Spoonful of Imagination

Add it to a Family for Something Beautiful

Gender Reveal Party

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While we had everyone home for Christmas, my mom threw a gender reveal family dinner for my sister, Annie, and her husband, John. They have a baby coming in May!  We were all so excited to find out if it was a boy or girl! So far, I’m an Aunt of adorable little nieces.  That little fact helped sway my guess as to what the gender might be!  I want a nephew!  Keep reading to find out what she is having, and I have something special for you at the end!

We arrived and all placed our votes on the baby’s gender.  We wore blue or pink necklaces and had to guess the gender on cards signed with our name.  My family is insanely competitive and we weren’t about to let voters try to swap sides last second.

sisters

proud grandparents

I love the sister shot and the proud grandparents shots that I happened to get on my little camera, but I was very thankful when our photographer arrived.  You know it is so amazing to have a professional photographer in the family.  If you missed my introduction of Christina as a Spoonful of Imagination sponsor you can see it here or click over to her site (Someplace Wild) and see some more of her amazing work.  Thanks for the lil plug allowance.

Now for some of her gorgeous pictures of the night!

gender reveal party activity

gender reveal party game

painting

the happy parents

gorgeous girls

toddlerpainting

washing hands

those nails

blocks

If you have not seen my gorgeous sister-in-laws, here they are with my beautiful sister, Joni.  Christina (Someplace Wild) is in the middle.  Which makes me wonder, who took this picture??  It must have been her partner in crime, my brother Tony.

sisters

happy couple

Aren’t they a beautiful couple!?  I can’t imagine how cute their kid is going to be.  It is still weird to see my sis with a baby bump as she has always been fit and thin!  She is so gorgeous and can pull off preggers pretty well if you ask me.

gener reveal party invite

gener reveal party decor

gender reveal cake

gender reveal moment

If you follow me on instagram or twitter, you might already know what the cake revealed.  Annie and John are having a baby boy!!  I get my nephew, and I know they are thrilled to be having a little boy!

soon to be parents

winners

losers

It was such a fun night hanging out with the family (which is a party alone), painting stacking blocks for the future baby, and of course eating a blue cake!

I never was able to wait longer than the doctor’s office to find out the sex of our kids.  That wait alone was so hard!  Have you ever had a gender reveal party or wanted one?  What is your take on them??

Now I have something for you!  My mom did all the amazing decorations for this party, but I did help her out with the invite, party blocks/sign, and the voter cards.  I have all of those for you today for free!!  If you want to help throw a gender reveal party like this one, you simply have to download and print these files, or please pass them along to a friend!

To download, simply click on the thumbnails below and follow your computer’s instructions to save the Word Doc files. Once saved, open them in Word, add your personalization, print, and enjoy!

Picture 4
Gender Vote Card
Picture 5
Painting Blocks Sign
Picture 3
Gender Reveal Invite

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

signature

Family Time

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I hope you all had a Merry Christmas!!  We had a great Christmas and have so enjoyed some family time with a lot of our extended family!

Today, is the first day we haven’t had anything on the calendar, and it’s amazing too (just in a different way).  I keep looking at my kids and thinking how much fun this is.  We are enjoying down time and just being together.  This morning we played Go Fish, Candy Land, and had a Nerf gun war, after eating heart-shaped pancakes.  Family down time is incredible for our souls!

I look at these three gorgeous kids, and I can’t believe that I get to be their mom.  What a gift and true blessing!

I hope in the midst of seeing family and doing different traditions you are able to pause, breath, and truly appreciate all that you have!  My posts might be a little more sporadic compared to my normal schedule until the beginning of the year.  I’m enjoying my family and getting some rest before all the AMAZING things coming in 2013.

 

 

 

 

**Thank you so much Someplace Wild for the incredible pics of my kids!!  The best gift ever is treasuring and capturing this stage of life!  It is going too fast.**

Linked up at:  iHomeschoolnetwork

family pictures

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My sister-in-law, Christina, has an amazing eye behind the camera.  I hate to even acknowledge that Christina (or “stina” as my kids call her) is part of my family because I may sound a little bias.  I hope by the end of this post you too can see why I believe so much in this girl and her work!  It is gorgeous!

 

The thing about having a professional photographer in the family is we always have amazing shots from our family functions, just like my birthday pumpkin carving/fire pit/cookout extravaganza.

One thing that I just adore about Christina’s pictures are how real and genuine they are while being completely gorgeous!!  I know from our family shoots, we have kids that don’t always want to smile or sit still.   Christina can somehow still get awesome pictures with some fidgety subjects all the while capturing their natural joy.  I love hugging pictures with huge smiles!!

Christina is the real deal.  She works hard and will spend hours and hours researching new shooting locations, going and checking the lighting at these locations to save you time and get you the best pictures possible.  She strives for excellence and it shows in her work.  Although her work is perfect in my eyes, she spends hours reading other photographers’ blogs, learning, and experimenting.  She has a natural gift and is still humble.  I love to watch the joy she gets from creating art in taking gorgeous pictures.  She comes alive behind a camera and I feel it shows in work.

Christina has done family shoots…

She has a love for capturing life at its fullest and that is how she rolls living it.  Life is an adventure.  She has captured my guys in the middle of a water balloon fight, wearing five different parts of superhero costumes all at once, and even Reagan’s first painting experience.  These pictures are priceless.  If you are pregnant, I can’t imagine the incredible pictures Christina could capture!  She would do an incredible job at a maternity shoot or even a baby’s first newborn pictures!  Capturing those little toes and smiles in their sleep is so sweet.

If you live in the Atlanta, GA area, I highly recommend contacting Christina and seeing how you can set up your own photo shoot with her.  I know our family is going to get a shoot with her this Christmas season.  It will be the first time that all my siblings will be together in what feels like a really long time, so she is going to capture it with the mix of all different poses with our clan together.  Do you have family coming in town where you would like a photo shoot to capture the moment together??

I know I am smiling the whole time I scroll through her work.  It is so beautiful and full of heart and joy!

Thank you for stopping by and meeting a side of a girl, Christina, that helps my world go round.  Have an awesome day!!