Over 2 months later I finally bring you the details of our gender reveal party :)

I first got the idea from Heather over at Heather Drive. She did something similar but instead of revealing the gender she revealed her pregnancy to her family. It was so neat! I thought of doing that but it didn't work out like that. The way we found out was totally unexpected but MIL said she new something was up with me because I was acting "weird" and I was sleeping too much.

I played with the idea of keeping the whole gender a surprise until the big day but that idea wasn't flying with the hubby nor anyone else for that matter. So I decided to do the gender reveal instead. A friend had done it last year and when we found out about the pregnancy I did a bit more research into it.

Months passed and we waited for the big ultrasound where we would ask the tech to not tell us the news but instead write it and seal it inside an envelope. Our ultrasound was done a Friday at exactly 20 weeks and we planned the big reveal for the Sunday after. I was a nervous wreck thinking about the possibility of this little munchkin not showing its boy/girl parts. Thankfully he did and we proceeded as planned :)

I didn't want to pack the house with a bunch of decor so I kept it simple with a blue and pink theme on the table and a few soft colors tissue pom poms.

I made DIY invites from other invites ideas I found on the web. Those were handed out between 2 and 3 weeks before the party.

I made a boy or girl banner out of cut out onesies from card stock and attached a long piece of ribbon through small holes I made with a punch hole.

I tried my hands at DIY tissue pom poms and I loved the way they turned out. Not too bad for my first time if you ask me :) I used those for the entrance and in each side of the banner.

The cake was ordered the same day as the ultrasound from ColdStone bakery. It was a combination of yellow cake and ice cream that would be flavored strawberry for girl or cotton candy blue for boy. To my surprise MIL brought a prediction cake with what she thought we were having. It was pretty cool because we cut that one first then our reveal cake. Surprise surprise!


And for god sakes lets not leave behind the food and souvenirs. Anyone that knows a Hispanic person knows that food and music are big parts of a party ;) I didn't have music tho, kind of slip my mind... Oops. But the food was a hit! I don't have pictures of the rice or salad since those were the last things to be put out.

We served guava patelillos and small hot dog wraps and guava and cheese with crackers as appetizers. A taco dip I found on Pinterest. Salad with options of 3 dressings. Peruvian rice which is basically rice with chicken breast pieces, soy sauce, eggs, and scallion mixed together, yum! We also had a chocolate fountain with fruits. For drinks we served several flavors of soda, some beer, and a punch I made up really quick and that turned out to be a hit as well.




Some games were played and then people were getting anxious!!! Lol so we headed for the cake right away.

I cut the prediction cake which revealed girl and we had our son cut the reveal cake with a little help from me. I have to admit it was an emotional party/day. We all wanted girl. The games revealed girl. My horrible morning sickness and mood swings pointed to girl. And at the end of it all our baby had us fooled. He was a boy all along lol.

I love baby AJ (full name won't be reveal until the birth date) but I admit to getting watery eyes once I saw the reflection of blue on the knife. I just kept cutting and cutting hoping for some pink while the flash from cameras kept going off. Kind of funny when you think about it know. lol.

We had a big turn out of people show up and we felt very loved by everyone who came. Especially those who traveled hours to get there so especial thanks, even if its months later, goes to our dear friends Gabriel and Caritza from GT Modern Creations and Laura and Dave fellow bride. You guys rock and take over a special part in our hearts. We will always be thankful to have you as friends in our lives.

If I was to do it over I wouldn't change a thing. Not even putting music in my priority list ;) so there you have it. Our gender reveal in all of its glory. I feel bad that it took me so long to blog about it but hey, like my momma says "better late then never" ;)

I hope you enjoyed reading about it and this serves for a guide for those of you planning a gender reveal. There'll be another post to follow with our famous souvenir and the games we played since this got to be too long already.


                              

More on baby topics and here's the "planned" nursery layout. This room was used as an office/computer room or so we had planned on. But by the time we moved in I was already expecting so we knew this would become the nursery later in the year. In the meantime we used it to store unopened boxes, as a storage space, and a computer room. We hardly use our Desktop so moving it up to the third floor is really no big deal. I like that this room is right next to ours so is not a far walking distance for those overnight wake up calls, though I'm sure AJ will be rooming with us the first few months.

This room is sort of small but perfect to be used as a nursery. It even has a nice size closet. The only thing I dislike about the room is that I wish the heater would of been put on another wall. (our house was oil and we changed everything to electric before moving in but hubby's stepfather didn't put too much attention on where the heaters were going and neither did we so now some of the new heaters are placed in odd walls taking up space or making it difficult to arrange furniture, in my opinion).

I would of really liked for the crib to go on the longer wall but I'd hate to have the heater right beneath it so the smaller wall by the door will do. I hope access to the closet doesn't get to uncomfortable with the crib there.

Now onto the painting ideas. I feel like I'm behind on this nursery planning thing :(. O well.

I originally wanted this room grey because I knew it would turn to a nursery eventually. However, my darling husband bought the wrong paint for the bathroom and decided to use that paint for this room which is a nice light blue color (I tell him he jinxed us by painting the nursery blue from the beginning lol). After much thought on whether to paint the nursery grey or leave it blue I decided to use both colors. Leaving the top portion blue and painting the bottom half grey and adding chair rails to divide the colors. Sort of like in the pictures below.

Last Thursday I went to home depot to pick out different shades of grey and bring home to match with the blue. As I sat there I started having doubt about both colors. I walked away for a little and later that night at work I started the planning again. By the end of the shift I decided to keep the walls blue. Order a white crib (more on that later) and just get on with ordering the bedding set I want. When I got home I ordered the bedding and it should arrive this week :) I'm super excited to see it in person.

I decided to order the bedding first because I wanted to check out the colors in it up front. After looking closely at it from the Internet I decided not to go with the grey but the blue instead. I hope I made the right decision but before going any further with the nursery I just have to make sure this is what I want for sure!

xoxo
Pamela

It might seem like I have abandoned my 101 in 1001 list but I havent. Really. I actually been busy trying to get things checked off. The only problem is that I haven't been blogging about it. Oops, sorry.
So far I've done the number frame inspired by Pinterest.

This was super easy. I spent $10 on the frame and I printed the numbers from my home printer using a nice light blue color paper I had left over from previous wedding projects.

I'm also working on a newlywed map.

I saw this on Heather's Drive blog and I loved it! I loved it so much that I ended up getting the same color map she got. I just wasn't feeling the colors they had available and I saw so much potential for it in this color for when we buy our house. Our map will be a newlywed/family map. I'm using 2 colors for the tacks, black for family trips and white for couple trips.

Another project I've been working on is the Name and Est. Date Wall Art.

This is a bit different because the letters are taken from Alphabet Photography - something that has me intrigued and that I plan on doing myself :). I first saw this on Etsy and then saw a friend that made one as DIY to give to another friend. I couldn't pass on it. I bought everything I needed, all I need to finish this is create the document on publisher and print it out. I'm super excited to see how it looks. Depending on how ours turns out I'm thinking of doing a couple for a friend and mother-in-law for their anniversary.

Things being checked off the list are ...
-Date nights and family nights. We've done quite a few the last couple of months but I won't be blogging about them all. You'll have to take my word for it and I promise not to lie.
-I've started working on increasing my vocabulary.
-Last month I blogged 10x+ and it looks like I will do the same this month too so if I continue to do this I can check of #28 on the list.
-My workout routine have been blah! so next week I will be joining a gym with a friend.
-Like I've mentioned before I've been cooking a lot recently. This means I'm collecting recipes for my family cookbook and trying more daring recipes. Soon I will start food blogging.
-We are currently working on paying off credit cards, getting life insurance, and saving more.
-I've been organizing a lot lately around the house. That makes me feel very happy :) and for some reason lighter too lol ;)
-At the end of the month I'm hosting a girls night at my place :)
-I plan on indulging on a top notch spa day for my birthday next month.

Lots of things going on here. Make sure you check often for fun and interesting blog posts :)


A few more DIY projects I'm working on are



 xoxo