gender reveal Archives - Raising Roberts

carnival gender reveal

Did you hear? Last week when we went in for the anatomy ultrasound, we heard three glorious words–“It’s a girl!!” I had been hoping and dreaming of a baby sister for Evangeline. And though I absolutely love my boys and would have been happy and content with another boy, I’m so thrilled to be adding another girl to our family.

I did warn the ultrasound tech before she started that I would have a big reaction if it was a girl. However, even I did not expect the high volume of the scream that I let out when we found out. (Don told me that everyone in the room jumped and the tech almost dropped the wand–oops!) Then the happiest of happy cries just poured out of me. I feel so blessed and so undeserving.

girl maternity shot with pink cotton candy

Moving on to the gender reveal. When I was pregnant with Desmond last year, I had the idea of a cotton candy reveal–but that was in February when no carnivals are in sight, for obvious reasons. When I saw that the carnival was coming to town just 4 days after our ultrasound, I knew this was my chance! I was dying over the wait but I think it was worth it! The only thing that bummed me out was that they didn’t put the cotton candy on a stick–which would have made it look a lot better. But I still love the way the pictures turned out.

The pictures turned out exactly how I wanted them to thanks to Rachel Gunby of Apricot Studio. I told her my vision and she captured it perfectly. If you are in the St. Louis area and are looking for any kind of portrait session, check out her website or instagram and contact her!

I had to get a few mother/daughter pictures while we were there to celebrate adding another member to the “girl team.” And once again, I’m in love with these pictures! (And I didn’t even add all the ones I love–just too many good ones!)

Cotton candy is the perfect bribery tool but we still managed to never smile all at the same time. Haha–so is the life with 7 people (including 5 young children) in a photo together.

My boys were all “guessing it’s a boy, but hoping it’s a sister.” So the whole family is pretty excited!

And in that picture on the right with me is my sweet, lovely friend, Rachel, who took all these pictures for me! Thanks again, Rachel!

Thank you all for your sweet words and excitement for us. We’re looking forward to meeting this baby girl in October. And in case anyone is wondering, we do have a couple names in mind that we are discussing as a family, but I won’t be saying them for now!

May 16, 2016

Blog, gender reveal, photoshoot, pregnancy

gender reveal photo shoot…or not

So for months I’ve been convinced I was having a girl. I guess I had most people around me convinced of the same thing too, so coming up with ideas for a gender reveal photo shoot was a lot of fun. In case you somehow missed the announcement, Roberts baby #5 is actually a boy! To say we were shocked would be an understatement. You see, this pregnancy was exactly like the last one (a girl) and so not like the 3 boy pregnancies I’ve had.

So that leads me to the explanation of the following pictures–unless you don’t want an explanation. In that case…just scroll down…

First let me say that I know some people would think that any special “gender reveal” is going overboard. Especially when it’s your 5th child. I actually debated doing anything special because I was worried about what people would think. But since I think every child should be celebrated (whether the 1st or the 15th) and I love photography, I wanted to do some fun portraits this time around.

I had a few different ideas in my head that were all dependent on how the weather was cooperating. And when we had a 63 degree coming up just days before my ultrasound, I knew that I wanted to grab some paint and paint my face for some fun portraits.

The problem–

Okay, so with not actually knowing if it was a boy or girl, I knew we were going to have to do both sets of pictures. But painting my face, taking pictures, washing it off, reapplying makeup, repainting with a different color, retaking pictures…it all just seemed like too much of a hassle. I mean, I KNEW I was having a girl anyway. So I decided to make the pink paint a priority and come up with a different idea for the boy pictures…you know, just in case.

But I ran into a few problems with running late and finding the supplies I needed for the boy pictures. No big deal–I only really need the girl pictures. Right?

Long story short, (because yes, there actually is more to the story) Rachel, my super talented friend who took all of the photos for me, was able to do a quick little photoshop job to make a couple of the pink pictures blue for me. I think she did an amazing job and I was so very happy with how the pictures turned out. **Also, I should add that she got engaged the day after taking these (YAY!!) and I’m super excited for her and Chris. It added to the craziness with the pictures–but for a very good reason 🙂

So now for the very wrong colored gender reveal photo shoot (just think of it as a little Valentine’s themed shoot instead!!)