It's A Girl!!!!!!

So yesterday was the BIG Gender Reveal soiree for Baby Randazzler.  One of my dearest friends Janie came into town for the weekend and God bless her I put her to work the entire time!  We spent Friday night decorating and Saturday setting up and baking some killer Pepperoni Rolls for the get together.  My awesome and uber talented cake baker and friend, Jill Delmastro brought the cake to our house at 11:30 - so Janie and I were doing everything we could to stay busy and resist temptation to go over and poke into it to reveal the secret!!!!  (You can visit Jill's website HERE).

So we went with a "Bun in the Oven" Theme and Jill created the most adorable cake!

We kept the decor equally pink and blue so that both were represented.  Janie and I had quite a time hanging these lanterns in our dining room.  It took a few different methods to get them up (and to STAY up) :)

Thank God for my parents who came over early to help us pull together all the "last minute" details.  While the morning crept by at a snail's pace, the time between 1:30 and 2pm (when guests were supposed to start arriving) absolutely FLEW by!!!  One minute there were 6 of us and literally 15 minutes later there were nearly 50!!!!

Here are a few more pics from the actual cake cutting - I'm still in disbelief!  Had to double check the cake crumbs this morning to make sure they were REALLY pink!!!! :)

We asked everyone to wear either pink or blue to cast their vote/guess for Baby Randazzler.  Daddy was set on pink from day #1 and I wanted to support our potential son so wore blue.  Obviously, Daddy was right on this one.

Here we go...

 It's PINK!!!!!

The proud grandparents (my parents) BOTH on team pink (dad sat on the fence and claimed his blue jeans were "blue" so that he would win either way).  Grandma & Grandpa Randazzo live in Connecticut so they were unable to be here.  

It's really pink!!!!

Team Randazzo - even though mommy picked the wrong color to wear :)

Thank goodness for years in the wedding and catering business.  Janie & I were able to knock out slicing the cake pretty quickly!  :)  And it was DELICIOUS!!!!  It's rare to find pastry chefs whose cakes TASTE as great as they look!  Kudos again to Jill Delmastro!

We felt so honored and blessed to share this special celebration with so many of our dear friends and family!  I have honestly never felt so loved and Baby Girl Randazzo is certainly one lucky chick-a-dee to have so many awesome aunties and uncles (and grandparents) to love her up!  I thank God for each and every one of you and pray for blessing upon blessing for each of you!

And I am especially thankful for Kristin Vining - one of the most talented photographers I know - who offered to grab my camera and take these pictures so that we have the memories forever!!!! THANK YOU!!!!  I was so GRATEFUL to see all of the gorgeous shots when I picked my camera up last night!  :)  xo

HDBD - 19 weeks

That's right!  Today is Hump Day, Bump Day!  We're officially at 19 weeks (almost 1/2 way through, can you believe it????) and for those who read my post yesterday we are BOTH doing great!!!! Our anatomy scan ultrasound was absolutely amazing!!!  I can't believe that there is a little, tiny person inside there!  I'm feeling large and in charge, but I know that this is NOTHING compared to what is to come over the next 20 weeks! 

We're still holding out on the gender.  I have the results sealed in an envelope to give to the uber talented Jill DelMastro (http://weddingcakesbyjill.com/) today!  She'll be baking our cake with either PINK or BLUE inside and we can NOT wait to see what it is!!! 

Dave is still holding firm with his guess of It's A Girl...to be honest, I kind of feel girl too, but am saying boy because if it is a boy I would be equally thrilled - so we have one of us on each side of the vote!  I'm curious to hear other people's guesses too!  Our guests will be dressed in pink or blue to cast their vote so it will be exciting to see who's right and who's wrong!  Either way - there are no losers in this game! 

On another note, I was doing my prenatal yoga this morning and just started crying - not sad crying at all, definitely happy tears.  I can't believe how unbelievably grateful we are for where we are in this process right now!  Thanks be to God for all of His wonderful blessings!!!!

Happy Hump Day friends!!!!  xoxo

HELLOOOOO 2nd Trimester!!!!!

Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!  Baby Randazzler and I are officially in our second trimester - officially 14 weeks TODAY!!!!  HALLELUJAH!  I can't begin to express what a relief reaching this point is!  I know we still have a LOOONG ways to go (182 days to be exact), but reaching this milestone is something to be celebrated in my humble opinion!  I was reminded to be thankful with my morning devotion which was I Samuel 1:27-28..."I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. ²⁸ So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD.”  Thank God for Hannah...I've spent a lot of time reading her words over the past couple of years and sometimes I swear that her purpose in life was to be a source of inspiration to me thousands of years later :)

I know that I have all but disappeared over the last 3 months in the blogosphere and that is due to a number of reasons...1) killer morning/all day sickness, 2) craziness at work, 3) mostly due to fear and anxiety.  I never would have imagined that the first 3 months of pregnancy would be as SCARY as they are.  It feels so amazing to be blessed with such a miracle but SO SCARY to know that in the blink of an eye it can disappear and for no apparent reason.  It was definitely a difficult exercise in patience and trust for me, the control freak who likes to think that somehow I am directly responsible for the outcome of all situations.  I'd be praising God and thankful one minute and then questioning "Why is this working out for me?  I don't deserve this anymore than anyone else I know who is struggling, probably deserve is LESS if I'm being perfectly honest" the next.  I have so many friends who have not been so fortunate and I do not and never will understand why things work out for some and not for others.  I constantly remind myself that it is HIS will, not mine that will be done and that's what I pray for...even if it produces a result that I'm not happy with at the time.

Anyway, all that aside - I am ETERNALLY grateful for where we are now, TODAY!  We're now starting to explore daycares vs. nannies vs. "granny care" (yeah - uh Mom and Dad, need to talk to you guys about that :) ), cleaning out the soon to be baby suite as I call it, will probably be ordering furniture soon, and planning our GENDER REVEAL PARTY!!!  Some say they're cheesey - but I am committed to celebrating every little milestone, so YES, we WILL be having a Gender Reveal Party late February after our anatomy scan (which is scheduled for VALENTINE'S DAY - but the party will be a week or two after that)!!!!!  I can't wait to be surprised along with my family and some of our closest friends by finding out if Baby Randazzler is a boy or girl!   This is a NO PRESENTS party - just a celebration and us sharing something VERY special with those nearest to us. 

Speaking of gender - people ask all the time if I have a feeling one way or the other.  Well, initially I was thinking BOY - mostly because of wives tales I'd heard, on the rare occassion that I was hungry, I could/would only eat insanely spicy foods - loved tacos and could drink salsa by the gallon if you'd let me.  Then about a month ago I realized that I had subconsciously started calling baby "her" in my prayers or in my head when I'd be thinking about things.  Then after my dr's appt on Monday I bounced back to BOY - so to answer your question...I don't know!!!!  Honestly just praying for HEALTHY - please God let this baby be perfectly healthy!  I know that's a lot to ask and I have had a laundry list of requests that have graciously been granted over my 34 years on earth, but this is probably the most important and fervent prayer I've ever prayed. 

So thanks again for all the prayers and support over the past several months of my public journey.  I'm eternally grateful and know that God heard every prayer.  And every message, comment and email I received seriously helped to raise my spirits and help me to stay positive.  Blessings to you all!

Apology +

So my last post was pretty gloomy, sorry about that.  I'm really not usually such a buzzkill.  I went back and forth as to whether or not to post it and finally I was like, ya know what?  Good, bad and ugly, I'm just gonna throw it all out there.  I was in the midst of an icky hour when I wrote but literally just a short time after that I was back to normal.  No worries and no need to call the suicide hotline or anything - the PoD has crept back to her hole (for the moment) so you're all safe from her miserable whining.  I have to admit, I did feel better after just letting it out (that's not something I do often...usually she only shares her dismal personality with me so it all stays bottled up inside - blah!)  

I think the fact that work is so INSANELY BUSY helps a lot.  When I'm there I literally don't have any TIME to even think about IF, IVF or any of the issues that have brought us to where we are.  So for once being too busy with work to have any sort of a personal life is a good thing :)  And hey, in this economy the fact that we are so busy is a blessing so I'll take it over the alternative ANY DAY!!!!

Today however is a RARE Saturday off...slept in a bit (7am - I'm usually up by 4:30/5am) and am now half listening to the Mr. give an in-depth golf instructional as to the mechanics of the perfect golf swing (thrilling) in our family room.  He's getting irritated because I keep looking away and typing while he's showing me his demo...never a dull moment at the Randazzo estate...:) 

Later today I'm going to work on a gift for a gender party for next week.  I'm super excited and can't wait to see if the little bundle will be a boy or a girl!  We had one last weekend too and I made a diaper wreath to take (figure since you don't know the sex before the party the one thing you know that ALL babies will need are DIAPERS, DIAPERS and MORE DIAPERS!!!!).  I should have taken a picture of it.  It didn't turn out perfectly, but it looked pretty darn cute if I do say so myself.  The Italian was pretty proud of it and he made almost everyone at the party look at it.  (I don't like to draw attention to myself so would have been happy if it was just taken up to the nursery right away).   I want to try to think of something a little different to do for this mommy to be (if you have any ideas, please share...I have one idea, but I'm not giving my secrets away yet!).  Anyway, that will be today's project (along with sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen, bathroom, changing bedsheets, dusting, catching up on some work (emails, proposals and some contracts I need to process), grocery shopping, etc., etc., etc.,). 

I love this new Gender Party trend...hoping to have one someday soon myself!  I swear, not if but when this happens I'm going to have parties to celebrate every stinking phase!!!! 

Happy Saturday folks!