Gender Reveal!

Hello there Monday. 

I don't know about you, but I really could use an extra day this weekend. It's not even that we had a crazy busy one, but I think all our travels (we've been out of town every two weeks since mid-June) are just plum catching up with me. Well, and I'm growing a tiny human. Me believes that also takes a toll... 

Anywho - I am SUPER excited to share about our gender reveal today! This actually took place almost two months ago, buuut I'm still playing catch up in the blogosphere. 

On June 10th, we had a good ole fashioned ice cream social honoring none other than...

Sweet Baby Smith :) 

I mean, at my wedding I rolled out Blue Bell in a wheel barrow, our pregnancy announcement incorporated Blue Bell - of course I was going to keep the theme going! 

<PS Jeff went out of town one week for work and I worked on that banner each night he was gone. Banners are fun to make but they are just not something you knock out in one night!>

Here's the deal: this party was super special to me for many reasons. One, I've wanted to host a gender reveal for YEARS. I love throwing parties, I love throwing themed parties, and I was so ready to dip my hands in all things pink and blue. But, most people host their own gender reveals, so I had to wait my turn. Secondly, my mom and I hosted this shindig together. She's the best party thrower I know and it was so fun (and memorable!) getting to do this with her. And finally, this was our first 'official' party we threw in our house after remodeling it from Jeff's bachelor pad into an adult home (ha!). SO - no pressure, right!? :) 

I was in love with our invites! I found them on Etsy and they were so easy and quick to have printed. 

To be honest, I threw this party for me. I wanted the party to be super simple in nature: friends/family show up, mingle and snack for a bit, do the reveal (eeks!), celebrate with ice cream - the end. I am fully aware that gender reveals have an element of silliness to them considering you're throwing a party for a reveal that takes 30 seconds. So I wanted a simple party. But I knew the decor would be far from simple. I was just too dang excited. Plus, the more decorations I made, the less I anticipated the results of the actual reveal :) 

But in all seriousness, I was looking into how to make a 7-ft ice cream cone completely from balloons. My mom talked me out of it some sense into me. But y'all - the festivity itch was intense. 

 Here was the entryway when guests walked in...

My mom bought these precious little collegiate lovies for the party (and subsequently the nursery), so we put a pink pacifier with the Baylor one and a blue paci wth the OU one. And now that I know the results of said gender, I'd like to say that the color coding was also foreshadowing of our kiddo's future :)

Our decked out little living room! 

So - funny story. I ordered forty balloons for this little get together. FORTY. I just feel like balloons really can make a statement - especially for a theme like this. And I knew Jeff would have told me I was crazy, so I didn't tell him how many I bought until day of when I said we needed two cars to go pick them up :) 

But sure enough, we walk into Party City to grab the balloon fleet, and a woman who is expecting is standing in the doorway. We hear her say "babe, it's perfect!" and look over to see her husband walking from the cashier with a balloon weight and two single balloons: one pink, one blue. 

I proceeded to get a dirty look from my other half... :)

But c'mon - how fun is this?! (In hindsight I actually think I could have used 10-15 more but I digress..) And because I got asked several times at the party - those are 24 inch balloons and I think they're some of the greatest inventions ever made. 

Mantle action...

And see the pink little carriage on top of the mantle? My Gee (mom's mom) who is no longer on this earth with us (but totally had the party gene, too!) brought that to my mom in the hospital when I was born. So it was a pretty special knick-knack to have in attendance!

Once people arrived, I forced nicely asked everyone to "choose their scoop" on what they thought Sweet Baby Smith would be. I wanted to see who was right and didn't trust the honor system :) 

Our voting corner:

I ordered this cute little wives' tale sign from Etsy to aid in people's voting. Plus I just was completely fascinated with wives' tales leading up to the reveal. Turns out I was pretty half/half! That is, of course, unless they were weighted indicators, because then the strength of that YES on the morning sickness line would have represented about 95% of the outcome. Sheesh.

While everyone arrived, voted, and I tried not to ask what time it was every other minute (I was a tad antsy!), we snacked on all things pink and blue. 

Being at 3:00p, we went simple with dips and sweets. Our spread included: 

Jalapeno Ranch Dip

Corn Dip (thanks Kristie!)

Spinach Artichoke Dip

Veggies & Ranch

Chocolate Covered Strawberries
Themed Cookies

Candy Melted Oreos

Trail Mix of popcorn, baby goldfish, honey roasted peanuts, and pink & blue M&Ms)

Y'all. Huge shout out to my favorite cookie lady here in the DFW area. LOOK at these precious cookies!

I meeeeean, they just don't get much cuter than this. And they were delicious. I love shortbread cookies. Not too sweet, but you can't stop at one. It's impossible. For me anyways. I intentionally ordered more than necessary and ate every last 'leftover.' Usually for breakfast. Because a shortbread cookie with my coffee made for a much better work day.

Her name is Megan and her company is Tiny Kitchen Cakery. Go check her out on instagram (@tinykitchencakery) and be seriously amazed at this girl's talent. 

Her ice cream cones make my dipped oreos look like amateur hour :) 

I took this picture because it makes me laugh. "Drizzling" chocolate on strawberries is stupid hard. My mom and I were cracking up as I attempted to make them all pretty. By the 6th strawberry my hand was aching and I was so over it. Bakeries must have machines do the drizzle. Or just really talented people - unlike yours truly :)

The trash - my mama's personal favorite :)

Oh - so this was comical. We had great plans for pink and blue beverages, and everything was working out well until we added pineapple juice to the blue punch. Cause then it turned green. Because blue and yellow make green and I apparently forgot the color wheel I learned in pre-K. 

Sigh. So close. Yet so far. 

Okay - that's enough food talk. At about 3:30 I had waited long enough - it was TIME. 

The final votes! Time to reveal!

My friend Emily was the "chosen one" (aka she immediately asked me the second she found out I was doing a reveal) to know the results. She ordered us two smoke cannons from Poof There It Is (the name gets me every time!) and was in charge of the reveal. And I must say, she kept that secret for two whole weeks! She said she took her job very seriously, and she meant it! She did tell her husband, but in true male fashion, he forgot about three and a half minutes after she told him. :)

I posted this on Facebook and Instagram, but in case you missed it (or want to watch again!) here is the whole video of the reveal:

SWEET BABY SMITH IS A GIRL!!!! 

But again. This happened two months ago. So y'all already knew that. 

I love that it smoked in the shape of a heart 💕

What's funny, is in the picture above, I was trying to twist my popper, so I never even saw the pink smoke that came out of Jeff's popper...

And then I was just sad that my popper didn't go off...

But THEN it registered that everyone was cheering, and I looked up and saw the faint disappearance of pink smoke and (clearly) was PUMPED!

The proud parents of a sweet little girl :)

After lots of cheering and rejoicing (and the faint distant sound of our bank account crashing), it was time to bust out the ice cream!

And yes we had six flavors. It can't be an ice cream social without choices! Plus since I'm super indecisive, buying six made my life much easier.

We had these little "ice cream sundaes" in pink and blue all around the house and on the outside tables. Super simple and SO cute and festive. Mom and I are champions at finding ideas on pinterest and then executing via materials we get from amazon prime. Tis a good life. 

Everyone grubbed on ice cream, mingled a tad more, and then picked up a party favor on their way out!

Cotton candy made to looks like ice cream cones :)

(I told you, I COMMIT to my themes!)

And yes - I joked about how this party was basically for children. Balloons galore (huge hit with the kiddos by the way), cookies, ice cream, and cotton candy. There were 10 kids at the party and they all went home with a slight (massive) sugar buzz.  

It was such a fun afternoon! Jeff and I were so excited - still are! In fact, we have quite the closet full of little girl clothes already and started painting the nursery this past weekend. We are well on our way to being wrapped around this little one's finger :)

And a HUGE thank you to everyone who took time out of their Sunday afternoon to come reveal and celebrate with us!

PS I'm super mad I didn't get a picture with my mom. We were too busy hosting and chatting (and then completely crashing after everyone left). Couldn't have done this without her though! And it made it about 20x more special being able to host this with her. Maybe my little girl will get the party throwing gene, too :) 

AND, just because they worked SO hard, I have to quickly share our yard transformation. Jeff and my parents (I'll admit, I didn't do much) all worked tirelessly for multiple weekends to get our yard looking good before the party. And they knocked it out of the park!

Like...this was a giant mud pit before they got started... 

Our rivalry trees :)

We have since joined the two with a big ole hammock so we can get in some good swingin' (and nappin') as a family of 3 (and two doggies)! Just need it to get out of the triple digit weather...

And finally, our front little alcove that leads up to our front door. 

WHEW! That was a long post with a lot of pictures. Kudos to you if you hung in there through them all! 

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Until next time,
Katy

Game 9: Pittsburgh Pirates

Ah, Game 9.

Game 9 makes me laugh. Previously we have had wonderful weather and timely first pitches at all 8 games.

Things changed a bit with good ole Game 9.

Game 9: Pittsburgh Pirates vs. San Francisco Giants - May 12, 2018

Mother’s Day weekend, dad and I set out to see the Pittsburgh Pirates. He has always wanted to go to that stadium, and Jeff has a big ole chunk of family in Pennsylvania (translation: I already had a hat), so it was kind of a no-brainer. Flights to Pennsylvania aren’t overly abundant in nature, so we headed out mid-morning on Saturday with a return flight at the crack-o-dawn (commonly referred to as 6a) on Sunday.

Plane selfie! Upgraded again. Fist pump. 

We landed around 2:30p and the game wasn’t until 7:05p, so we headed to the hotel, checked in, and went down to the Strip District (which my dad called the Strip Joint). The Strip District is near the business district of Pittsburgh, has a lot of restaurants and boutique type shops, and is about a 10-minute Uber away from the stadium. I had been there before with Jeff/my MIL, so we thought it was the perfect way to kill time before the game!

By the time we arrived it was about 4:30, so we walked around, bought some Pirates paraphernalia, and happened upon the one place my dad and I always seem to find ourselves: an ice cream parlor! I swear it’s like a gravitational pull. We don’t know how it happens…

While enjoying our ice cream we watched it sprinkle outside. We knew there was a chance of rain (and bought ponchos from the hotel just-in-case), so my dad ran across and grabbed us a $5 Pirates umbrella from the street. But by the time we finished our ice cream cones, the weather had cleared.

Or so we thought.

About 27 steps outside of the ice cream shop, the bottom dropped out. It was a full out monsoon. And the BEST part? (insert sarcasm here) Unbeknownst to me, the Strip District closes at 5p on Saturdays. So at 5:10, we’re outside running around like hooligans, only to find the doors to every coffee shop, bookstore, and clothing boutique locked. Wamp wamp.

Because sometimes you find yourself soaked from the knees down, your umbrella all but blowing you away like Mary Poppins, and you laughing hysterically wondering how on earth you found yourself in such a situation. So you capture the moment. :)

At this point the stadium had opened up, so we decided the best option was to have an Uber come pick up a couple of wet dogs (aka, us) and head to PNC Park.

Want to know something REALLY funny?
(insert more sarcasm)

Out of all 9 stadiums we had been to at this point, this one was (by far) the most open aired. I mean, it was hard finding any bit of shelter! Much less shelter enough to eat a hot dog!

We decided to head to our seats where the nice seat attendant wiped off our chairs with a dry rag. Note: the rag was dry for us at 5:30p, the rag did not stay of the dry nature by the time other guests arrived throughout the evening…

We sat down and decided to capture our token picture in the stadium (above) as soon as possible in the event there was another downpour. That's why there's virtually no fans in that picture. My phone shows it was taken at 5:51p. Still over an hour before first pitch. 

After we took our picture, we decided the sensible (and only other) thing to do was eat a hot dog. After we ate, as we're sitting there wet and cold waiting for the game to start, we joked that we had eaten hot dogs, taken our picture, seen the stadium, and that that was enough to check it off our list!  

THANKFULLY, when it started to rain, the rain hit all the chairs in front of us up to the very row in front of us. Somehow, we were far enough back (by one whole row) that we escaped the majority of the rain. Thus, we hung out for a bit. 

At this point the announcer told us that the game was officially delayed and they weren't sure for how long (never a good sign). 

This was our view for the majority of the evening. 

At one point they took the stakes out of the tarp and we thought we were about to have some action, but then they put the stakes back in. The crowd fussed, but about 5 minutes after they returned the stakes, we were hit with another beastly downpour. And our row did not survive this one.

So we busted out our ponchos and watched all the fans in the front few rows run frantically to the (little) shelter in the back of the stadium. Our seventh zero inning selfie looks a little different for Game 9!

Inclement weather texting :)

After the big downpour they removed the tarp and started prepping the field for the game. While this was mildly interesting (especially after watching absolutely nothing for over two hours), this prepping process took about 45 minutes! I would have never guessed. Such a high maintenance lil field.

The next picture on my phone is this one, when the game had finally started, taken at 8:50p. So almost a two hour delay, but almost three and a half hours since we had gotten to the stadium!

With our 6a flight the next day, we had a 4a wake up call, so we watched a couple of innings (that had some good action!) and then headed back to the hotel.

Here's what we decided:

Did it suffice as Game 9?
Absolutely. Again, we took pictures, we ate hot dogs, we saw some baseball as well as the stadium. It counted.

Do we need a return trip?
Yes. We feel like while it indeed counted for purposes of our ten games, we definitely need a "redo" to give PNC Park a fair shot.

Did we have a good time?
We laughed a TON at this "game." I mean the circumstances weren't great, but we chose to embrace them and laugh through them - so we had a really fantastic 24-hour jaunt to Pittsburgh. And one that gives us a great story to tell. :)

And that wraps up Game 9!

Today actually kick starts my weekend, and I'm off to Mississippi for our annual family reunion at the campground. So I'm going to chug this coffee and go throw more things I don't need in the suitcase - cause I'm an impulse packer with the best of 'em.

Have a wonderful rest of the week (and weekend)!

Click below for recaps of:

Game 1

Games 2 & 3

Games 4 & 5

Game 6

Game 7

Until next time,
Katy

Pregnancy Progression: The First Trimester

I have two words for the first trimester: 

sayonara, sucker.

No one really talks about the horrors of the first trimester, or maybe I had it worse than most – but oh sweet Moses. The first trimester was just plum awful.

When we found out I was pregnant, I was a mere four weeks (if you missed that story you can read that HERE), so it was quite early on. And because I was miserably sick every day, time passed SO SLOWLY. I seriously thought I had to be about 23 weeks by the time the first trimester ended (spoiler alert: I was indeed only 14 weeks).

I initially was going to title this post “How to Survive the First Trimester” – and still think writing a post like that is good idea – because I would literally type that phrase in google at least once a week. No exaggeration. I was desperate for tips to survive. Not thrive, just survive.

So why was it so awful? Honestly it’s just because I was sick as a dog. Admittedly, in the past, when people have said they had morning sickness I would just brush them off and be like ‘eh they have a little nausea, they’re fine.”

FALSE.

If you have never had morning sickness, you're probably all "wow, she's being dramatic." But if you've experienced a rough case personally, then you are likely nodding vigorously with your hands in the air and saying all the amens. 

SOLIDARITY. 

(fist pump)

<One of my VERY favorite sonograms - she looks like a little gummy bear!>

Luckily, I was in between a job transition at my firm and was able to work from home. Which I did. For over a month. My sweet boss had mercy on me and when I offered to come in, simply said "there are some things that are just better taken care of in one's own private bathroom." Bless him.

But because I can't live like a hermit crab, I did get out some. And I sure did toss my cookies on planes, in traffic on the highway, and in public restaurants. YAY. 

I will say, what I wasn't expecting, was the 'debbie downerness' that came with it. I don't want to call it depression, because it was certainly not to that extent, but I was just down. All the time. I didn't want to get out of bed, I didn't want to get dressed - all I wanted to do was sleep and escape into Netflix binge-watching. 

And on top of that, I felt SO guilty for being down! I was having a BABY! That is exciting and happy news! So then I just got mad at myself. It took me a while to admit all these emotions to Jeff, and he simply said "you puke all day long, I wouldn't be happy either."

TRUTH. So I stopped being hard on myself, turned back on Netflix and ate the only two things that ever sounded good to me: potatoes and my MILs green bean soup. 

The silver lining was that "they" say morning sickness is a sign of a healthy babe. I had several friends who had no morning sickness and had a lot of anxiety with the risk of miscarriage (understandably). I didn't really worry about that too much. I basically interpreted my extreme sickness with me growing an over-achieving Olympian or something.

I want to document each trimester, but honestly other than being sick, experiencing a fatigue like I've never felt before (my mom kept telling me I'd have energy again and I assured her I would never bounce back from the tiredness I was experiencing), and processing the medical stuff - there's not much to report!

Oh. And I also went to Japan. That's actually where the food aversions started... the thought of Japanese food still to this day makes me queasy. 

However - there were some highlights, and that was sharing with our family, close friends, and then ultimately the "world!" THAT was fun. I'm smiling as I relive it :)

Jeff and I found out we were expecting the Saturday night before Easter Sunday. We were celebrating with my family on Saturday and his on Sunday. But when we found out (at about 9 o'clock at night, mind you), we had to devise a new plan. 

I didn't have plans to see my family again for another month, and I knew 1) I couldn't wait a month to tell them, and 2) I couldn't not tell them in person. So, we made up a story (lies lies, so many lies) to both sides of the family. We told Jeff's side that we needed to push back Easter lunch to Easter dinner (we went through so many potential "reasons" I don't even remember what we actually ended up telling them), and we told my family that Jeff's family had to postpone, so we were coming back down to my sister's house for lunch (because to make matters more complicated, my dad was leaving Dallas at 1p to go meet up with my brother in Houston - so timing was of the essence). 

Follow all that? 

I knew I wanted to do something creative to tell my family - whenever the time came - but I never figured I'd have less than 24 hours to think up something. And I knew it had to be clever - my sister catches on quickly. 

I finally decided to alter an Easter poem (if you know me you know I write poems for anything and everything), split it into 6 phrases, put each phrase in an Easter egg, and make everyone read a phrase, with my phrase being the "kicker." I also knew my sister would totally make fun of me for this, but that's per usual. I told her I had an Easter blessing idea I found on pinterest :) 

Here was the poem:

Jesus came to earth one day,
To show us how to live,
How to put each other first,
How to love and how to give.

Then He set about His work on earth,
That God sent Him to do;
He took our punishment on Himself;
He made us clean and new.

He could have saved Himself that day,
Calling angels from above,
But He chose to pay our price for sin;
He paid it out of love.

Our Lord died on Good Friday,
But the cross did not destroy
His resurrection Easter morn
That fills our hearts with joy.

Now we know our earthly death,
Like His, is merely just a rest.
We'll be forever with Him soon
In heaven, where it's best.

We thank Him for His sacrifice
And for this Easter lunch,

And also for this little one
He's adding to our bunch!

And then there was a moment of processing....followed by a LOT of screaming.

Jeff nonchalantly set up his phone on the counter before we sat down, so we got the whole thing on film. Here's the end... :) 

And yes, that blood curdling scream was Brooklyn, and then Easton got scared and asked for someone to hold him. Sweet boy. 

After lunch (I barely ate - so much adrenaline - scheming is hard!), we headed back home to prep for the next announcement. Luckily my sister had sent us with half of the eggs we dyed on Saturday, so we threw together a little egg basket, wrapped it up, and brought it to Jeff's parents to open before dinner. 

And then we breathed a big sigh of relief. I could never be a con-artist. 

So yes, sharing the exciting news was DEFINITELY a bright spot in the first 13 weeks, but considering I'm writing this as I'm 4 weeks into the second trimester - this next phase is muuuuuuuch better! :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Katy