Gender Reveal Party

Upon finding out we were pregnant Ty and I discussed finding out baby’s gender ahead of time or waiting until delivery day.  We agreed to find out before birth if baby was a boy or girl.  I knew I wanted the discovery to be more exciting than just looking at an ultrasound screen sitting in the doctor's office.  I also wanted to somehow include our families on the surprise.  One day as I was reading a magazine, I saw the idea of a gender reveal party.  We knew that’s what we wanted to do, but how?  We decided on a cake.  Not a surprise to anyone who knows my love of most things sweet! 
 

At our 16 week appointment our plan was put into place.  Our doctor wrote down baby’s gender on a piece of paper and sealed it in an envelope.  Ty took the envelope to work and gave it to a very trustworthy co-worker.  His co-worker called the bakery and informed them of baby’s gender.  My mom had already talked to the baker, we decided on the baker who made our wedding cake, and explained what we wanted. 

Family and a few friends would join us for a gender reveal party.  At the party we would cut the cake to discover the cake died blue for a boy or pink for a girl.  The best part was that Ty and I would find out along with everyone else.  The hard part was our doctor’s appointment was on Wednesday and the party was scheduled for Saturday.  We had to wait 3 days to find out! 

I had so much fun deciding on food, decorations, and guessing games.  I decided to use gray, pink, and blue as the colors for the party and baby footprints for decoration.  My parents surprised us with footprint cookies and Ty’s parents surprised us by making the cutest fruit tray!

Guessing:

To share our gender guesses we had a chalkboard divided in half.  Guests drew a tally to indicate whether they thought baby was a boy or girl.  My favorite was a calendar for guessing baby's birthday.  Guests used a footprint stamp to mark baby's predicted birthday and then wrote their name next to the footprint with either pink or blue pen.  For guessing length and weight we just used a plain, old Excel print out.  

Themed Food:

Cake (died blue for boy or pink for girl)

Footprint cookies (a surprise)

Fruit tray (a surprise)

Pink and blue cake batter balls (recipe here, I just died them)

Kit Kats (the projected size of baby at 16 weeks)

Hershey bars (“He” colored blue on some, “she” colored pink on others)

Pretzels dipped in white almond bark and sprinkled with blue and pink sprinkles

Pink Lemonade

Mixed Berry Kool Aid

We had other snacks available such as veggie tray, cheese tray, and dips that did not go with the theme.

Decorations:

Tissue paper flowers made from pink and blue tissue paper

Pink and blue streamers

Ultrasound pictures

Chalkboard with Old Wives Tales

Signs with blue and pink polka dots