Savannah’s 2nd Birthday Party + Baby #3 Gender Reveal!

2016 was the year of party planning. So far, 2017 has been much more low-key in that department…thankfully! We only did family birthday parties (one here and one in Trussville) for Brooklyn’s birthday back in February. For Savannah, I decided to plan a joint family party here at our house. It was originally going to be on her actual birthday–a Saturday this year–but Jenn and Chandler wouldn’t have been able to make it. Since they are probably going to be living out of state for the next several years while Jenn does her residency, I wanted to do everything possible for them to be able to make it to this year’s celebration. So, we postponed the party one week to Saturday, May 6th.

Changing the subject a bit, we were able to find out the gender of Baby Grant #3 at my 16 week appointment on April 24th. Yay! I’d originally planned on telling our families in person at Savannah’s party by doing a casual gender reveal at the end before everyone left. But, postponing the party by a week meant we had to keep the news a secret for almost 2 weeks! I think it bothered Rae Rae worse than anyone (she kept trying to guess based on what I said for the next 10 days…hehe), but we managed not to slip up and tell anyone accidentally :)

By May 6th, our house had been on the market for about a week and a half. We were so busy getting ready to put it on the market in April and then preparing for showings after April 26th that Savannah’s party was not super high on my priority list. (Sorry, Pookie!). We decided to keep things very casual, which turned out to be a great idea. I was hoping to do a Daniel Tiger themed party (Savannah’s favorite TV show), but Party City only carried Daniel Tiger party supplies online and not in-store. Being so busy, I waited too late to order online, so we switched “themes” to Finding Dory instead…meaning that I bought Finding Dory plates and napkins and not much else ;) Since our house was on the market and we were trying to keep things super clean, I decided to have the party in the garage so that we wouldn’t have too much indoor clean-up or risk a bunch of spills inside. If the weather had been better, we probably would have had the party in the backyard, but it was pretty windy and a little rainy, so the garage was the best spot. Travis thought it was tacky to make everyone hang out in the garage, but he agreed after the fact that it worked out well :) The day of the party, we ended up having TWO showings (one that we knew about beforehand and one that came up mid-day with not too much notice) AND Gabby pooped on top of our bed, so it was a pretty hectic and tiring day. We had already planned on ordering pizza for the party, which was another good move! I’m telling you…we kept things very simple. It was the easiest kid birthday party I’ve planned to date :)

I did make a couple of balloon garlands in the Finding Dory colors, which I thought turned out cute and sort of dressed up the garage a little bit :)

Savannah’s party also motivated me to finally get around to making her “2” with pictures from the last year. I love making these and looking at them throughout the year until the next birthday :)

I made the same chocolate cake we made for Rae Rae’s birthday earlier this year since that one turned out so yummy. A few sprinkles and a “2” candle on top, and I decided that was good enough! :)

Time for pizza once all the guests arrived!

Best solo picture we got of the birthday girl :)

After everyone finished with their pizza, Travis brought out the chocolate cake and held it in one hand and held a birthday present in the other hand. Guess which one Savannah chose to do next ;)

Still not a fan of getting too close to the burning candles, but at least she didn’t cry like last year’s infamous party :)

That face!

Digging in to a HUGE piece!

Big sister enjoyed her cake too!

It was good to the last crumb!

Thankfully, the weather was nice enough most of the evening for the kids to play in the driveway. They had fun riding bikes and tricycles, drawing with chalk, and just running around.

Time for presents!

Brooklyn was “helping” Savannah open everything, and it was basically a tornado of tissue paper and gift bags for about 5-10 minutes. They were opening things so fast that I couldn’t keep track of what gift came from which family member…haha. Gifts included a Melissa and Doug watering can, money, a broom and mop set, cleaning caddy with supplies (since she loves to help clean!), stickers, a baby doll, a sun hat, tank tops, doll clothes, and probably some other things I’m forgetting.

Even Brooklyn got a few presents from the grandparents—a sticker book,her own watering can, and some beach toys!

Once the gift opening was over (didn’t take long!), it was time for the big gender reveal. I can’t remember exactly what everyone guessed (other than Rae Rae, who claimed she saw BLUE balloons in the box before we opened it), but the guesses were pretty even for blue vs. pink.

Baby Grant #3 is a…

…………………………………………….

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GIRL!!!

When Brooklyn saw the pink balloons in the box, she shouted, “They’re PINK!!!” (We’d told her beforehand what pink or blue balloons would mean.)

I’m not sure how surprised everyone was, other than Rae Rae (haha), but I think everyone was still excited :)

We can’t wait to welcome ANOTHER girl into the family!

Travis had said prior to the gender ultrasound that if we found out it was a boy, he would have passed out on the floor from shock…haha. We are so used to having girls that both of us just expected this one to be a girl also. Of course, it would have been exciting either way, but I think it will be great having 3 girls close in age. Sure, there will be drama (there already is!), but I can’t wait for all the fun we’ll have. We’ve already got the clothes, the nursery decor, all the pink stuff we could possibly need…