It's a...

Gender Reveal!

Dan and I were able to hold hands as we watched our baby reveal whether whether it was a boy or girl on Tuesday.  We kissed and oohed over the pictures and I cried when I saw the baby's fist move while filling that tiny flutter inside.   I didn't call my family because I wanted to preserve the surprise for later.

An hour later, though, our joy was stolen by a health scare about our baby's kidneys from our doctor that launched us into a panic, complete with stricken text messages for prayers, hysterics, and both of my parents driving to be with us for a meeting with a specialist the next day.  It's a long story for another day (one that I'll definitely share). In short, we found out 18 hours later that our doctor had been wrong about what she thought she saw.

  So much to be thankful for.

Since we didn't really celebrate the day we found out, I put together a silly, cliché, dyed icing in the middle of a cupcake reveal!

Before launching into it, a few thoughts on the oh-so-controversial idea of a gender reveal: 

* If you're not in the mood for baby stuff or have a hatred for pastries filled with pink or blue icing, feel free to skip this post.  

* I think it's cool when people wait to find out the sex!

* I didn't want to wait because none of this seems real yet.  Now that I can call the baby by name, it does!

* I know that I am really revealing the sex, not the gender (which is determined much later), but "sex reveal" sounds icky.

* Finding out had NOTHING to do with me wanting to buy uber, gender specific clothes, like a onesie with "Daddy's Princess" or a boy's cap that says "Little Slugger."  Or, worse, a pink dress emblazoned with, "Diva in Training." For an infant.  Hate that shit.

* If an acquaintance had ever invited me to a par-tay to find out the sex of their kid back when Dan and I were trying (and trying and trying), I would have probably thought #1 -Why the large get-together?  Is this a plea for gifts?  and  #2- I kinda want to punch them in the face.

* Consequently, I only did a gender reveal for my sister, mom, and dad because I knew they were equally excited to find out the news.  I didn't have Dan's mom come because he has a family member on his side who has gone through some baby heartbreak, and it didn't seem appropriate.

* I love a theme.  I think that will be apparent in a minute.  It's my secret shame that I have a penchant for themes and  cute, Pinteresty things, but might as well let my cheesy flag fly.

* This was a totally unnecessary but fun family dinner.  Glad I did it!

Sorry if this is coming off like a disclaimer.  Just wanted to share my reasoning for all of this, so it doesn't seem too self-indulgent.  Maybe it is a little, but the five of us there really enjoyed it.  :)

Without further ado, here is my family dinner with the theme of: 

What will Baby T "Bee"?

I changed out the ribbon and sign on our wreath:

Notice the honeycomb ribbon I found?

The table with yellow flowers and napkins:

The menu revolved around two things: 

honey (bee theme) and raspberries (since my sister calls our love dub "Razbaby").

Our living room got in on the theme:

I bought sunflowers and lemons, popped the ultrasound pictures in the frame, and made little photo props:

I couldn't resist picking up this beehive drink dispenser for the honey lemonade for $20.  Figure we can use it for future BBQ's:

Lastly, I set up a little dessert table:

I see these all over Pinterest constantly and thought it would be fun to try one if for no other reason than that I would have an excuse to buy stripey straws.  For some unfathomable reason, I love fun straws.  

I made the lemonade glasses by buying iced coffees with leftover Starbucks gift cards and scrubbing off the labels.  Cute, no?  I found the directions from here.

I ordered Queen Bee (honey flavored) cupcakes for the reveal from my favorite cupcake place and had them put colored icing in the center.

Way too many sweets for five people... The cake pops were free (bought with the leftover Starbucks gift cards from students.  I don't drink coffee, so I always have a ton of them).  I made the labels using Word and with some fancy paper I had for the kids to use at school:

I bought the tablecloth from Target back in January: 

My sis and I posing.  No, my yellow, striped shirt was no accident, but it was one I already owned.

 My family's guesses on the sex:

I held up both the mustache and the lips.  Jokes ensued about how if our baby is a girl, she would still have a mustache. Beth and I have had to wax since middle school.

 #italiangirlsarehairy

We celebrated Dan's birthday:

 They drank raspberry beer:

 My insanely generous parents and amazing sister surprised me with gifts bags: two pink and two blue, with instructions that I could only open one color later. :)  Corny, "what will baby bee?" pics followed:

Dinner seemed to work out well, especially the honey ham biscuits and raspberry/ blackberry salad recipes.  Of course, we kinda rushed a bit to get to dessert!

Moment of truth:

 We are so thankful for our son coming soon!

The rest of the night we just hung out and took more vaguely "creepy uncle" mustache photos:

Bethany updated the bottom of my chalkboard door:

Pour some sugar on me

Oh, hello!  It's been a while, I know.

I feel like time is just evaporating.   Poof!  Testing is done!  Poof!  Our house has been on the market almost a month!  Poof!  End of the year clean-out is beginning.

Not much to tell.  Life has been crazy busy and it feels so wonderful to just have a lazy, rainy evening to actually write.

Hmm... what first?  I had to have my sugar glucose test at ten weeks, which is eighteen weeks earlier than most people, because my blood test showed my sugar levels were too high.

Basically, you drink a sugary, flat Tab and then they take your blood.  It really wasn't bad (why do pregnant women bitch so bitterly about this??), but I took funny pics for my sister nonetheless with my phone:

Grossed out face:

"Nailed it" face:

My results?  I completely failed the test... even after cutting out all white carbs and ice cream for two weeks beforehand.

I went in for a second three hour glucose test. 

They took my blood. I had to gulp down a drink with twice the amount of sugar as the first test within five minutes, but this time, I kept gagging throughout it.  My trick was to take little shots of it and "chase" it with water.

I waited an hour (no eating or moving).  They took my blood.

I waited another hour (still no food or drink).  Was getting jittery.  They took another blood sample.

I waited another hour (starving and cranky!)  The fourth and last blood sample.

Verdict?  No diabetes, but they vaguely warned me to "watch", but not cut out, my sugar.  Basically, I'm down to one dessert a week and have tried to limit my carbs.  In short, a miserable morning, but over in three hours, so I really can't complain.  And I actually had time to finish this book.  It's been a balancing act because I didn't want to cut calories, so cheese and bacon has been this girl's best friend.

Speaking of diet, we went to our favorite food festival, except this time there were no fried crickets.  There was, however, a bacon, lettuce, and seared WATERMELON sandwich.  Amazing!

I saved my sugar calories for this: salted. caramel. cake.

  What else?  I stopped working out for the first twelve weeks of my pregnancy because I was terrified of miscarrying and since thirteen weeks I have only been doing fairly gentle exercises, the calorie equivalent to old ladies swishing around at water aerobics.  Consequently, I have a concave ass now.  Seriously, my pants are tight in the front (yay!  starting to show!) and baggier in the back.  Not that I had a big booty or anything before, but with cutting out a lot of the carbs and not doing any lunges or anything, my ass is apparently in hibernation for now.  Katelyn, one of my favorite coworkers, and I were laughing about its disappearance.

Also... Dan and I did a million small improvements to our house (took down a dying tree, landscaped, cleaned, repainted ceilings, bought a stainless steel oven, reglazed our tile, and staged more than Martha Stewart).  We are trying to move to a slightly bigger place with better schools with our baby on the way.

  It's been on the market for a month with no bites.  At least I get to enjoy some of the staging swag that I bought, like new throw pillows on our bed:

I'll have to post the nickel tour with all the improvements because I have to say, our house has never looked this good!  Too bad no one seems to want to come for a second viewing.  We've had a ton of traffic, but no repeat traffic, which is probably not that promising.  I kinda feel like our house is online dating, and no one is giving her a chance, you know?

So between cleaning and updating our house, I've had no time to write.  I've also had to do three all day, seven hour college classes for my library science degree on Saturdays. The classes are an hour and a half drive away, and each time, it has poured rain for the entire day like the world is crying that I have to be inside on a Saturday listening to a discussion about whether today's students are "technology natives or not".  #nerdiestdiscussionever

Of course, the most important for last:... I've gotten to hear our baby's heartbeat three times now.  I've cried each time.  I love that sound.  I have a post I wrote at seven weeks when I heard it for the first time that I still need to share.  It sounds like "love dub, love dub, love dub, love dub."

We have been calling him/ her "love dub" ever since. 

I'll keep you posted on the gender as soon as we find out (which is very soon.)  With one week of school, I'm hoping to be much better at posting!