What Will It Bee?

As week 20 of my pregnancy rapidly approached, Parker and I grew more and more anxious to discover the gender of our little one. We planned a gender reveal party to celebrate and share the exciting news with friends. The ultrasound took place on a Monday and the party on a Friday, which made for an especially long week filled with speculation and conjecture between the two of us. Our dear friends, Lela and Rachelle (to whom we immediately handed off the ultrasound results), did a fabulous job of keeping mum the word until the big day.

I wanted to keep the party as simple as possible, so I did my best to use any décor I had on hand (using the same paper flowers I made for my pregnancy announcement) or that was easy to assemble. I tailored the menu to represent a few of my favorites—serving up Margarita flatbread pizzas, watermelon + feta cheese bites, mini Cobb salads, and mixed berry cobbler + vanilla ice cream.

Lela offered her beautifully manicured backyard as the venue, which was the perfect spot for the What Will It Bee? + flower garden-themed soiree.

In true fashion, my dear and talented friend, Rachelle, brought out the big guns with her stork and cherub drawings which she scattered throughout the garden atmosphere. And, as the highlight of the party, she constructed the actual “gender reveal” even more brilliantly than I had imagined, with paint-filled balloons dangling over a white canvas just waiting to be popped.

Prior to the reveal, we had everyone cast their votes of the gender by adding a drop of food coloring to their sparking lemonade. I attended a friend's gender reveal party a few months ago where they did this and I loved it!

We seemed to have a pretty even split among guests’ votes—with about half siding with Parker on blue and the other half siding with me on pink.

Then, Parker and I stood firm on our votes and counted to 3 before throwing our darts at the balloons to reveal the news.

Parker’s dart was a miss, but mine happened to strike dead center of the truest pink, paint-filled balloon there was on the board. I jumped with delight then hugged Parker snugly. We both laughed with surprise and excitement at the news that our little cherub is in fact A LITTLE GIRL!!!!

Our guests then took turns popping the remaining balloons and painting the canvas to be hung in our little girl's nursery.

We finished off the night with sparklers and great conversation around the fire. And, Lela gave me my first gift for baby girl. The entire evening was perfect—better than I had even envisioned.

When we returned home that evening I asked Parker about his thoughts on the baby’s gender (having sensed a hint of trepidation in his facial expression at the reveal).

He expressed his utter happiness followed by a natural barrage of fatherly concern, like: “What am I going to do when she starts dating?” and “You will have to be the strict parent because I could never say no to a little girl.” which had me giggling for days to follow. (I wish desperately that I had the whole conversation on video to show our little girl when she grows up.) I can already tell his love for her is deep.

We are extremely grateful to all of our wonderful friends who came to share in this special moment with us and for the love and support of those special friends (Rachelle, Lela, Mandy, and Meg) who helped us create a memorable experience by lending a hand and sharing their home and talents with us. Thank you! We love you all!