The Wingler Family: What Will Baby Bee?

As mentioned in my previous post, my mom and I hosted a gender reveal party for my sister, Mary, and her husband, Jeremy. They are due on October 4. Mary went to the doctor for the anatomy ultrasound on Friday, and we had the party on Saturday afternoon. I had fixed an envelope for her to take to her appointment, complete with directions for the sonographer and baker. The sonographer had to circle the gender and include an ultrasound picture identifying the gender. The envelope was sealed and taken to the baker, so no one knew except the doctor's office and the bakery. If they were having a boy, the icing on the inside of the cake should be blue, or pink for a girl.
My mom and I worked on the decorations for the party during the time we were in Taylorsville. I had already planned everything and had bought supplies....we just needed to put it all together.

Invitations: I found the cute bee-themed invitations from the Dimpleprints shop on etsy. It was a digital file, so all we had to do was send it to Sams Club and have them printed. I bought envelopes for them at A.C. Moore. I was so pleased with how they turned out! The flower arrangement was a pinterest idea, and it was so easy to make. A grocery store bouquet with some sliced lemons in a mason jar...voila!

Wreath: We made a mesh wreath for the front door to welcome the guests. This was my first attempt at making one of these, and I was so pleased with how it turned out. I bought an unfinished wood plaque at A.C. Moore and painted it with chalkboard paint. For the party, we wrote, "Welcome to the Hive!" but Mary can change the message easily with a wet rag and some chalk.

Banner: I found free printables online to make a banner and used mom's cricut machine to make the letters. We glued it all together and strung it together with ribbon. It said, "What Will Baby Bee?" Unfortunately, I failed to get a good picture! You can kind of see it in the background of this picture.

Wishes for Baby-to-Bee: This was a pinterest idea that I modified to fit with our theme. We used scrapbook paper in our party colors to make the cards. The cards could be filled out with funny or serious answers, and I think this is something they will all cherish for years to come.

Honey Tasting Station: We had three different flavors of honey and a bowl of crossiants for our appetizers. This was also a pinterest idea; however, I don't think this one went over very well. Apparently, a lot of people don't like honey....so we had a lot of honey and crossiants left over. I still thought it was cute though!

Gender Bet: We got 2 plain white photo storage boxes and painted black polka dots on them to be used for our "girl" and "boy" boxes. Guests had to put in $1 in the "honey pot" for each guess they made, either girl or boy. They wrote their name on a slip of paper and put it in the box. After the gender was revealed, we drew a name from that box and that person was the winner!

Aunt Mickie won the honey pot! Poor Connor was a little upset he didn't win it, so she was nice enough to share!

As decoration on the gender bet table, I had Connor draw a picture of what he thought his little brother or sister would look like. It was his idea to write a sentence saying, "I hope it will bee a boy." He was also the mastermind behind using "bee" instead of "be" to go with our theme. This was a special surprise for Mary and Jeremy. (On a side note: I continue to be so amazed at his smarts every time I am with this sweet little boy! As a previous teacher, I am amazed that he used correct spelling, correct punctuation, correct capitalization, and neat handwriting on his artwork...he's only in kindergarten. But that's nothing of what this little boy can do! While we were there, we said we had to start getting Maddie for bed around 7 p.m., but we could play until that time. He looked at the clock...it was 6:47 p.m.....and without hardly even thinking about it, he said, "We have 13 minutes to play!" And, my how that boy can read, too!)

Activities: We had a ladder ball game and cornhole game set up outside, along with some bubbles (or bee-bles) and sidewalk chalk for the kids.

Food: We made a simple dinner of bar-"bee"-que sandwiches, honey bar-"bee"-que chips, corn-on-the-"comb", honeycomb pineapple, and "bee"-verages. And of course the cake (more to come later)! I found some free printables online that I used to make the food signs.

We used mason jars as a glass, complete with a yellow striped paper straw from etsy and homemade paper flags that said, "What will baby bee?" on one side, and "Sweet as honey!" on the reverse.

Team Pink and Team Blue: We requested that the guests wear either pink or blue to correspond with their best guess of what they thought the gender would be. As you can see, pink outnumbered blue!

Maddie even had a special outfit to wear! She had the cutest little bee dress made from Frida's Closet on Etsy. Once again, I failed on my photography duties, and I did not get a good shot of her dress...but she's still cute as can bee anyways!

Madelyn and Aunt Suesanne

Reveal cake: We had a beehive cake to go with our bee theme, complete with a special door that held the sonogram pictures identifying the gender. They were in a ziploc bag to keep them clean. After we had eaten dinner and taken pictures of Team Pink and Team Blue, Mary, Jeremy, and Connor excitedly cut into the cake to find out that they were having a GIRL!!! :) Mary was thrilled! Connor soon remembered that he wanted a brother, and he wasn't quite as happy at first! By the end of the night, I think he had decided it was ok that he was going to have a little sister! ;)