Friday, October 25, 2013

Our Gender Reveal!

This is obviously overdue, but I have been meaning to write about the big celebration we had to find out if Baby Rocka (as Tavian calls our little one) was a boy or a girl.
With Tavian we found out at our ultrasound that he was a boy.  It was definately a fun and exciting moment for me and Cole.  With Felicity we decided to wait until she was born.  We enjoyed getting to experience it both ways, so with this baby we decided to try something else new and find out with our friends and family.  

I thought a lot about what sort of theme I wanted for the party.  I had seen a really neat blog about a couple that found out with fireworks.  For awhile I thought that is the direction we were going to go.  But once my due date was moved to January 1st, it hit me that it would be really fun to have a mock New Years Eve Party, especially because it is likely we won't be doing anything too fun to celebrate on the actual New Years Eve.  
I had a fun time on Pinterest deciding how to decorate and I realized the perfect reveal for a New Years Eve party would be to have a large ball drop either blue or pink confetti on us.

We needed a HUGE ball to make a big impact...the trouble was that i was having a hard time finding anything.  This is the original tutorial that helped me put my plan into action (click here) and I just decided to order the largest paper lantern that I could find on the internet.  And then we got to work decorating the outside with Gold crepe paper.  All of our decorations were gold and silver, but I couldn't use silver on the ball because I couldn't find silver crape paper anywhere.  Seriously frustrating.  But it still turned out pretty sweet...don't you think??


My brother-in-law Mike was obviously pretty excited about it ;)

Our invite for the event, which I just put together on one of the evite websites, read,

"Gold or Silver
Girl or Boy
Either way, we will shout for joy!

Come join us as we celebrate finding out if Baby Emerson is a boy or girl!"

The gold and silver made a focused theme for decorations which helped me a lot with ideas.  I had gold and silver beads, party hats, and party horns for people to take, and they chose their color based on if they thought the baby was going to be a baby boy or girl.




Here is another picture of our decorations
Unfortunately we didn't do a good job of getting pictures of all the decorations, and we waited until well into the party to take this photo.  But we had gold and silver cupcakes, gold and silver candy, sparkling cider, and then I bought toasting glasses at the dollar store and labeled them with gold and silver stickers from one to ten.  I got the idea here off of pinterest
Another fun aspect of the party was having it semi-formal attire.  It was great getting dressed up with the family and it made for some pretty cute pictures too!  I am so thankful that we were able to celebrate with so many of our friends and family.  My sister Andrea was kind enough to let us have the party at her house.  She has an AMAZING back yard that was perfect for all the little kids to play in.  My other sister Ellen made the trip from Wyoming with her family to celebrate with us and she was such an absolute help with getting everything set up.  And my other sister, Sarah, was super helpful because she and her husband took care of filling the ball with confetti for us and transferring it to the party (not the easiest of tasks!!)  It made for a fun evening!!! 

Tavian and his cousin, and good buddy, Ariana.  I mean, this is just too cute, right?
I love this handsome dude!

She was so cute carrying her little baby around all night!

Ariana, Emily, and my Goddaughter Addison.  My sister Ellen has some cuties, that is for sure!

Ellen is 6 weeks further along in her pregnancy, and we are all so excited to see if they will be adding another girl or a boy to the fam!  We will all be finding out when baby Doherty gets here towards the end of November!

These were a big hit with all the kiddos...a little annoying for the adults, but it was ok ;)

Have no clue what she got on her face, but she is so cute all the same!

 And, now for the BIG reveal!

Counting down from ten getting ready to find out the exciting news!!!

Wahoo!  (Please note that my sister put pink and blue confetti in the very bottom in case any of the confetti were to leak out, so that we still wouldn't be sure and it wouldn't ruin the surprise.)


 BOY!!!!
Our whole family thought it was a boy, and it was fun that we were all right!  Tavian and I had both been convinced since day one with this baby!  I'm actually not sure how Tavian would have reacted to it being a girl, just because he was so sure he was going to have a brother!

So excited to be adding a boy to the family!
Here is a video that shows a bit more....super fun!

Here are some other fun pictures from the night 

Love my besties

So blessed to have this lady in my life, and so happy she could come and represent my CORE girls!

Sydnie and I with our adorable baby girls!

Ellen and I laughing it up as we put our hands on each others growing bellies!

love her!

Sweet Gemmy enjoying her cupcake!

Sharing with Felicity...what a nice cousin!

Looks like Felicity decided to get one of her own. 

Baby Teagan...such beautiful blue eyes!

This looks like I am helping her eat a cupcake, but really she found it on her own and went after it all on her own!  I just couldn't resist documenting it!

SISTERS!

I love this picture...our last babies have all been girls and we got a photo all together.  Felicity is the oldest followed by Gemma, Addy, and Teagan.

He was playing so hard that I am surprised I got him to stop long enough to take this picture!

My good friend Katie...love this lady.  And the little man in her arms is Cole's Godson :)


Celebrating our fun news at the end of the night

We also decided to play with the left over confetti!


This is one of my absolute faves from the night!
Overall it was such a fun night and I am so glad we had the opportunity to celebrate in this way!

Monday, October 7, 2013

1920s Wedding

 

Just trying to get stuff updated.  These are pictures from Cole's brothers wedding.  It was a 1920's themed wedding and we had a lot of fun dressing up for it.  My bestie Amy came over and helped do my hair and get me ready.  She is a lifesaver!  I think Felicity took the cake for cutest one there!! :)
 


The beautiful bride.  Everyone danced down the isle!!


She was quite the dancer!





Dancing with my handsome boy!!


HA!  We secretly drew a mustache on him.  He cried when he first saw it in the mirror so I pretended to wipe it off, but secretly left it on.  Later in the night he got a glimpse of himself so then we took it off for good.  Lol!

I could eat him up!

 
 
 


Sunday, October 6, 2013

Trip to Jamaica

I am finally getting around to writing about the girls trip I took in early August to Jamaica.  My best friend Amy works for an organization called Praying Pelicans and she was working in Jamaica for the summer.  She stayed an extra week after finishing up her work commitment, so a few friends and I took the opportunity to meet up with her and stay at an all inclusive for a few days.  Overall it was a great trip!  Cole was so sweet and supportive of me doing something like this because he knows the opportunities are so few and he also knows that once this baby comes it definitely won't be an option for a long while.  He even let me go over our wedding anniversary!

The best part of the trip was just relaxing in the water and getting all dolled up for dinner each night.  It isn't very often that I spend time getting ready these days, so it was fun taking advantage of the opportunity and getting beautified each night.  (it was even more fun because Amy is gifted with hair and make up!)

The heat truly almost killed me.  I have been to Mexico plenty of times but have never experienced anything close to this.  I seriously had to be in the water at all times.  Even walking to the pool was sticky and gross.  I always couldn't wait to jump into the pool or ocean.  I am sure it didn't help that I was pregnant!  Here are some pictures from our getaway.  I will also link to my friend Courtney's blog who also went on the trip because she has many more pictures then I do, and she tells a little bit more about the details!




This is my J-Lo hat!


This is the best!







Love these girls SO much!















Hanging out at the swim up bar...too bad I couldn't enjoy all the yummy drinks!!



HA!  Got to have a silly pic!

Pretty much where we spent all of our time!

At the airport ready to head home...:(

On a side note, I will just add that going on a vacation when you are a mom just really isn't that easy.  I by no means regret going, but oh man, it was difficult.  I missed the kids and Cole so very much and there was also an adjustment period when I got back.  I was only gone 4 nights but it still took some work getting things back to normal.  And I was SO exhausted when I got home.  I know, totally not the purpose of a vacation.  I think I relaxed a lot, but didn't get enough rest.  Does that make sense?  The traveling took a bit of a toll on my body too.  I left feeling kind of pregnant and I came back knowing that I was very pregnant!  I'll probably stick to traveling closer to home next time around!

For more pictures and much more detail about our trip, visit Courtney's blog here and here!

Motorcycle Ride

Cole's Dad loves motorcycles and is definitely a Harley Dude.  Before having kids Cole and I went on a few rides with his Dad.  Cole also used to have a motorcycle and we used to have so much fun riding in the summer together.  He got rid of it after we had Tavian.  It was no longer very practical!  Tavian loves looking at motorcycles and he finally had the opportunity to take a small spin with his Papa!  He later said the noise scared him...which you can see by the video...but overall he thought it was pretty cool!
 
 
What a STUD! :)

What I Wore Sunday




I am actually participating in What I Wore Sunday.  I know the picture is blurry, but I think you get the idea of the outfit!  Over 27 weeks preggers...oh man...


Button up is from H&M
Cardigan/Sweater is from Old Navy
Maternity jeans are from Shade Maternity (which sadly closed)
The necklace and earrings are a set from Charming Charlies
I'm not sure where the belt is from...probably off a dress from Ross

What I Wore Sunday




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