, feeding 40+ people is overwhelming and can quickly get expensive! luckily, i had some wonderful friends and family help out in that department.

• appetizer - 7 layer dip made by stan's step-mom. delicious!
• honey baked ham - sprouts was running a killer deal on ham! i think it was like $1.50 per pound
• BBQ chicken - i love market street's texas tumble chicken. i miss not living close to a market street for that very reason! they happened to be running a special on their hand trimmed chicken breast ($2.00 per pound), so i purchased that to finish of the meat
• potato salad -stan's mom makes a killer potato salad and she was happy to help out
• green beans - my sweet friend, brittany, opened up her lovely home and cooked up some delicious green beans 
• mac 'n cheese - stan's step mom contributed some delicious mac 'n cheese to help out
• baked beans with bacon - stan's aunt was kind enough to whip up some yummy baked beans to wrap up the dinner menu

drinks -my parents supplied most of the drinks, and brittany and i picked up some beer that went pretty quickly. we also made a champagne spritzer that may or may not have tasted very good. it was more than half empty by the end of the party, but it was made by two preggos who didn't do any taste testing! oops...

• water
• soft drinks
• tea
•  beer
• champagne spritzer

dessert - cake balls from sugar derby  - these were absolutely amazing! our friend has always loved to bake and likes to do things like this on the side, so we hit her up for some of the most amazing cake balls i've ever had!

 

i'm pretty sure that wraps up the details of the party. here are some fun shots of friends and family!

Team Boy

Team Girl

he deserves his own photo because he's so darn cute! brittany's adorable son, Van

these two beautiful ladies were two of stan's best friends throughout his school years. and still remain today!

i grew up with these women! brenda (in the middle) was my best freind since the 6th grade! i love her dearly. that's her younger sister cortney on the right. and of course my mom on the left.

my sweet friend kristine. they moved back from nashville 4 months ago! best day ever!

stan's dad, step-mom and grandson, dash

my mom and dad

on the left, chris and tammy. tammy was my sister's best friend growing up and chris was one of my brother's friends. funny how that worked out ;) that's their sweet baby girl, Izzy. on the right is my sister and her boyfriend, jessep.

we met all of these amazing people through the lovely lady in the yellow shirt, michelle. her husband floyd is on the far left. next to us is our friend lauren and her fiance hunter. the far right is our friend (and stan's boss) brandon, his beautiful wife clarissa and their sweet baby kolbe.

carli and braden. like i mentioned before, stan grew up with carli. he is officiating their wedding in june! AND they will soon live one apartment building away from us!

i could not have made it throughout the past 4 years without these women in my life. they are a breath of fresh air and the truth when i desperately need to hear it from someone other than my husband! i owe a lot to them and am so blessed by their friendship.

our old small group when stan worked at providence. i absolutely hate that we aren't 10 minutes away anymore :( i love them dearly!

the guys

stan's mom's side of the family. his mom and step-dad on the far left. his great aunt next to us. on the far right is his aunt carol, his grandpa and next to me is carols father-in-law.

stan's dad's side of the family. on the left is his dad, step-mom and granddaughter. to the right of us is sister-in-law Alex and son dash, stan's sister jennifer and her husband charlie and their son charleston and on the far right is our brother-in-law jeremy (belongs with alex) and their other daughter!

our long time friend josh and his wonderful girl, kaitlyn

my parents and nephews, dalton and logan

and because i'm lazy...see this post for the big reveal!

he's definitely moving in there!

if cash's current state inside the womb is indicative of his personality out of the womb we are in for the ride of our lives! he moves ALL. THE. TIME. seriously. and his favorite time to play? 10:30 pm. right as this momma is trying to go to sleep.

stan doesn't get home until around 8:45 pm on wednesdays and thursdays due to work, so i usually try to eat a light snack around 6:00 and cook dinner when he is on his way home so we can eat as a family. especially now that we finally have a dining room table again! yesterday was no exception, so we ate dinner around 9:00 and by the time i had cleaned up and made breakfast for tomorrow, it was about 10:00 and i was beat. stan is usually still winding down around then and i decided to head to bed. for me, this means catching up on my words with friends games before i finally shut the lights off.

as i was laying there i felt the strongest movement from Cash i have ever felt! a couple moments later i felt it again. i have felt him move a lot lately, but until last night it had just been like he was swimming around in there, flipping and such. this time it felt like an actual kick. like he was doing karate or something! i put the phone down and pulled my shirt up out of curiosity, just to see if i could see it from the outside. i didn't really think i would be able to, but lo and behold, i could see small jolts in my belly! i called for stan to hurry up and get in here so he could see it also! we patiently waited and finally Cash performed! stan was so amazed! of course, he put his hand on my belly and Cash immediately stopped moving. stan eventually went back into the living room and i went back to my words with friends game, thinking cash had gone back to sleep.

Cash started moving again 10 minutes later, as stan was shutting things down. I told him to hurry and get in here again and stan felt his baby boy move for the first time! it's true, i cried. it was so special to finally share something with stan that is tangible regarding his son. it's so weird growing a little baby inside of you but not being able to physically share it with the one person you love most. we can finally enjoy those times together now! so exciting!

because i'm bored on the last day of tax season...

thebump.com has a baby morpher where you can upload a picture of mom and dad and it morphs the two into what your baby will look like. it's quite comical, so i thought i'd share their predictions...

the first time i used these two pictures...

 and ended up with...

a dark-skinned, super curly boy. i can assure you, our baby will not look like this!

so next i tried a picture of stan with a lighter background and less of a funky glare on his face. take 2...

and we ended up with something a little more realistic:

and i did it a third time because i was having waay too much fun. this time with a picture of me with straight hair...

and we ended up with a ghetto fabulous baby. ya know, because they couldn't post a picture of the baby wearing earrings, they decided to picture him with a hood pulled up over his head!

i know you couldn't have possibly enjoyed that as much as i have, but i hope you got a few laughs out of it!

let the wedding festivities begin!

no, not mine silly. been there, done that! 

however, our sweet friend is getting married in less than TWO months! how insane is that?! i can still remember finding out her fiance, B, was going to pop the question and (im)patiently waiting for her phone call! i was so excited for her! she is marrying a wonderful man and he is probably one of the luckiest guys i know. ya know, besides stan of course...

well, last saturday the wedding festivities officially began! she had her first bridal shower. unfortunately, i had to work until 3:00 and i missed out on a super fun game involving photobooth props (i'm a sucker for those) but the shower was beautiful and i had a good time for the last half of it! she got tons of great stuff to stock their new home together.

a couple weekends ago, they stopped by our place to pick up a key. if you haven't put two and two together, they are the couple who moved in to our apartment complex only a couple buildings over from us. and stan is officiating their big day! anyway, carli was talking about how she wanted to start collecting random dishes and i couldn't help but show her my beauties i have collected since christmas. it's not a huge collection, but it's getting there. ironically, braden was totally on board. you see, b doesn't have any dishes from his bachelor days and carli used china she got from her grandmother as her every day dishes. b was NOT a huge fan of that. so much that he gave carli free reign to start her own collection! lucky gal ;)

of course we had to take a trip to anthro to start stocking her kitchen with cute dinnerware! here she is opening up the gifts i got her. pictured is a super cute apron i picked out for her!

 

so cute that i wanted to purchase one for myself too! i'm a sucker for stripes these days ;)

and here's a photo of me and my 20-week belly with the guest of honor! thanks carli for posting these photos on facebook so i can steal them! 

Cinco de Mayo, her sweet mom is hosting a wedding crafting party to help make the wedding and reception decor. i love crafting so this is right up my alley! i am so excited!! 

can. not. wait! 53 days until they walk down the aisle!!!

oh, and just so i can give my amazing husband some cred, he did let me purchase an apron for myself. and a kitchen timer. and a new potholder and glove. i know, he's pretty darn awesome! and a sucker for making me happy :) i love him!

done and done!

so, we checked off a few baby to-do's from our list this weekend! short story: we registered, we FINALLY settled on a stroller, we decided on bedding/decor for the nursery and we ordered curtains! keep reading if you care for the long story, complete with pictures...

i have been all over craigslist (seriously, every single day--sometimes two or three times!) looking for a deep discount on a stroller. i have been looking at the baby jogger city select, the uppababy vista and the britax b-ready. i chose these three because they have the option of adding a second seat to the stroller for future kiddos. they are all pretty pricey strollers, but i figured if it lasted me through all our kiddos, it would be so worth it!

well, the only luck i had was finding the britax b-ready with the second seat for $400. it belonged to a grandma and was purchased last july (less than 1 year ago) and was hardly used. i emailed her right away and it was still available and i was so close to buying it. until i found a brand new one online for $340. i asked the seller if she would go down to $300, but she said the lowest she would go was $375 so i decided i would rather have a brand new one and spend less money. granted, it doesn't come with the second seat attachment, but i won't need that for a while anyway...hopefully! 

however, i was still on the fence about what brand i REALLY wanted. my favorite was the baby jogger city select because i liked the placement of the second seat (in the front), but i hated that the bassinet was not a separate frame, which is a lot of the reason why i'm looking at this style of stroller to begin with (along with the option to expand). i liked the look of the uppababy and it had great reviews, but a lot of mixed feelings on the rumble seat (the add-on attachment for another child). i was already sold on a britax car seat, and the idea of my "travel system" being cohesive  made the britax b-ready much more appealing. stan and i had planned to register at buy buy baby saturday since we finally knew we were having a boy, so i thought i would take a deeper look at them all while we were there, versus internet searching which is what i have been doing for 3 months now!

which brings me to the first thing we checked off our list--REGISTERING! this is one of my FAVORITE things to do. i had so much fun registering when we were engaged and this was no different! of course stan had control of the gun and i didn't get to scan one thing! by the time we made it through the whole store we were exhausted! we had planned to go see a movie, but instead we went home and decided to purchase our stroller! in the store we finally decided on the britax b-ready and we're so excited! 

so, number two: we purchased our stroller! it turns out, the stroller was $370 (not $340) at a store called right start, but i had a $10 off coupon for signing up on their email list. only it wasn't valid on sale items. that was a bummer. but then i saw if you create a registry, you get 10% store credit towards a future purchase for everything that is purchased off of your registry. AND they have better prices than buy buy baby so i moved a lot of my big ticket items over to that store in hopes that i would have a nice little credit to get the little things that people don't want to buy because they aren't as fun. so long story short, this is what we ended up with!

 

we would have rather had the all black, but the twilight (or tan) color was on sale for a cheaper price so we went with that!

 

this is what it will look like for the first few months with the bassinet attachment (before baby can sit up and control his neck). i can't wait to take walks in our neighborhood pushing a baby in this bad boy!

 and these are all of the configurations that can be done with ONE stroller. crazy, huh?!

we also settled on nursery decor! we had been playing with the idea of a nautical/sailor or travel "theme." we don't want it to be too "theme-y" but we do want it to be cohesive. i found some fabric online on sunday that i really liked for the blanket. we saw some bedding at buy buy baby (that was ridiculously overpriced) so i'll base the style loosely off of the blanket that came with the bedding. it's kind of a duvet style, which won't be used until the baby is older anyway, but it will be super cute draped over the side of the crib until he's actually using his crib!

 

 here's a picture of the blanket if you care to see what i'm hoping the finished product will look like:

 it's kind of hard to tell from the picture but it's fluffy and it has piping. it's less quilt like, although it is tacked down in a few places to keep all the layers in place. shouldn't be too hard but it will be my first time to take a stab at piping!

lastly, we ordered curtains from urban outfitters! i got an email about new sale items added and they were the right price! there are two windows in the nursery, one large double window and one single window so i knew whatever curtains i bought/made would have to be pretty inexpensive! this is what we ended up with! i love them :)

anyway, that's it for now! i am planning on purchasing a bunch of different fabrics to make sheets, bumpers, pillows, changing pad covers, etc. i've found quite a bit of stuff i like but i need to run it by stan and see what his favorite is! i'll let you know as we get to that point!