Gender Reveal!

Hello, my friends! Super exciting news this week! We finally found out whether or little one is a he or a she!!! Baby Brzu did not want to cooperate for our first ultra sound (shyness must run in the family), so we ended up going to a just-for-fun ultrasound place for a second peek. After a bit of Googling and some advice from friends, I had a Snickers Bar and half a bottle of Mountain Dew before the second ultrasound to get baby moving... and it worked! Babies apparently like sugar and little caffeine. We were able to see the gender! Phew! I don't think I could have lasted the rest of the pregnancy without knowing! Too exciting!
Although my husband and I opted to find out the gender ourselves at the ultrasound, we still wanted to do a gender reveal for our family and closest friends. We wanted to find out ourselves first because we wanted to share that special moment together. However, since it is our first baby, and the first grandchild on my side of the family, we thought it would be fun to share the news with our families in person. Since we just had a big surprise 30th birthday party for my husband and his best friend, I wanted to keep this gender reveal party super simple and affordable. 
We decided to have a small BBQ with just our immediate relatives and a few of our very closest friends to keep the costs down. I made an invitation using PicMonkey* and emailed it to everyone. I had bought these graphics for the 30th birthday, and they just so happened to be perfect for this invitation too! (Location and email removed from invite below for safety reasons)

We bought burgers and hot dogs to grill and made just a few side dishes and snacks. Our family pitched in on a few dishes as well. We crossed our fingers for nice weather so we could hang out on the patio! It turned out to be a beautiful day!

We picked up pink and blue balloons from Party City. They are usually 12 for $12! My sweet friend, Maria, told me to check the dollar store for plates, cups, and napkins, and sure enough, they had light pink and light blue! Perfect!!!

I made a chalk board sign for guests to tally their votes and displayed it on one of the snack tables. Check out my tutorial on how to transfer printed text to see the method I used for this chalkboard.

I made some simple cupcakes and dressed them up with these little blue and pink picks I found at Michaels. I just hand wrote "He or She?" on them. Super easy decor!

While browsing the aisles at the craft store, I ran into the Wilton melting candies* and saw that they were on sale. What an easy way to add color! And yummy!!! 

I made an Old Wives Tales chalkboard sign and displayed it on the drink table (complete with adorable striped straws in pink and blue from Party City!). We also posted this sign on Facebook the day before the reveal to see what all of our friends' guesses were! It was a lot of fun to read through the comments!!!

For the big reveal, we wanted something that everyone could participate in, so we decided on confetti poppers! I made these myself! Check back soon for the tutorial :)

Everyone wore pink or blue, and I took photos of the teams in front of a paper pennant banner I made! Team Pink was super excited for the reveal!

And Team Blue! :)

Then we handed out confetti poppers to everyone. I had my camera set up on a tripod and continuous shooting ready to capture the action. We all counted to three, and.....

Blue confetti!!!! It's a boy!!! 

Pete and I are so thankful that we got to watch our family and friends reactions! It was so much fun!

We are super excited for our little man to get here! I can't believe the pregnancy is already half way over!!! Now to start thinking of names and planning the nursery! Let the fun begin! :)

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