Gender Reveal Party for #2

I took the address off the bottom to post the invite, that's why it looks blank at the bottom.

When Ty and I learned we were pregnant with Baby #2 we knew we wanted to do a gender reveal just like we had with Carter.  We also knew we wanted to do it in a different way than we had with Carter.  For Carter's reveal we cut into a cake revealing blue cake underneath the frosting because Carter was a boy!  I wanted to somehow involve Carter in the reveal and kept mulling over the idea of him opening something.  I finally decided he should open a stuffed animal revealing a boy or girl stuffed animal.  My plan was to send someone armed with the doctor's note to Build a Bear to make either a boy or girl stuffed animal.  But then as the time approached I didn't like the idea of using Build a Bear anymore.  Whoever agreed to be our secret keeper would have to trek out to Build a Bear and spend a decent amount of time creating the stuffed animal.  Then it would come down to their personal interpretation of what a boy or girl stuffed animal would be.  I also hated to spend all the money.  I found myself wishing we could just use something we already had.  Then it dawned on me.  When they had the Little Critter books and stuffed animals at Kohl's for Kohl's Cares for Kids I bought the Little Critter doll along with his little sister to give Carter for Christmas.  I decided we would use those stuffed animals.  Our theme then became blue, pink, and Little Critter.  The theme for Carter's reveal party was pink, blue, and footprints.  It was nice just changing out one thing because I was able to re-use most of the decorations.  Read about Carter's gender reveal party here.

The Little Critter and sister dolls from Kohl's.

To prepare for the party I pulled out decorations we used for Carter's reveal party.  Ty made a box out of leftover cardboard from turning the stroller into a train for Halloween.  Then he covered the box with white paper.  I wrote "It's a..." on the top of the box and "Boy or Girl?" on the other side.  Then I gave Carter pink and blue markers and had him color the box.  We worked on the box a little bit at a time because he would lose interest in coloring after a while.  He had a lot of fun coloring it and it turned out looking awesome!

Decorating the box for the reveal.

 

 

The weekend of the reveal we already had plans to visit my hometown for the baby shower of one of my best friends and a race in the evening.  My mom graciously offered to host the party at her house and since she was hosting did a lot of the decorating ahead of time which was so nice!  When we arrived Friday evening we just hung the chalkboards and set out a few decorations.  I wrote my answers to a few old wives tales on one chalkboard and used the other chalkboard for guests to record their guesses.  My mom ordered a cake and had fruit and veggie trays.  She also bought pink and blue candy and used them in vases to decorate.  Another decoration was a vase filled with girl clothes and a vase filled with boy clothes.  Ty's mom brought pink and blue Sixlets in baby bottles and cookies made with pink and blue M&M's.  It was all so cute!

The vases filled with girl and boy clothes.

The adorable cake my mom ordered.  This time it was just white inside!

We scheduled the party for 2:00 thinking Carter could go down around noon for an early nap and should wake up just in time for the party.  Things didn't quite go as planned as Carter ended up going down for a nap at 11:30 while I was still at the shower.  Then he took a shorter nap than usual, waking up at 1:00.  Ty's parents and grandparents had just arrived so we were only waiting on my best friend, Erin, and her son, Hayden, who planned to arrive at 2:00.  It was a long hour waiting to find out if we were having a boy or girl.  Carter and I went outside at 2:00 and watched as Hayden and Erin arrived.  Carter was so excited to see Hayden and wanted to play with him so much that he wasn't too interested in opening the box.

Carter opening the box he decorated.

It's a girl!

After discovering we were having a girl my mom had us go through and look at the girl clothes in the vase she'd used to decorate.  Ty's parents gave us a present to open with a couple of adorable girl outfits Leina found at a garage sale in perfect condition.  Ty's grandparents also had presents for us.  It was so much fun to open the presents and to have a few girl clothes!  After the party Hayden and Carter had a blast playing together and everyone else talked about how excited and surprised they were to be having a girl join the family!

One of the adorable onesies from Rocky and Leina.

Carter and Hayden enjoying some cake.

Of course I couldn't get them both to look at the same time!