Gender Reveal

As soon as my pregnancy hit the 2nd trimester, many people started to ask us if we wanted to find out the baby's gender. I've always told people that I'm too much of a planner to not learn this important piece of information! So... at our most recent ultrasound appointment, Jason and I found out the big news. That same evening, we invited family over for dinner so that we could have a small celebration to announce our news.

As our family arrived, we invited them to our "welcome table." We had our family members give us their best boy AND girl name idea to put in the bucket. Then, they made predictions about the baby's birth info (date of birth, weight, hair color, etc.). Finally, each person had to attach to his shirt one of two images: pink lips if they thought the baby would be a girl or a blue mustache if they predicted boy.

Next to the welcome table we hung up all the baby's ultrasound pictures. Surprisingly, our doctor has given us quite a few ultrasounds (perhaps because I'm officially in the "advanced maternal age" stage!). We've certainly enjoyed all the sneak peeks we've been able to get of our little blessing.

Once our family members all made their predictions, we took team photos. Here is our official Team Girl. So cute that all these boys are yearning for a little girl in the family! :)

As you can see, nearly all of the adults predicted that baby would be a boy. Here is the official Team Boy photo.

Technically, Jason and I should have both been placed on Team Boy since that had been our prediction from the beginning. Since we already knew the actual result, however, the two of us randomly drew for teams.

Team Boy and Team Girl then participated in a series of minute-to-win-it competitions. Each team member competed in just one event. First up was the Block Stack game. We adjusted the rules slightly for the 4-year-olds on each of the games. Each competitor had to stack 5 (or 3) blocks atop a plate on his head. Kim and Ryan went first.

Grammy and Cody competed next.

The second event was the Cotton Ball scoop-- done with eyes closed for all the adults. Uncle Matt and Uncle Jon were very tight competitors.

Jason's face-off with me was not nearly as close. I kept misjudging the distance to my head and continually dumped the cotton balls right back into my lap!

Our next competition was Penny Towers. Adults had to use just one hand while the kids could use both to build their tower. Chelsea and Ian competed first.

Jaden and Papa were our last competitors. Jaden was a very focused participant.

I honestly don't know which team came out on top in the end since we weren't focusing too much on the scores. I'm thinking it may have been a tie. All teammates received a He/She candy bar prize for their participation in these events.

After these events, we had planned to play a few rounds of boy/girl themed Outburst, but I completely forgot to do this game! Instead, we headed outside to make our official gender reveal announcement. We called up all our out-of-town family members so that they could see/hear our news as well. Beth and Andy were with Grandma and Grandpa in the hospital following Grandma's knee replacement surgery the day before, so they were all on one phone... 

while Andrew, Sarah, Abby and Ben were on another. Gotta love modern technology that brings us all together! :)

I love this pic that shows all of our media-- two phones skyping in family, my camera for taking photos, and at least one more phone taking a video of our announcement.

Jason explained to everyone what would happen when Cody and Jaden opened the container-- how either pink or blue balloons would fly out. The boys eagerly let everyone know that they guessed the balloons would be "GIRL balloons!"

Then Daddy had a prayer for our family and especially for our new little baby.

These videos show the prayer first and then the announcement:

After Daddy ended the prayer, the big-brothers-to-be opened up the tub to reveal.....

PINK BALLOONS!! It's going to be a GIRL!!!

The little boys cheered like they had won some kind of big game. The announcement was rather surprising to us all! It's still hard to believe that in just a few months we are going to welcome a Schleicher girl into the family. I have a feeling that this little girl is either going to be completely pampered or perhaps trampled on by all these boys... quite likely a little of both! :) What exciting news! 

The next evening, our Bible study small group came over to our home for our regular twice-a-month gathering. We had volunteered to make dessert so that we could share our family news with our friends in a fun way. We prepared white cupcakes and squirted pink frosting in the center of each one.

Once the cupcakes were frosted, no one could tell which color they contained...

...until it was time to eat them! We broke all the rules of dinnertime etiquette and started the meal with dessert. Part of the reason was that we doubted Cody and Jaden could keep the secret from our friends throughout an entire meal! Our Life Group friends cheered excitedly for us upon learning the news of our baby girl.

I took a photo of one of our "gender reveal" cupcakes and sent the pic to a variety of our friends from Montana. We loved sharing this happy news!

The next day at church, Jason took two of the remaining cupcakes with him to a meeting. Jason's supervising pastor and the pastor's assistant each bit into a cupcake and showed the result to the rest of their team.

We are so thankful for all of these supportive family members and friends who have rejoiced with us in this exciting baby news. Most of all, we feel so blessed by God with this gift of a precious little girl. We can't wait to officially welcome her into our family!

We love you so much, our sweet baby girl!!

What a little miracle you are!