DIY Maternity Halloween Costume

Last friday I was honored with the most original costume ribbon at my friend Andrea's annual halloween party. Last year I won the sexiest costume ribbon - this year....not so much ;-)

Check it out.

I also took the opportunity to reveal the baby's gender. If you look closely, the baby is holding a blue rattle! Before I go on, I would like to point out that my eyeliner was not working for me that night. It was not even and was making my eyes look two completely different shapes/sizes. In real life they are relatively identical.

This was a DIY after I saw this shirt for sale here but I'm a bit of a procrastinator (found this on tuesday, party was on friday) and didn't want to spend 30 bucks on it either.

I saved the image and enlarged it.

I then put freezer paper over my scree and traced the skeleton.

I did the same for the baby skeleton 

 After carefully cutting the skeletons to create a stencil, I taped them onto a plain long sleeve maternity shirt. I then used fabric paint and sponged white paint into the stencil. I think i did 3 coats total. Once it was dry, I drew the rattle.

 Here is a picture of Andrea and I, proudly holding up my ribbon!

And here ais a picture of the girls - minus Erica... the little leopard hadn't arrived yet.

I have to say that I had as much fun this year as i did last year. While I didn't win round after round of beer pong I did learn to play flip cup and walked away on the winning side!

You'd be Amazed

at the number of posts that i have in my draft folder.

These days it seems like i start a post and get interrupted by the other 372 things that need my attention. Just wait till baby gets here. He'll probably do more blogging than i will.

Be patient and you will soon see:

DIY Maternity Costume
Baby Bucket List
Week 25 ( say what??) belly update
Random thoughts, but then again which of my thoughts aren't random?

Gender Reveal Party

Juju and I decided to host a gender reveal party for our family. I baked a gender reveal cake for my sister last October and she revealed my nephew gender during a family dinner. The beforehand mentioned nephews baptism was the following weekend after we found out so we decided to wait an additional week- you know, we didn’t want to steal his thunder.

We wanted to do something fun that would involve all of our family. We decided to have a barbecue, since it would possibly be the last one for the summer.

I hung baby shirts, socks, mittens and wash clothes on the clothesline, alternating between boy and girl colors. We hung plastic diaper pins along the fence. I covered the tables with white, pink and blue table covers.  I poured pink lemonade and blue raspberry drinks into clear pitcher, and used clear cups.

You can see where I was going with this.

To include everyone- We went around asking each person present what they thought Juju and I were having. Some people guessed based on intuition, others based on the fact that it was a “girl” year, or everyone they knew were having boys, and many had wives tales to help determine what we were having.

                                                                                                                          

According to a few common wives tale-

Cravings- sweet or salty? – Girl

Daintiness - Graceful or Clumsy?-  Boy

Skin- Acne or Glow? - Boy

Chinese gender calendar- Girl or Boy? - Girl

Dad’s weight Increase or No Increase? – Boy

Belly- High or Low? - Girl

Belly- Pointy or Wide? - Girl

Wives tale #1- Chain over hand or belly- Boy

Wives tale #2- Holding a baby of the opposite/same sex that you are carrying, apparently if it’s the same gender- baby is happy. If it’s the opposite gender- baby is not happy-  Boy

The consensus at the party was that I was having a baby girl.

13 votes for girl, 12 votes for boys – Girl

Tally:

Girl- 5

Boy- 5

We honored the grandparents to be by allowing them to bite into the gender revealing cake balls that we prepared (with the baby’s gender as the inside colors)

Here are a few shots of the party-

Sister in law + Nephews

Sister, Aunts, Cousins

Sister + current favorite nephew ( shhh- don't tell the others)

Brother, cousin, father in law + brother in law

(manning the rigged grill)

Sister in law, Brother in law + etc, etc

Family

Mo, Larry + Curly

Family

Me + My Daddy

Nats + Maria

Cwisty, Me, Maria + Nats

And finally the reveal- We lined them up (L ro R; FIL, MIL, my Daddy + my Mommy) gave them each a cake ball and told them to bite into it. Everyone watched in silence.

a closer look-

My Daddy, Me, My Son + His Daddy

Celebrating the reveal

Juju awkwardly grabbing my belly

And of course a celebration is not a celebration without the a shot of tequila.

To our sweet baby boy!

Cheers!

She accidentally told me

A few weeks ago, I had a routine doctors appointment back that quickly became one of the most exciting days of our lives, thus far- obvi. 

I had debated back and forth whether or not I wanted to find out the sex of the baby. I was leaning more towards not finding out, but Juju really really wanted to know. The odd thing is that I'm planner by nature. I like to know what we are doing, when and and with who. So you would assume that I would want to know for the baby planning right? 

Wrong. 

I thought it would be very exciting for us to find out if we were welcoming a baby boy or a baby girl in the delivery room. I was reluctant to 'give in' to finding out. Everyone was constantly asking what we were having and honestly I felt bad taking that away from Juju, as he was dying to know.

The day before my appointment my sister asked me whether or no we were going to find out the gender- my initial answer was no. One, I was only 16 weeks along- typically you find out at 20 weeks and secondly we hadn't come to a consensus as to whether we were going to find out or not. I was on the fence though- a part of me wanted to find out if i had a baby girl or a baby boy growing inside of me. Knowing his or her gender made it that much more real. I could stop saying it, or baby. I could call baby a him or her. 

I told Gaby- if baby shows him or self to us- seeing that it would be very early to tell anyway- it was God's will for us to find out.

And baby did. 

In an odd twist of events, i was asked to stay after my regular OB appointment to have an additional ultrasound. Unfortunately Juju had to go back to school, so i was on my own. A few minutes into the ultrasound, the sonographer proclaimed that baby was revealing itself to mommy- and spilled the beans.

I cried. I laughed- my belly shook. And sadly, Juju wasn't there. After that happened i decided to take the remainder of the day off from work so that I could surprise daddy in his own special way to tell him the baby's gender. We were able to keep it a secret for almost 2 weeks until our gender reveal party-which we had at 18 weeks.

Dont worry that'll post will come tomorrow ;-)

21 weeks

Please excuse the missing photo. Mr.Wonderful has misplaced our camera. I assure you my belly is getting big. I will post a picture this week.

Total Weight Gain: 15 (rough estimate since my scale tends to be moody)

Maternity Clothes: I did it. I officially bought maternity tops and bottoms. The small maternity "trousers" ( funny word right?- what am i 80?) fit a bit loose. 

Sleep:  Thank the lord Juju has an 8 a.m class monday through wednesday. Because of this class he now thinks that going to bed at 10 pm, instead of our usual midnight or later, is a fantastic idea. You know who benefits the most from this? right here. me. So i sleep a solid 7 hrs a night now. I sleep on either side with a body pillow support my belly and helping ease hip/back pain. 

Symptoms: This week i have been experiencing some lower right side rib cage pain. Mostly when i sit or sleep- but getting up to walk around every once and a while eases the pain. Nothing too bothersome though.

What I'm looking forward to: My next ultrasound in a few days!

Cravings: Fruit- anything citric. Chicken Nuggets. Chorizo con papas. Anything with cheese in it.

Aversions: Nothing currently.

Movement: Oh! So those weren't gas bubbles. I started to feel my sweet baby move in there about a month ago i would say. I just wasnt 100% sure if that was the baby or just my stomach. Baby has now progressed to kicks. and over the last few days they have become combination kicks and what i assume are punches.

  

Gender: I have a little secret!!

What I miss: Red Wine, Tequila.  I know this seems terrible- but i truly miss me a margarita, original- on the rocks

Milestone: I am noticeable pregnant. People can stop assuming i've just gained weight.

What no one tells you, but i will: Go ahead and put away those tiny lacy thongs, g-strings, tangas and everything in between. Hello Big Momma Drawes'. The last thing you will want up your rear is a dental floss. Trust me. This doesn't meant that you cant have sexy big momma drawes'. I stocked my underwear basket with lacy cheeky boy shorts, also one size larger than usual, in a variety of colors and animal prints. Rarrrr.