Another year, another birthday. I cannot believe I'm 26 already. Where is time going? My 6 years old is almost as tall as I am and my baby sister is a teenager. When did that happen?

Aside from the shock of my age these days I had a very nice birthday weekend. I wanted to keep it low key and didn't really plan anything special beside having dinner at Marrakesh, an authentic Moroccan restaurant in Philadelphia, with a friend and her husband but other things came about and I couldn't resist.

My weekend started with a dinner outing with my mother, sisters, husband, and sons to Chili's. It was nice spending that time with them and reminiscing on my life as a teenager. After dinner we drove to the mall to look for a birthday outfit because we decided to go dancing at the last minute. One thing you should now about me is that I love my Spanish music and dancing to it. If I'm ever mad or sad just turn the radio on and I'll be alright ;)



After leaving the Mall we went home and got ready to go out. We met with my cousin and a few of my husband's friends. They bought a few bottles and got a hookah and that along with some dancing made for a great start to my birthday. I might of had a little too much to drink because my head was pounding the next day. But I had such a good time that it was worth it. Saturday came and I spent the day at my mothers. Just relaxing and trying to recuperate from the night before because we had some driving to do to go celebrate with other friends of mine. As I was leaving my mother's house my comadre showed and and surprised me with my favorite cake ever! Tres Leches. Mmmm was that cake good. She also brought me a bottle of liquor which I plan to save for quite some time. Minutes later we headed home to finish getting ready and start our drive to Philadelphia. We were running super late and had to push our reservation. Luckily that wasn't an issue and everything turned out better than we had all anticipated. We met at the restaurant and had a 7 course meal accompanied by some wine. This was a very interesting experience since we had to eat from a shared plate with our hands. They had a belly dancer that came out and tried to pull us out to dance with her. The food was delicious too! It was a great time. After dinner we headed to R2L for dessert. This part of the evening was a surprise and so worth it. The view was spectacular and the dessert... Lets just say 2 days later and I can still taste every bit of it. The only thing I wasn't a fan of was my "ice wine" too sweet, too little, too expensive". At least I can say I've tried it jejeje. By the end of the night I was exhausted. We drove home and I couldn't get out of my mind that there was still another day left to celebrate. Oh boy.


Steven had his mother make me a ColdStone inspired cake. It was a layer of strawberry ice cream, vanilla cake, and cookie dough ice cream frosted with whip cream and heavy cream and topped with my favorite candies (gummy bears, twix, Reese's, and some others I can't remember). It was really good. He invited our immediate family over as well as our compadres (AJ godparents). We ate a lot once again and had a great time. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday. And I owe it all to my wonderful husband and fabulous friends and family.


Is funny because the past two weeks I've been feeling somewhat anxious about turning 26. I mean 26 is no big deal but to me is a stage where you're not 30 yet but can't be acting like a 21 year old either. So how do I act? Are there different expectations? To an outsider my life may look almost perfect and on the right track. Married. House owner. Two kids. So-So job. Etc etc but to me it feels off track and behind and it all goes back to not having my career started. This college thing while married and with young kids is no joke. There's so much thrown on my plate I just want to scream at times. But I know it will all be worth it and over very soon. I'm just glad I'm able to document this stage of my life so that years down the road I can look back and see all the frustration I dealt with and all my accomplishments. So that I can show my kids that the grass is not always greener on the other side and most importantly that they can get anything they want if they work hard and don't give up.

Is funny to say but I feel different. Like a new person with new aspirations. More mature. With a better outlook on life. I feel grown!

Thank you Jesus for another year surrounded by fabulous people and good health. I couldn't ask for more.

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.


                              

This blog seem to be heading down the pregnancy/baby blogging route. I promise not to make my married life a baby blog but honestly my life is pretty boring right now aside from that excitement. Although is summer and I should be having the time of my life, all I've been doing is sleeping, eating, working, and sometimes crying (I blame the hormones). So yea baby blogging it is for a few more weeks, sorry. I'm sure once fall is near we'll be busy doing other activities and getting ready for the holidays so things should get a bit more exciting around here. There's still pictures of the new house to come, yummy Dominican recipes, DIY/Pinterest inspired projects, and so much more. But for now I leave you with my life lately.

~I got pregnancy hives! :( well at least it was only in one spot and it seems to be going away (not sticking around for the next 5 months like I hear they do).

~Baby boy is six going onto the teen years. He's always right. Wants things done his way. Has been asking for a little too much (could it be that he's realizing he won't be the only spoil child anymore?)

~My primahermana (cousin almost sister) had a baby shower today. Finally some fun in my life! She had a bit of a scare two weeks ago and dilated to 4cm so she was put on bed rest for two weeks. Luckily little Kayden behaved and stood in the oven a bit longer. Now he can come out if he wants (I'm almost positive that after tonight he'll make his grand debut soon ;))

~One week left till a knottie GTG in NYC! This one should be almost as big as the one in VA.

~I am clueless on where to start for nursery planning. Obviously I can't make big decisions until the big gender reveal next month but I should at least have ideas right? Well nope. I got nothing. Zip. Nada. I don't even know what type of crib I want or if to go with a semi neutral theme or very gender specific theme. What is going on inside my little head?!

~I'm planning a gender reveal party for next month. I'm also having trouble here deciding on anything. Plus I'm worried little peanut gets shy and the party is planned for the day after the appt. nerve-wracking!

~Deciding on a school/work schedule has me over the edge. I just know is not going to be easy working FT nights, taking 3 classes, and being pregnant along with every day life activities. I can cry just thinking about it. What to do? what to do?

~I've decided to engage myself into developing better photography skills. After all a new baby will give me motivation and keep me occupied :). Guess what has been keeping me back? Editing pictures. For some reason I find it intimidating. I have all this pictures that I don't know what to do with them. *puts head down in shame*. Is it even necessary to edit them?

I think that's all. For now at least.

Happy Saturday!