Celebration Lunch with the Girls

Today was wonderful! My cousin in law Chelsea coordinated a lunch to celebrate my pregnancy! So several of my girlfriends came together for lunch at Grillsmith and we celebrated my pregnancy and little baby Julian together! It was so sweet to have all of those women that I love in one place and I enjoyed it so much! I was so surprised when some of them brought me gifts, they were really all too sweet to do that for me! Chelsea brought a yummy chocolate cake and Kell bought me lunch! :-) It was so special and a time I will not forget!

Our Baby Boy- Julian Bennett Shaffer

Here are our first "photos" of baby Julian. We love him so much already and think he is the cutest little guy around, even at this early stage! :-)

Definitely a BOY! Haha

Our Reveal Party! :-)

So be prepared for a very picture heavy post! Jared and I wanted our families finding out if it was a boy or a girl to be really special. We decided to do a little reveal party and after searching around the internet came up with the balloon idea to announce that we would be having a baby boy! I also found party ideas that helped me create the little "cravings" table with all of the different types of snacks. My twin Kellie and her husband Clint made the Boy or Girl banner for us! Isn't it great? :-)

Our nephew Thomas was very excited that it was a little boy just like him! :-) He wanted to name him Trime, sorry little man, maybe next "Trime" haha. Our niece Tatum really wanted a little girl because she thought that if it was a boy she wouldn't be able to help give him a bath or help take care of him. Poor little thing, haha, I assured her that she can help me take care of him! Everyone seemed to have thought it was a little boy by the time they arrived to the party. The odds were definitely leaning that way since Jared's family is made up of almost all boys. :-)

The grandma's were in contact and made sure to bring presents for both boys and girls just in case. They gave us such sweet little boy things and we are so thankful! :-) This little boy is very blessed to have two incredible sets of grandparents. I am fully expecting a good amount of spoiling on their behalf haha :-)

Here is what our party looked like! :-)

It's A....Our Ultrasound :-)

We headed to Orlando on Thursday September 29th to have our elective ultrasound and find out if Baby Shaffer was a he or a she. The excitement and anticipation was almost too much as we made our way there! I truly loved being able to share those moments with Jared. I don't think I will ever forget how it felt to know we were heading to see our son or daughter.

We arrived at the office where the ultrasound was going to take place and parked in the "Expecting Mom" parking spot. We signed in and waited as we listened to a little family in the ultrasound room who must have been finding out boy or girl too. There was a mother, father, their two children, grandmother and sister in the room all at the same time. As I listened to the children get excited about what they were seeing I felt so excited and overwhelmed myself! What an awesome thing it is to be able to see your baby while they are still growing in your tummy.

Finally it was our turn! I laid down on the ultrasound bed and got ready to find out! Jared filmed while the technician performed the ultrasound. Almost immediately after she started Jared and I saw a little something flash across the screen. ;-) She drew it out for another couple of minutes but it was very clear! It's a....

BOY!!! :-)

After the ultrasound we headed to Maggianos to celebrate our baby boy! Our waiter, Kelly, was really nice and excited for us and even brought us out a dessert with a blue candle at the end of dinner. It made it even more special to have that little extra surprise. Then we headed home and made a stop at Target to buy the baby his first present. Jared picked an outfit with elephants that said "little peanut" and I picked one that said "mom's little man." It was such a special night for us! When we got home we watched the ultrasound video and looked at the pictures of our baby boy and then finished up a few things for the big family party the next night! :-)

Here are some pictures from our big night! :-)