Gender Reveal: It's a...

I have been looking forward to this post for weeks now.  Before we got pregnant, Andrew always said that he didn't want to know what we were having and wanted to be surprised.  I was the complete opposite; I have always wanted to know.  I'm a planner, I NEED to know!  Well, as soon as those two little lines showed up on the pregnancy test (or rather was confirmed with the blood test), Andrew has been chomping at the bit, wanting to know what this little one is.  Well this week, we finally found out!

On Monday, July 1st, we had our 20 week ultrasound.  It had been 8 long weeks since seeing our little one, so we were both very excited.  Andrew hadn't been to an ultrasound since week 8 because of work travel, so I was very happy he was in town for this one.
We saw our sweet little baby for the final time before November.  We counted fingers and toes, lungs and kidneys.

And then we found out if we would be welcoming a handsome little man or a pretty little lady.  I know, I know.  I told everyone that we were waiting until the party to find out, and that was our original intent.  But Andrew really wanted to know at the ultrasound and since doesn't get to make a whole lot of decisions in the pregnancy, I wanted to give him this.  Plus, we're pretty good at keeping secrets.  Heck, we kept our wedding a secret for a whole year and a half!

Andrew spent all of July 4th in the kitchen making food for the baby's party (see Food and Decorations).  Then on Saturday we were busy getting everything together before everyone came.  I wish I was more of a picture-taker because I had wanted to get pictures of everyone at the party since there were some people who we haven't seen in a few years!  But, sadly, I'm not.  Maybe that will change once Baby Loeffler is here?

Everyone munched on all of Andrew's yummy food until just before 4pm when we decided to do the big reveal!  We had talked about doing cake or balloons in a box, but both are so overdone (and the cake did not go with Andrew's menu theme).  So we decided on sparklers since it was close to the 4th of July.  Blue sparklers for boy or red for a girl.  Now if I would have been thinking, I would have tested the sparklers out beforehand to make sure they actually looked good, but I didn't, so it wasn't exactly what I had envisioned.  Oh well!

IT'S

A

GIRL!

(Unfortunately, they don't make sparklers like they used to and it was more like a firey stick, but it was definitely RED and not blue!)

Yep, that's right, a pretty little lady.  We were quite surprised at the ultrasound since we were both thinking it would be a boy, but after the tech confirmed TWICE, we are definitely having a little girl!

She will someday hate me for posting this picture of her, but oh well!

As you can see, the votes were pretty split, but GIRL did have a slight lead.

And there were also lots of wonderful name suggestions for us.  Lots of Katie's and Katherine's... hmmm... I wonder why, Katie K!

The rest of the night was spent eating, drinking, and chatting with friends.  We are so lucky to have so many amazing people in our life who wanted to come celebrate our precious little girl with us!  Now we just have to get used to calling her a "she" and stop saying "it" or "he"!  (Sorry, little lady, but we really did think you were going to be a boy!)