I’m baking a… {gender reveal party}

And just for the record, we have no names picked out. It he was a girl, he would have been Eleanor Jane. For some reason, the girl name was easy peasy. We’re working on the boy name thing. Suggestions welcome!

We found out the gender of the bambino on Wednesday, Nov. 6th, the day before Andy’s birthday. We I decided to  throw a little birthday BBQ for Andy/ gender reveal party at our house the following weekend. The BBQ was awesome. My BFF, Tina, came down from NYC, and helped me with all of the set up and food shopping and we even rented a cotton candy machine as part of the gender reveal extravaganza! My other awesome friend, Annie, crafted up this ginormous pinata you see below! (She bought the large round white, paper sphere from World Market and used this tutorial.)

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Here’s me and Annie, the pinata making queen! Side note: I took 7 pictures the entire day! All of these pics are either from Tina, Annie, or Tabitha! Thanks a bazillion, ladies!

First, I’m gonna share some of the super simple DIY decorations I threw up for the birthday portion of this b-day BBQ. These are the same letters I hung up on the mirror for my mama’s birthday last weekend. Come to think of it, they are the same letters I’ve been using to make DIY signs for 4+ years, ha!

My mom made this cute Dorobek sign for Andy’s birthday. She used her leftover plates from the big license plate map project. My mom also gave Andy a really cute baby gift that she claims could not be given to the baby by the Grand Ma, ha!

I crafted up a little Happy Birthday instagram display for some festive inside decor. I already had the pics on hand and the brown paper was from painting the igloo. The white cards are just index cards… not the cutest thing in the world, but easy and pictures are always fun to look at! We did get some pretty fresh flowers from Costco. Man, that’s a good place to shop for party throwing!

Oh and we also got Andy a cookie cake for the 32nd b-day. We love those things. I keep saying we, because Tina was a gigantic help!  She flew in on Thursday night, and ran around like a maniac with me all day Friday. And then played hostess with the mostess for me on Saturday! Thank you for all of your hard work, Teen!

The gender reveal segment included 2 fun surprises: a cotton candy machine and the giant pinata! We rented the cotton candy machine from a local party rental company. Tina was the cotton candy queen, she set it up and made it all! I wish I  could claim the cuteness of this sign, but alas, I saw it on Pinterest, straight from this adorable gender reveal party! I really want to ask her how her cotton candy display did not melt?! From my one day of cotton candy experience, you’ve got about 9 minutes before the cotton candy drips and looks like this picture below. Another thing, you must have is a cotton candy holder. The cotton candy making process is pretty quick! I realized that while Tina and I were testing out the cotton candy machine and whipped up this cotton candy holder before everyone came over!

But here’s some cotton candy machine action…

Here’s Tina manning her cotton candy station!

I helped her, a little:

Andy and I handing out cotton candy…

While all of this was going Andy and Sabin were grilling up burgers. (You can see the pinata hanging in the front yard in this pic!)

Tabitha hanging out with Gigi on the new outdoor bench! (Easy outdoor bench tutorial here.)

Kiddos (and pups) were testing out the half finished nursery and rocking horse! I think they liked it!

Party goers mingled and ate…

And consumed lots of cotton candy…

Some peeps were peeking through the window screens. (You can see the pinata again!)

Here’s mama Annie and sweet baby Hayes!

Oh and how stinkin’ cute are these cake balls… Tina and I made them. OK, that’s a lie. Y’all know I’m a pathetic baker!  We bought them with lots of love from Austin Cake Ball!

And now for the pinata crashing story. Yep, it crashed on my head the first time around! Annie and I tested this thing out and everything. We had each person pick a blue or pink cotton candy cone and come to front yard where this sucker was hung to reveal the big news. Sadly, my party helpers, Tina and Annie, are not in the pic because they were playing photographer!

Andy and I posed under our giant gender revealing pinata excited to share the big news…

We did a countdown. 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1… and then the pinata fell from the tree, hit me on the head, and tumbled to the grass, finally spilling out a little bit of blue confetti for all to see…

It was pretty dang comical. And our good friend, Will, actually caught the whole she-bang on video! It’s not the best quality, but it’s highly entertaining!

Here I am trying to let our friends know it’s a boy!

And so, we hung her back up and tried again.

Then, there was hugging, congratulating and lots of laughter!

Tina and I finally got a picture together!

Oh and how awesome is this housewarming/ baby/ b-day gift from our friends Tabitha and Sabin? I love all of the little details, dates, and that our tandem bike even made the print! I included a close up for your viewing pleasure, but don’t mind the grey blobs, that’s just me blocking out the ol’ address.

And that’s a wrap on the gender reveal/ birthday party extravaganza! Oh and any boy name suggestions are welcome in the comments!

Pssst… here are 22 more fun gender reveal party ideas!