Gender Reveal Party: Baseball or Bows

We didn't do a gender reveal party when we found out the sex of Reaghan. We just did it the "new" old fashioned way by having the ultrasound technician tell us right there during the ultrasound if our baby was a boy or a girl and then told our families in a cute way... balloons for my family and a cake for Mark's family. With Lilly my mother and sister-in-law really wanted to throw us a Gender Reveal party so we agreed and it was actually really fun to find out all together. My sister-in-law had Party City put the pink balloons in a box so no one at the party knew the gender until we opened it and it was an exciting way to find out with everyone.

So when my sister Erin finally got pregnant through IVF after 7 long years of infertility, I knew I wanted to throw her every type of baby related party possible to celebrate every step of the pregnancy!

ACTUALLY, I decided I would throw them this party as soon as they decided they were going to go through the IVF process. Before they even knew they were pregnant I found a "Baseball or Bows" banner for sale on facebook yardsale. I decided to buy it in an act of faith that they would be able to conceive, and praise the Lord they did! I am so thankful for the Lord's faithfulness and graciousness to answer our prayers that has nothing to do with my feeble acts of faith.

The baseball theme was an easy choice because Erin's husband, Adam, played baseball all through high school and college and is currently a youth baseball coach. My sister Sara and I planned a whole baseball themed party and had so much fun decorating and putting it all together that I had to share some pictures from the party!

(ignore the yellow umbrella ;) the weather wasn't playing along with our plans!)

We had everyone enter into a raffle with their guess of the gender. 

If you guessed right you had a chance for your name to be drawn from the right jar to win a gift card!

The wreath was reused from our gender reveal party, it was made by a coworker of my mother in law.

These signs originally came from Etsy, but were the ones I purchased second hand from the facebook yard sale site.

Sara and I also went to Michael's to get the pink and navy pendants to create banners to hang in the dining room and we also cut baseballs and bow shapes out of card stock and made banners to hang in he family room.

Because it was baseball themed we chose to go with baseball park foods!

Hot dogs and Nachos!

The concession banner came with the other Etsy banners I purchased!

Erin's mother-in-law made adorable baseball and bow cheeseballs and they were delicious too!

We also had Peanuts, Baby Ruth'ss (duh right?), Pink starbursts (because we needed pink candy and Erin loves them!) and my mom made Caramel Corn (Cracker Jacks!) to finish off our concession area! 

There isn't really a way to make fruits and veggies baseball-ish except for to put them on home plate shaped food boards : )

Have you ever done a Nacho Bar for a party? If not, I highly recommend! It was so easy and fun! I made the cheese in the crockpot, it stayed perfect all afternoon, and put toppings out for people to create their own plates. It was deliciously easy.

Sara made these tissue paper pom-poms on her own! She's definitely the creative, artsy sister!

My mom found a cute baseball onesie that she couldn't pass up so then she bought some girls bows and things to complete the theme so we decided to display them with clothes pins near the cake.

Erin's best friend's daughter is a little baker in the making and enjoys creating cakes for special events. She did an amazing job with this baseball cake that I asked her to create and cute little mini cupcakes. They were cute and delicious. 

Sara and I were up late decorating the night before, and at 1 am while watching our favorite TV show "PSYCH!" we had a brilliant idea to create a photo booth wall! It kept us up another hour while we taped and twisted streamers to the wall, but I'm so glad we did! It was fun and it turned out so cute.

Reaghan was very enthusiastic about hoping the baby was a girl!

Erin was definitely feeling the girl vibe too...

(Shirt came with the Etsy find!)

Team Boy!

Grandma's had differing opinions on the baby!

And so did the grandpa's!

Mark and I were Team Girl!

(Girls are all we know!)

There were way more members on Team Boy...

...than on Team Girl!

\

So who was right???

Thanks to the Rain we had to set up some tents in the front yard to keep everyone dry, but most importantly the powder dry! I was so afraid the moisture would keep it from exploding the way it was supposed to! Thankfully it wasn't a problem!

THE THROW

THE HIT

THE REACTIONS

EVERY ONE WAS SO EXCITED

I can't wait to meet my nephew this June. <3

Blizzard 2018!

Last week we had a blizzard blow through coastal, VA! Like a legit snowstorm blizzard. Crazy enough we had a big snow the exact same time last year, and we thought that was a lot of snow! We had maybe 6 inches or so and truly, thats a big snow for this area, but it was nothing compared to this year! We got 12 inches this time around! It was crazy, and then it stuck around for a good week because the temps here were below freezing for several days. I never remember having this much snow for this long when I was kid, I would've loved it just like Reaghan loves it! She got to go out and play in it several days... it's not quite as much fun as a parent haha am I right?!

I mean, don't get me wrong. I had fun playing out in the snow with her and watching her love it, but it takes us a good 30 minutes to get all bundled up, I'm exhausted before I even get out there! and then there is all the laundry afterwards. I'm totally on board with it for the first 24, maaayyybbee 48 hours. But after that... The snow can go! I was definitely getting cabin fever by day 4 of being stuck at home because the roads were so bad.

I finally did run to the store on the aforementioned day 4 and somehow in my excitement of getting out of the house and going to Sam's club all by myself... I lost my wallet somewhere between walking out of the doors of the store and getting in my car. AND whats worse? I didn't even realize it until the next day. *facepalm* ugh. Trying to get everything in there replaced has not been fun.

But back to the Snow day! I had every intention of getting on plan with some healthy eating to counteract all the holiday treats the week of the snow storm.... but c'mon... Snow means hot chocolate and all the comfort foods! Like homemade donuts.

The untouched blanket of snow after it all fell!

Fun in the snow:

Day 2:

I took this girl with me to check in on a couple of our elderly neighbors. We were able to get the mail for the lady that lives next to us. We didn't do anything extravagant but it was a fun time trekking through the snow with her and teaching her some practical ways that we can love our neighbors.

Day 4 and the snow is still there!

It has been in the 60's the last 2 days so the snow is all melted away and all that is left is muddy yards and dirty cars. OH. and Christmas decorations that we definitely need to take down this weekend!