Manic Mama Miles: What Will it Bee?

For the "What Will it Bee?" gender reveal party, I wanted to figure out some cute ways for people to vote on whether they thought Ba-Bee White was going to be a boy or a girl. I had seen on Pinterest where people would move buttons or write their name on a certain side or wear a color or something like that.

Here is our "What Will it Be?" decision area. You even got to have some lemonade while you were deciding. Here is where I put up one of the banners that I told you about. I also decorated with more of the bees that you saw in that same post. I set up a "What Will it Bee?" magnet voting booth. Not quite national election ready, but it's a magnetic board with some clothespin bees...so it was still pretty awesome. I usually have this magnet board in my office with pictures of Addy up. My mother in law gave it to me one Christmas & it was perfect for this occasion since amongst the other magnets, it had one lone bee magnet that I used as a centerpiece. I made little signs that said "He?" or "She?"

Guests were told via poem (what else?) to take move their "bee" to their pick. The bees were clothespins from the Dollar Tree that were painted yellow & either had pink or blue stripes. I used the Elmer's Painters paint pens that I love so much. For the bee faces, I used the same leftover Halloween foam kit that I used in making Addy's baby mobile (see that project here). I took the foam spiders & cut off the extra legs, leaving only two. The foam spiders already had adhesive on the back, so they were perfect to stick on the clothespins. I then just drew a little face on the bee. They certainly look happy, don't they? I doubt bees can smile, but this was a special occasion. : ) I added some little adhesive magnet strips from the Dollar Tree to the back of the clothespins & they were ready for our riveting game of "What Will It Bee?"

In addition to making their vote on the magnet board, guests were encouraged to share their pick by placing a straw in their drink. I found these straws at the Pink Lemonade Party Etsy shop (found here) & they had these little flags that you could write on. So the "He" & "She" flags were added to the straws so that everyone could add their pick to their drink. They turned out too cute.

So what were the votes? Boy won by 2. So what was the gender? And how did we reveal it?

The parents to be had actually shared with me beforehand what the gender was & besides being completely excited, this helped me prepare for the big reveal for them to share with all the rest of the party guests. I couldn't decide the best way because there are so many cute ideas out there. I debated about balloon reveals, cake reveals, etc. Then I thought back to the first group party we ever had in law school. It was a fiesta at my old apartment. One of our friends brought a piñata filled with ridiculously awesome things including glitter. Besides the fact that I didn't own a vacuum at the time (so you can imagine the nightmare that the glitter later became), it was tons of fun to smack that thing around & see what was inside. I found a bee piñata & thought it would be totally perfect for the gender reveal & a good throwback for our group to remember our fiesta.

We let the parents to be beat the bee piñata & awaited the results. Well, I'll tell you what. That bee was no wuss. The dad to be finally had to stab the sucker with the stick to get it to bust. But when it did bust, out came all the blue candy, sports candy & some blue leis (another throwback to another of our law school parties, the luau). Everyone was so excited. We all put on the leis & placed one on the "winning" side of the magnet voting board. It was an absolutely fantastic gender reveal party that we were so happy to share in with our sweet, dear friends.