Sports Fans

Something tells me I'm going to need to change my opinion on the boring game of football.

A Pink and Blue Party

Thank heavens I stumbled across the idea to do a "Gender Reveal Party" mere weeks before baby's gender revealing ultrasound.

Here's how it works: Ultrasound tech doesn't tell you the gender but rather writes it on a card and seals the envelope. Sealed envelope is given to a noble cake-maker trustworthy enough to conceal a tiny secret for a few hours. Cake-maker ices the middle of the cake with pink or blue frosting, frosts the outside in a neutral color and then removes all evidence. Cake is brought to pregnant girl's house and a party is to be had!

Our cake-maker with the results:

As soon as she teased about opening the envelope in front of me, I got outta there and got my mind on other things -- the over-the-top decorations for the party! So what if I was super anxious all week waiting for the news which caused me to use my nervous energy to get a little elaborate with my party? I think you'll agree my nervous planning was worth it.

I mean, it just would be a gender reveal party without lollipop lips!

And staches for team blue.

I started setting up on Sunday and I kept asking Jeff if it looked cute. By Sunday night every time Eli passed the table he would point and say, "Cu!...Cu!..." I enjoyed the reassurance from my one-year old that my cuteness efforts were appreciated.

Pink and blue balloons? You betcha!

And what do ya know? Before long we had some guests arrive. Here's the Cox crew with pink shirts casting their girl votes.

Bryan and Celeste. Two more girl votes.

Brooke with her special decoration she made for me. Plus a pink shirt.

Golden Fam provided our first blue votes. Dallas wore tan to predict our baby will be a human. I hope he's right.

Jeff was team pink. I wanted to be, but my gut made me put on a blue shirt.

The cake-maker and her sidekick with the big brother. My mom made sure to clarify she had the pink shirt on before she saw what the gender is. One pink. One blue.

My sister-in-law Laura makes chicken salad to die for. It was tasting so good as I was chowing down I didn't even notice chunks of chicken were flying everywhere. I had a chicken piece sitting on my shirt for a good 5 minutes before Laura so kindly informed me I was spewing food. In the wake of all that, my camera got some of the dressing on the lens. I am so sad Melissa and Kyle are blurry! But they still look cute. One pink and one blue.

Here's the beauty that taunted me all through dinner:

Papa John's pizza buffet. Yes please. And, by the way, I'm eating for two.

Here's the reason I couldn't help but wear a blue shirt...the Excells are notorious for their boys! Seven grandsons and one granddaughter on Jeff's side.

At 7:00 we gathered round the kitchen table for a reenactment of our wedding day as we sliced another cake together.

Okay. So I just watched Jeff slice it while I squeeled and squirmed.

After seeing the results, I pretended I was going to mash all that BLUE frosting in his face -- wedding day style.

Always trust a mother's intuition.

My fears of being in Cub Scouts for the rest of my life were confirmed. Which was a hard pill to swallow. But nonetheless, we're excited for our future scout to arrive.

This was Eli all night -- picking up scraps from the floor, stealing other peoples' cakes and smacking babies in the head with toy baseball bats. He's going to be such a good brother.

My theory holds strong that the Excells cannot produce girls. Oh well. The world could use a few more mustaches.

We can't wait to meet you #2! And I hope you like dinosaurs.

I Lost My Camera

My lack of blogging can be chalked up to our upcoming gender reveal party:

And my camera being forgotten at a family Halloween party:

Where Eli was scared out of his mind by a friendly, bearded leprechaun.

And where ladybugs and zoologists have baby pumpkins.

But luckily I got my camera back when my Mom took me out for her birthday lunch. Don't worry. I generously let her take home the leftover breadsticks as a birthday present.

...the few breadsticks that didn't end up mashed in Eli's mouth.

Eli must have missed the camera, too because he now puts on a show whenever I get it out.

Eli was even happy to see the camera in his face first thing this morning while he was eating his "YOGI" (yogurt).

After he was done eating, he looked out the window at the three inches of snow we got last night and called it bubbles.

Now I just have to keep myself busy until Monday when we find out if more blue or a little pink is in our future. Eek.

Folded Arms and Fire Safety

We have been trying to teach Eli how to fold his arms for prayers for the past two months. One day I handed him his lunch and he did this before he would eat:

 Now he "folds his arms" on demand!

At Pack Meeting Eli was walking around and getting into trouble. He had his back to the front of the room as one of the scouts started the opening prayer. As soon as Eli heard the prayer start, he whipped around to face the front and immediately folded his tiny arms.

And yes. I had my eyes open during the prayer.

I guess I'll do a Pack Meeting update because it went so well!

The theme of the month was Responsibility. Several websites recommended talking about being responsible around fires and discussing fire safety. That seemed like a good enough idea so I went with it.

After much planning and replanning, I finally decided to have them do a fire safety relay. The first race was to find a safe exit. I had four leaders standing behind the boxes marked "Exit." The leaders would alternate which one of them had a fire behind the box so there would be one safe exit and one exit with a fire behind it. The boys had to crawl through the safe exit.

The second race was to stop, drop and roll in a designated area. One boy misunderstood the directions and rolled all the way back to his team which was very amusing to watch...but might have cost his team the win.

The third race was to go to the family meeting area. I had hula hoops there and they had to hula hoop three times and then run back.

The fourth race was to call 911 at your neighbor's house.

And the fifth race was to put out the fire with water from the fire extinguisher. I didn't really want to deal with the mess of actual water so Jeff had the brilliant idea to fill balloons up with flour and call that water. Those balloons are sitting on the chair with the fire extinguisher and then there were fires in the middle that they had to hit with two balloons.

I bought firemen hats at the dollar store for them to wear when it was their turn.

It was so much fun I'm tempted to do a relay every month. You don't think they'd mind, do you?