The Big Announcement

When it came to being pregnant I was thrilled. I was terrified. I felt unready. I felt... Basically every emotion you can feel all at once.

But one thing was for sure it was going to make it a big deal!

I tend to be a person that lives in the background. Watching the world turn around me. Enjoying my own achievements and successes mostly among my close friends and family. 

I didn't have a big graduation bash or a bachelorette party.

And that was fine by me. Being the center of attention has always made me quite uncomfortable.

For whatever reason I decided that this moment in my life was going to memorable in a fun way.

Now how was I going to make that happen?

With some awesome pregnancy announcements of course! 

Now I had to go to Pinterest and a good friend for help with these announcements. I knew that I wanted them to be special.

First group of people that got the big news was parents (new grandparents) and my sister and brother in law.

I knew right away how I wanted to make this announcement. A gift.

On what was suppose to be a routine visit to my parents house in March of last year I brought with us two simply wrapped presents. I knew the not wrap them in paper because my dad takes much longer to open presents than my mom. And they obviously needed to be opened at the same time.

I, of course, was overly excited to give them the presents but was trying as hard as I could to mask it. Otherwise they might be onto me. I mentioned that it was the same thing so they should open them at the same time. We had got in late that night and they were pretty much ready to call it a day. But there was no way I was going to sleep one more night without them knowing. My mom slowly opened her box, seeing my dad taking his time with the ribbon. I positioned myself on an adjacent sofa trying to be patient. Finally they pulled out the onesies. Cue the tears and hugs.

This was a simple project. 

I bought a 6 pack of white 0-3 month onesies from Carter's. I picked out some cute iron on appliques from the fabric store and grabbed some fabric markers. The hardest part was coming up with the cute things to write. (I did have to go back and sew on the appliques after I washed them. Probably should have just done that initially or done a more solid job ironing them on.)

I love owls so I knew I had to come up with a cute owl for my mom. She also used this picture to make the announcement to her fifth grade class.

Whose going to be a Granny?

My dad had two daughters but that didn't stop him from taking us fishing, gem mining, camping and hiking. Those were some amazing memories that I look forward to him sharing with my children. So naturally I chose a fish from my dad.

New Fishing buddy Coming in October

My sister is a research scientist and did a research study on crabs. So I had to do a crab for her announcement onesie. Reading "Getting ready to Sea my Aunt". My husband came up with that one. 

My husband's parents got the cute pea pod. Saying on that one was "New Sweet Pea Arriving October".

My mom was so excited she had to tell my sister right away. She wanted to Skype with her so she could see her onesie. That took forever to set up on our end. By the time we got her on the phone is was pretty late at night and she had basically figured out what was going on. Ha.

Couldn't work for everyone.

My in-laws got their onesies a weekend later. We hadn't seen them since Christmas so were hid the onesie among some Christmas presents.

We decided to wait until the end of the first trimester to tell everyone else. That's when the rest of the fun began. 

I found the idea for my co-workers via Pinterest. I taped this flyer inside a box of doughnuts. Then encouraged everyone to enjoy a free doughnut. The reactions were great. I've never been hugged so much at work. Which I suppose is probably appropriate. 

Enjoy some doughnuts! I don't want to be the only one with a growing belly.

My favorite announcement was definitely the one that a friend helped me create for the Facebook masses. This one was the easiest to decide on. I knew I wanted my friend to make cookies that told a special story. I have a friend that makes the most beautiful cookies and I knew that she could make the perfect announcement cookies.

I gave her a simple sketch of what I wanted and she created the magic. I was lucky to have a friend that would gift me these amazing cookies but keep in mind if you want to buy these from an artisan that they will cost a decent amount of money. These took my friend a lot of time and effort and talent and I am very appreciative of the skill that she shared with me to make my announcement so special.

Love... Marriage... Baby Carriage October 24 2015

I know that little plus signs would have made sense too but I lots of friends that are not going to have children. I didn't think it was right to imply that Love + Marriage = Baby. I know I'm weird. Works out fine because I love how the ellipse turned out. 

And even though we are typically not particularly photogenic people I wanted to take some cute pictures with the wonderful cookies that my friend made us.

Trying to be cute about it

Encouraging him to eat it

But he doesn't want to ruin the cookie

Just for fun

We had a lot of fun posting these pictures to all of social media. It has been fascinating to see the sudden interest in my life. Babies will definitely do that.

All in all we had a great time making this big announcement to all the different people in our lives. Big announcements might not be your thing or my ideas might not be big enough! But I just wanted to take some time to tell you about what we did.

Pinterest is a great place to look for ideas as always. Go ahead make a secret board. Maybe one only you can see or one for you and a friend or spouse. My husband did help with planning parts of the surprises and I really appreciated it.

And don't forget to have fun with it!
Feel free to share your announcement ideas in the comments.