Monthly Archives: January 2012

Gender Reveal Party

Last minute, my cousin Chi Ba (Van) gave me a brilliant idea to have a gender reveal party to share the gender of babyDragon to our family! So we had pink, blue, and white balloons everywhere, ordered yummy Vietnamese catering, and got pink and blue paper plates and napkins to fill out the theme of the party. We made some trivia game questions, and more for some fun activities for our guests. Khoa wore a pink shirt and I wore a blue shirt to throw everyone off so they don’t know what the gender is! Lastly, we placed the giant box with the gender color balloons in the corner of the room for everyone to see and ponder what’s inside that can reveal the long awaited answer! =) It was fun to see everyone guessing with reasons/or lack of reason for their guessing. The most memorable though would be our friend Roger, who was so confident with his guess, that he even brought a giant “It’s a Girl” balloon!!! That was so awesome too see, it just made this even so much more exciting!

We organized 3 games for everyone to play. The first one was filled up a jar with pink and white Hershey’s kisses and told people to write down the guesses on how many pink candy and how many white candy pieces there were. We couldn’t find any blue candy with the short amount of time we had to plan, so we went with white. The second game was a list of trivia questions about statistics of boy and girl babies, and the 3rd was a list of Old Wives Tales about how to tell the gender of a baby, and whether those tales applied to me or not. We also had a betting poll, where people can place their bets on whether babyDragon was a boy or girl! The games were a lot of fun and we gave away Starbucks gift cards as prizes. We had a special prize for one person, and that was for my dearest dad! Every 12 years, the same zodiac animal appears, and this year, is the year of the dragon. However, there are 5 different elements that associate with the animal, and so the same type of dragon only appears every 60 years. This year, my dad and babyDragon will be the same exact dragon, the Water Dragon, I mean really, how often does this ever happen?? So we wanted to recognize this special moment and bond that our baby will have with my dad!

The games and food were a big hit and so finally, it’s time for the big reveal! We got our parents up front and brought the box to them, and we announced that what comes out of the box will be the grand reveal! So our parents eagerly dug into the box, like little kids on christmas day opening a giant present, waiting to see what’s inside! Then the flaps open and of course, PINK balloons fly out everywhere!! IT’S A GIRL!!! Our families cannot be more ecstatic to finally know that our baby will be a precious princess! We would like to thank all our friends and family for coming to share this moment with us, and of course, to my sister, Jennifer, for capturing all this on video. Check out her video she made for us!!

Oh Boy! Or Girl? from J.N. on Vimeo.

Boy or Girl?

On Wednesday, January 11th, we got to find out the gender of our sweet babyDragon! We were really bummed that Khoa couldn’t make it to my ultrasound appointment with me, so I wanted to plan some special and surprise Khoa with a plan to find out the gender of our babyDragon together. So what I started my plan by asking the sonographer to write down the gender of babyDragon on a piece of paper. I bought a giant cardboard box (I searched 3 different places, Staples, Kinkos, and Home Depot, for the largest box I can find too, Home Depot is the place to go! I flipped the box inside out so that it didn’t have the Home Depot logo all over it) to Party City, and asked the girl behind the counter for a special request. I handed her an envelope that that contained the gender photo and keyword, and told her to fill the box with either pink and white balloons, or blue and white balloons depending on what the paper says. She was really ecstatic and enthusiastic to help me out, which made the process more exciting, and gave me choices on “It’s a Girl” or “It’s a Boy” aluminum balloons. I waited outside while they blew up the balloons and filled my box, and was called back in when they finished! The girl was really nice and thorough to make sure the surprise wasn’t ruined!

So I lugged the giant box back into my car, and boy was it a tight squeeze. Good thing I couldn’t find a bigger box or it would have be disasterous! So I finally get home, and by this time, Khoa already gotten home from work, and brought home dinner from Chili’s. I wanted to cook, but we were both too excited to find out the answer that we figured this was be easier and faster! I told Khoa to stay inside his office while I brought my box up to dragon’s lair (the nursery), because I wanted to surprise him with my plan, so he has no idea about the box and what’s inside! I must say, carrying a giant 22″x22″x22″ box up 2 flights of stairs is quite a challenge, I kept crashing into the stair rail and wall..but good thing the box is cardboard and not wood or something otherwise we’d have to repair the walls in our house…haha!

So after Khoa and I wolfed down our dinner and talked about our day, and then talked about what we think dragon is. We both think dragon will be a boy. Either way, dragon will be our precious baby and we will love him/her to death!!! Sounds silly, but it’s true. I quickly decorated the box and then called Khoa up for the grand reveal!! I walk him into the dragon’s lair, and right in the middle of the empty room is the giant box. He immediately goes “Wow, you did this yourself??” So still having no clue what’s inside the box, I tell him that once we open it, we will know!! So at this point, I don’t know about him, but I was getting all sorts of jitters and butterflies and a litle nervous too! I cannot believe we’ll find out within seconds!! So we countdown “Ready? 3, 2, 1, OPEN!” and we rip the tape and open the box….PINK balloons come flying out!!!



It’s a GIRL!!!

I was so happy and tears start streaming down my face!! We were jumping up and down and I could not stop saying “It’s a GIRL!! it’s a GIIIIIRL!!! AHHH IT’S A GIRL!!!!!!!!!!” we hugged and Khoa held me in his arms and we just stood there staring at the pink and white balloons and we were just overwhelmed with joy! Khoa and I will be having a little baby dragon girl!!

Here is the gender photo we received. I have NO idea what the arrow is pointing to and what it all means, but I am pretty confident the quick cursive writing says “girl” so that’s all that matters to me!

Dragon Punch & Kicks!

When I first felt babyDragon move, it was on December 23, 2011, I was 15 weeks and 3 days into my pregnancy. The best way to describe it was like a little bubble surfacing, like a big “bloop!” I was at work at the time when it happened, and after it did, I just sat there and froze with my hand on my belly thinking, could it be you baby? Exciting was my next emotional and I was just so thrilled that babyDragon said hi to me! I cannot stress how amazing this whole experience is, and I’m so glad that as the time goes by, babyDragon’s punches and kicks get that much stronger. Last week, Khoa felt babyDragon for the first time!!! We were so excited because that was around the 17 wk mark and that’s quite early for the daddy to feel the baby, so we were just in awe with babyDragon’s strength and eagerness to say hi to his/her daddy! =) So now Khoa always puts his hand on my belly whenever he can, to feel babyDragon as much as possible. We also started belly talking since babyDragon can hear us now! We love you so much already baby, and we eagerly await your arrival!

Thanksgiving 2011 in New York!

Since this was going to be our last Thanksgiving with just the two of us, we decided to go on vacation to spend our first holiday away together. We did everything from visiting the Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, Central Park, Battery Park, to the Rockefeller Center and more! We got to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade up close in person as well, but our favorite event was the Jason Mraz Concert at Carnegie Hall! We had such a wonderful time together and even though I will still having a little bit of morning (more like all day) sickness, it did not prevent me from wandering around eating my way through New York City! Here’s an awesome video that Jennifer made from our many video clips we too of our amazing trip! Thanks Jennifer, you do magic behind the camera!

Jackie and Khoa Do New York! from J.N. on Vimeo.