All The Details: how we announced we were expecting!

Agh this post makes me emotional to even start. If you’ve ever lost your parent(s) or maybe you  just are disconnected from loved ones or maybe you just feel alone even with them all around you – you will feel me in this pain.

When I got pregnant I didn’t get to announce it to my future baby daddy in a cute way, I told him with tears in my eyes and fear in my heart. But once that faded, and I was excited I couldn’t wait to start doing the stuff that really made me feel like a mama to be, and also to celebrate the journey.

I’m a Pinterest junkie – anyone else here? So when I started searching out all the cutest announcement ideas I was filled with excitement to share the news with all of you, our family and friends but also I was feeling the gut wrenching pain. I didn’t have a mom and dad to surprise. That shit hurts. No matter how you slice it.

The good news is, this mini hot tamale will be so dang loved and will have the best grandparents I could ask for on his daddy’s side. Since I was 16 and first entered their lives they’ve treated me like gold, and I love them for that. And they are already treating this bump like platinum (that’s above gold right?).

So, if I couldn’t live out my wild Pinterest goals of announcements with my own parents you better believe I was going to with all of you and with them.

Telling his parents:

They came first. We didn’t tell them until we were 13-14 weeks along. We planned to share the news at 12 weeks but had to hold off cause the custom mugs I ordered took forever to come in – of course!

So yes, mugs were involved. I had this vision of us eating dinner on Sunday evening, like we do every Sunday with them and them slowly unpacking this basket with little baby items and custom “grandma” and “grandpa” mugs. So off I went, google landed me on a custom mug site where I designed my own mugs. I actually designed the image as a png in Canva for free, then uploaded the png into the mug site. Sounds techy, but it’s not. From there I ordered them, with their last name, their new status, and our “est 2020” date stamped on there. I also ordered one for his brother, with the big uncle title.

We then went to winners and I let him pick out the items that would go into the basket. Remember how I just said we KNEW we were having a boy? Well, he picked out these cute little dark blue sneakers, a grey blanket, white onesies, and camouflage bibs – and we laughed and said they were gender neutral, but we both knew they weren’t haha.

I stuff it all a basket and wrapped it up with tissue and clear wrap from the dollar store. We waited until dinner was done until we put the basket infant of them. And with each item being pulled out (for some reason they pulled the shoes and bibs out before the mugs) they got a little more suspicious and their butt’s moved closer to the edge of their seat. When they finally realized, they looked up and asked with the biggest smile on their face… their joy brought both of us to have welling tears in our eyes.

They wanted grand babies so badly. They had no idea we were expecting and had been bugging me since the day we basically got back together to get that ball rollin’. So it felt really good to feel supported, loved and to have this little one welcomed with such joy.

Their mugs are sitting in their coffee reading area, untouched because they want to wait to fill those cups up once they have their grand baby in their arms. Agh, they are just the cutest.

Telling our friends & social media:

Next up, the jackets and hat that you all asked about so much on our big reveal post.

Alright so I saw this post with a “mama” and “babe” jean jacket. I checked out the site, but didn’t love the actual jackets and I wanted to get something I’d wear way after a picture was taken. So I decided to make my own (always way more work, but worth it).

I scoured sites to try and find matching jackets for me and the babe. I ended up getting a ladies and toddler jacket form Levi’s. They weren’t identical but they were pretty dang close. I then ordered a plain black snap back hat from Amazon for dad. I wanted him to be a part of this cute little branding and though it was perfect for an announcement shoot.

I then went back to good ol’ canva and designed a png again with a border, the words inside and picked my colors. I then went onto Etsy and found a designer who made custom patches and sent off my dimensions and png for the image on the patch. They were iron on and super easy to make, get and iron on. Wah-la.

The Photographer

My photographer ended up having to fly back to Italy last minute so I frantically searched the internet for a local photographer who’s style I vibe with. I found Kristen – who’d I’d never met or even talked to. I asked her if I could hire her to do a quick 30 minute shoot last minute for us – she made it happen and blew all of my expectations out of the water.

If you are local I highly recommend her – and I’m not paid to say that haha.

Not only did she deliver us with dozens and dozens more images than I paid for, but she also put our entire photoshoot into a video that we watched on repeat a dozen times in a row because it captured our excitement and love so well.

Anyhow – there ya have it.

Anyone want to know how we did our gender reveal? I’m planning on writing that blog up next, but just seeing if you want to know how creative I got and how it was kinda an epic fail moment haha…

Talk to you soon,

Jess…and my mini hot tamale! XO