Sam and Katie's Gender Reveal Party -- It's A......?

Katie and Sam were back and forth about finding out the sex of the baby ahead of time or letting it be a surprise at birth.  We talked about the pros and cons of each and they decided to at least get the 12 week blood test done so they could look at the results later should they choose to.

Katie and I had been looking at party themes for her baby showers and there were just so many fun ideas that they decided to have a gender reveal party to we could use another theme! Ha! Who doesn't love an excuse to party? If you've followed our blog for any amount of time you know that's what my family does best.

Katie's guidelines for the party:  keep it simple, no meal, and a fun reveal that will photograph and video well (so no cake cutting, etc).  She had really wanted a Mexican themed baby shower, but I talked her into a Mexican themed gender reveal once I started putting a few ideas together.

I did a photo booth at the entrance of the party.  Guests were asked to make their guess and photograph it.  I used my mom's Cricut (most are from the Photo Booth cartridge).

 I trolled the clearance aisles at Michael's, JoAnn's, Target, and Hobby Lobby to piece together the decorations. And my mom splurged on the extra large sombrero for Sam and the glittery headband for Katie.

 For the snacks I used At Home With Natalie's (formerly Busy Budgeting Mama) nacho bar as inspiration.  I cheated and used pre-made guacamole, BBQ, salsas, cheese dip, chocolate sauce, and caramel sauce from Sam's Club.  I made the cinnamon tortillas and maple cream cheese dips as she directs.

Then it was time for the big reveal!!!  As soon as we settled on the Mexican theme I knew we had to do a piñata (though I looked at doing the Mexican confetti eggs).  Katie is OBSESSED with t-rex (I mean, who isn't?).  I Amazoned "piñata" and this was the first one to pop up. Clearly the internet knows me well.  Done and done.  I filled it with "It's a Boy" confetti, strips of blue crate paper, and little rubber duckies (a joke from Katie's 16th birthday) that said "It's a Boy".  I also stuffed some navy blue Chewbeads in as our gift to her.

 It's a boy!!  One of the special details of the party was we included about 10 family members who were out of town on a giant Google Hangout video stream.  They were able to be part of the big reveal "live".  Katie and Sam got to talk to all of them at once to celebrate their exciting news!

 We are SOOO excited to have another nephew joining the family in December!