I'm wearing pink today!!!

I'm not the type of person that is often good at waiting for a long period of time. That is what has made this past week soooooooo hard!!! We had an ultrasound last week and had a good look at this new baby. Thankfully, the baby looks very healthy and some concerns from earlier seem to have resolved themselves. We decided to wait a bit on finding out the gender until we could find out together with our boys and some family and friends. And even though it killed me having an envelope with the news in my purse (and not looking at it) for six whole days, I'm so glad we did it this way! 

I kept myself from peeking by staying busy getting ready for our little party. I made invitations and decorations, bought candy and balloons, and planed our menu. Here are a few photos of some of the details.

Everything for the evening (from decor, to plates, cups, and utensils) was done in colors of pink, blue, and brown. Lots of candy in pink, blue, and brown too--it was really fun to try and find the proper colors. Pink was fairly easy to find, blue however, was a bit more elusive. My favorites were the Root Beer Barrels and the Hershey Kisses with the "It's a girl/boy!" papers inside. The kids seemed to really like the Rock Candy.

Since we live in Texas it seemed to make sense to go with a western theme. We had lot of yummy BBQ to eat and some fun rodeo inspired family games to play for our "family night" activities. 

Oh, and here is a peek at the invitation. It was up on the Cricut Circle blog over the weekend so I'll have to wait a while to show the whole thing, but here is a peek.

Some paper flowers for decor.

We took a little poll about what people thought the baby would be. You can see it was a pretty even split with "girl" up by one among those willing to take a guess.

Because it was still a week before daylight savings we knew we would need to figure out some way to bring light into the backyard. We strung out Christmas lights around the fence and I made some of these paper lanterns. That brought just enough light and I loved the way the lanterns looked once it got dark. (Made with my Cricut, Cricut Craft Room and the Old West Cartridge)

For the big reveal I sent one of my friends into the house to open the envelope and fill this big box with balloons of the proper color (I had both blue and pink balloons ready to go). After opening the envelop she filled the box and brought it back outside while everyone gathered around to watch our family open it.

 The big moment! It's a girl!!! 

I was in total shock! Somehow after three boys I just didn't quite think it would ever be a girl!

Marc was thrilled as was Ty. Blake was not quite so happy. He apparently wanted another little brother and it took a little bit to warm him up to the idea. He went off to school pretty happy about it this morning though. He was eager to tell his friends and teacher about it. Spencer is still just trying to figure out what is going on. I don't think he will quite get it until the baby is here.

Ty is still very excited about it. He wanted me to take this photo this morning since we finally had daylight again!

I'm still in shock and still very happy. This was a really, really fun way to find out. Worth the wait and made even better by being surrounded by family and friends. I don't think there could have been a better way to find out. A big thank you to all of you who came, helped, and celebrated with us! 

Now I'm going to get ready to do some shopping with my mom (whom this baby will get her middle name from). I hope that I can have a relationship with this new daughter of mine like the relationship I have with my mom. That would be the very best part of having a daughter!

Thanks for letting me share my news! And have a great Tuesday!