Baby Ultrasound & Gender Reveal!

We were so excited to get another glimpse of our growing little one. Grandpa, Grandma, Ian, and Ryan came with us to the ultrasound appointment. Littlest Schleicher looked just perfect. He was measuring a few days ahead of expected and weighed about a pound. We got some cute "pictures."

the baby's face (on the left) and body

The baby's heartbeat was 132 bpm..

Our boys (especially Ian) were thrilled to see the baby "wave" at them a few times.

arms

cute little feet

Toward the end of our time together, the ultrasound tech completed the gender reveal part of our ultrasound, though all of us in the room kept our eyes closed and let her print this picture that we gave to Chelsea when we got home. Chelsea right away worked on assembling the correct color of silly string for our gender reveal party later that night. She did a great job at keeping everything a secret!

All of us worked together to prepare for the party. We hung the ultrasound pictures as a decoration.

Our last step was getting the "pregnancy cravings bar" (snack table) all set. We served pickles, a veggie tray with Ranch dip, brownies, and chips & dip. Yum!

Soon, it was time for our guests to arrive! Jonathan was our official greeter. He made each guest cast a vote for "pink" or "blue" and wear a ribbon of the appropriate color. He also invited guests to suggest possible baby names for us. He did a great job of welcoming people and getting them in the party spirit right away!

We spent time talking, 

eating,

and playing at the beginning of the party.

Emily, Charlotte, Tanya, Holland, Julie, Raegan

Then, we all went outside into the particularly muggy weather (it rained HARD just before the party began) to take our "team pictures." Below ... TEAM PINK! (What great friends ... many even wore a correctly-colored "team jersey." ) :)

(back) Grandma, Grandpa, Jonathan, Eric, Carrie, Alicceson, Matt, Emily, Charlotte
(front) Julie, Raegan, Anna, Tanya, Holland, Melissa, Annelise, Ella

and TEAM BLUE!

(back) Matt, Kyle, Sammy, Elisabeth, Jonathan, Jeremy, Kim, Ryan, Sarah, Owen
(front) Nate, Riley, Carole, Cameron, Carson, Ian

Our guests were such good sports and participated willingly in our friendly team minute-to-win-it competitions. Any participant who completed the challenge was awarded a point for his/her color's team. First, our friends had to throw an increasing number of pencils in the air and try to catch them.

Eric & Matt

Aliceson & Carole

Julie & Elisabeth

Competition #2 involved stacking plastic cups into a pyramid and taking them down before the timer went off.

Nate & Melisssa

Sarah & Emily

Jonathan & Carrie

The next competition involved head-banging while having a pedometer strapped to your forehead.

Kyle & Jonathan

Kim & Matt

Kim getting Ryan's help

Finally, we had our friends wear pantyhose (with a tennis ball in the leg) on their heads. They had to swing their pantyhose "trunk" to try to knock over all of the water bottles in the given time.

Jeremy & Tanya

Eric & Carole

Chelsea -- wearing a neutral white shirt! :) (What a good sport!)

In the end, TEAM BLUE and TEAM PINK were tied with six points each. (The top "score" is everyone's votes.)

In order to break the tie, Nate represented Team Blue, and Melissa represented Team Pink in the Knock-over-the-water-bottle competition.

Melissa

Nate

Team Blue ended up getting the winning point after the tie-breaker. Then came the moment we had all been waiting for. Chelsea handed everyone a decorated & wrapped can of silly string. We counted down from 10 and all started squirting our silly string at the same time! BLUE, BLUE everywhere! "It's another boy!" people shouted! How exciting!

a video Jon took for some friends that live in Missouri

Jonathan read us all of the boy names that our friends had suggested. Some suggestions were better than others. :) Many people tried to suggest a name that fit our "ends in -n" tradition (like Ian and Ryan). Who knows? Maybe one of those names will be what we end up naming our littlest boy!

What a treat to have family and friends around to celebrate with us the news that God was sending us another healthy, precious little boy! What a blessing! :)