Keeping up with Katy: 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...