Thursday, February 21, 2013

Baby Name Reveal Party

A surprise reappearance on the blog!  Yay!  Although I very much liked the idea of closing the Grand Life blog with our last Cayman entry, I decided this was the best venue to share the details of our fun gender/name reveal party.  Yes, to catch you up a tiny bit from the last post - we are having a baby!

We were super excited to schedule our 18 week ultrasound.  Finally we'd find out if a "he" or "she" was on the way.  An occasion like this certainly warranted a little party. We decided it would be fun to have family over to announce not just the gender but also the name!


I designed the invite and party trimmings myself, using coral and teal as the main colors.  






My favorite detail from the party were these little salad jars.  Each of our moms offered to contribute to the party, so I had my mom (aka "Winky," as her two grandsons already call her) bring pasta salad and Brent's mom (aka "Gaga") bring fruit salad.  They turned out so cute!



Now on to the game we used for the big reveal!  This is an idea I actually had a while back, before we were even trying for a baby.  I knew I wanted to have a boy and girl name picked out before the ultrasound so we could start calling baby by his or her name right away.  Then I thought how fun it would be if we revealed the name at the party to let everyone know the gender.

So we came up with 8 girl names and 8 boy names (there were 16 people at the party).  We wrote the boy names on blue name tags and girl names on red name tags.  At the beginning of the party everyone drew a name from a bowl.  Then every 5 minutes we crossed off a name from the list.  The person who drew the real name was the winner!


We made this board to keep track of the names that were left throughout the party.  Brent wrote the boy names and I wrote the girl names, a nice personal touch (though I really wanted to avoid the pressure and print the poster!).


People were kind of surprised that we decided to play this game since we are pretty tight-lipped about the names we like.  But, although each of the names on the list was considered at some point, all but the real one had been ruled out for one reason or another.  Some were names only one of us liked, some were names that had become too popular in recent years, and some just weren't favorites.  So none were names we would actually use in the future, which means our top 2 or 3 names for each gender are still safe for future kiddos!

Like many gender parties, we had people dress in pink or blue to show if they thought baby was a girl or boy.  We debated doing this, but I do think it's a fun way to record people's guesses.  As you can see, the girl votes far out numbered the boy votes!




The game was a hit!  People stayed engaged and got excited every time we rang the "elimination bell."


Timer's going off!


We had the real name written on a second board tied behind the name board.  So once we had it narrowed down to one girl and one boy name, it was time for the big reveal!



We have a SON on the way!  It's so exciting to know that we are now anxiously anticipating our little Gio's arrival!



That's my boy!  Love him so much already!


6 comments:

  1. I've loved this blog as it chronicled your Cayman adventure. But I have to say this post-Cayman entry is my favorite so far. Giorgio Harris is the next blessed adventure in your Story Formed Life! I love him already, and I'm so proud of his mama and daddy. This was such a happy day--a "hit, hit, hit" gender/name reveal with all four grandparents and Giorgio's other adoring fans--including the Greenville skypers. What an exciting first chapter! xoMamaBear

    ReplyDelete
  2. wow what an awesome way to reveal that! We find out the sex of our baby soon, and i wish we had a name picked out!! Love the name you selected! Congrats!!

    {love jenny xoxo}

    ReplyDelete
  3. If you think life was "grand" before...just wait to see how "grand" being a mom is.This next chapter will truly be "The Grand Life." Glad you're back:)
    Jonelle Bell"
    (AKA one of your mom's stampin' sisters)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey Katie! So excited for you guys! Congrats on your little boy. I love the party and the game. We miss seeing you guys. So excited for your next adventure :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Okay, so was cracking up reading this . . . was just by Mom and Dad B's for Easter dinner, and Gram said you guys were PREGO!! Hello?!?! Guess that's what happens when I am anti-FB and have no connection to the family!!! ;) So I was checking in on my list of blogs, clicked on yours just for kicks . . . and YEAH! You are back! You should have heard Gram trying to remember your new little guy's name . . . r-i-o-t!! CONGRATS you guys! You are going to be AMAZING parents . . . and your little man is going to bless your already blessed lives in incredible ways. Praying for a healthy rest of your pregnancy! Love ya's!

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is such a great blog, but if you would like to search for baby names meaning or looking for suggestion to name your baby, you can head on to the Baby Name Meaning Site or download the Baby Name Meaning Google Chrome extension to search from your browser.

    ReplyDelete