Gender Reveal

If you had a chance to peek at all of our weekly update photos in yesterday's post, you probably noticed that it was on week 21 that we announced to our family and friends that we were expecting a boy. A boy who we have named Zane Asher Chapman. We've had the names Zane and Asher planned for years though the original combination was Asher Zane. We switched the combination as Zane became our favorite over the ever popular Asher. After we decided to make the switch we discovered that our son's initials would be Z.A.C. How perfect is that?! Funny enough my husband, Zac's initials are also Z.A.C. We thought it was a great way of passing on his name without having a Zac Jr.  

Zac and I were anxious to find out what whether our little bean would be a he or a she. We were also excited to see how much our little baby had grown. Our first ultrasound was in September. At six weeks our little bean looked like...well...a bean. We weren't scheduled to have another ultrasound until week twenty so we had plenty of time for our excitement to build. Our appointment was scheduled for December 31st and when we saw this beautiful little profile image appear on the screen we knew we couldn't have asked for a better way to end 2012.

Always eager to throw a party, Zac and I decided that we would make the reveal of our baby's gender a big deal. Since we had announced our good news at twelve weeks, we had eight weeks of friends and family asking us if we knew what we were having yet. We knew they would all be just as excited to hear the news as we were so we whipped up this gender reveal party invitation and got to work on creating a fun night for everyone.

Since we were throwing the party at our home, the decorating began a few days before the party. Days before we even knew the gender ourselves, pink and blue could be seen everywhere. In our family room we decorated the mantel with streamers and ribbon. We've had names picked out for either gender for years. All of our boy names begin with 'Z' and all of our girl names begin with 'C' which is why we displayed the giant carboard letters from our wedding above the fireplace.

After we found out the gender we added a clothesline to the mantel from which we hung the 3D ultrasound pictures. Below the letter 'C' we hung an adorable newborn floral dress and below the 'Z' hung the cutest little necktie. We also decided to display the baby Toms I used to announce our new addition to Zac at our Mommy and Daddy to be breakfast.

In the kitchen, mason jar cups were decorated with blue ribbon and pink glittery stir sticks. We had a bunch of gray striped straws left over from our wedding that completed the drink display. In addition to cold beverages like lemonade, iced tea, and an assortment of specialty sodas that we picked up from BevMo!, we also had coffee and hot chocolate stations. (After all, it was the beginning of January.) We picked up a few pizzas from California Pizza Kitchen in case people wanted a little something to eat, but the majority of our spread was dessert. A sweets table was filled with cookies, strawberry shortcake kabobs, cakepops, brownies, fruit, and chocolate candies.

We set up a small table near our front door with a small chalkboard for voting. Most of the night the votes were tied up. Every time someone came to vote for girl another person wasn't far behind with a boy vote. In the small jars in front of the sign were blue and pink ribbons that my mom had put together. Once you placed your vote you could take a ribbon pin to wear for the night to share your vote with others. We also decided to set out a hashtag sign for all of those who wished to share photos on Instagram so that we could have an easier time finding them later. (Our hashtag was #lilbabychapman.)

Throughout my pregnancy, Zac and I were keeping track of old wives tales to see if we could predict the gender of our little one. As you can see from the chalkboard display below, most of the signs pointed to girl. They couldn't have been more wrong.

I worked on a few banners for the party made from burlap and glitter cardstock letters. I love the way those two elements look together. The glitter really stands out next to the burlap.

The first was a banner that said "Sweet Baby" and was displayed in front of the dessert table in our dining room. We covered the dining room window with streamers and tissue paper pom poms which we thought made a beautiful backdrop for the main stage of the event.

The other banner said "Boy or Girl" and was hung along with a few pendant banners in an oversized frame that Zac created. We hung it over our couch in our main living room. We really wanted people to feel free to mingle from room to room on our entire downstairs level.

We had looked online at several different ways to make the big reveal (releasing balloons, giving everyone individual cupcakes with colored frosting inside, a pinata filled with colored tissue paper and candy) and in the end thought that cutting one giant cake was the way to go. While I was at work Zac baked the reveal cake. He used food coloring to color the vanilla cake inside then covered it with frosting and an even number of blue and pink mini dollops. On top of the cake he placed a small pink and blue paper banner that I had created a few days prior.

Once everyone had arrived we made sure to get a picture of the two teams before making the big announcement.

Here is team blue:

And team pink:

Since Zac and I already knew the gender of our little one, we thought that it would be fun to let the grandmas cut the cake. It was even more fun to watch because they had each voted differently. My mom was on team pink and Zac's mom was on team blue.

The reactions were priceless as they cut the corner to reveal six layers of blue cake inside.

Isn't that such a pretty cake inside. My husband does good work!

Zac and I were so happy to share the news that we were expecting a son. Though we only had to keep the secret for two days it was killing us not to say Zane's name or even say "he". We found ourselves avoiding people as much as possible as not to make a slip.

Once the reveal was made, I grabbed the ultrasound pictures to show everyone. When the ultrasound technician had finished taking measurements and said that she was going to show us the gender we didn't have to wait long to tell. It became quite clear that we were expecting a little he.

Team Blue was giddy with excitement!