Answer to the question of the day...

Everything went very well at the doctor's this morning! The baby is just the right size and spent most of the time staring straight up at mommy's belly button! (See first picture below... sweet baby profile!) They said the baby  looks perfectly normal! The doctor assured us that having another VBAC was definitely possible! (Which made me and Rodrigo extremely happy!!!)  

Originally I had been asked to leave everyone (except Rodrigo, of course) at home or in the waiting room for the ultrasound, but we took the kids with us today on the possibility that they would have a chance to meet their newest sibling ahead of time. The ultrasound technician was very nice and allowed all of the kids in the room with us anyway. They thought it was wonderful seeing their new baby! 

And the picture that answers the question of the day...

A pretty clear shot...

It's definitely a little boy! Everyone was thrilled to hear the news! Even little Claire clapped and cheered. Of course she had no idea what was really going on but everyone else was so happy that she had to share the joy! I haven't stopped smiling all day! Another sweet baby boy!!! I do enjoy my boys so much! 

Boy or Girl???

Well today I am going for my 20 week ultrasound scan. We are hoping to find out what our newest little blessing will be! (Along with all of the other important information the doctors want to find out during the scan.)

From the very beginning of this pregnancy I have felt like it must surely be a little boy. It just "feels" like a boy pregnancy to me! After all I have had 3 of those already and only one girl pregnancy to compare it to! With the boys I never had any morning sickness at all, nor did I really have any other "pregnancy symptom". When I was expecting Claire I felt nauseous for the entire first three months! I also was completely exhausted the first trimester with her. Now with this baby I did feel really, really tired the first few months (I feel pretty much completely normal now, Thank God!) But I never had even a moment of morning sickness. So based on that, I am guessing that it is a little boy that I am carrying now! I am also guessing that the tiredness I have felt during the last two pregnancies can probably be chalked up to my "advanced maternal age" after all, I was pregnant with the 3 boys during my 20's and with Claire when I was 33. And that was just over a year and a half ago!So maybe that has something to do with the first trimester tiredness.

I'll let you all know this evening sometime what we find out! Did any of you ever "know" what you were having? We are really excited about finding out!

*For the record... I've never been right about the sex of my babies before! With the first three I had no idea what I was going to have until their ultrasounds, and with Claire I was positive she was going to be a boy!  By then I figured whatever girl making parts we had must not work! When the ultrasound technician told us she was a girl I didn't believe her! I made her check again!!!Ha! When we decided to have his vasectomy reversed and have more children  I just figured we would be one of those families with 6 or 7 boys before it was all said and done! You know, our own personal soccer team! As it is I haven't had to open a door for myself even when my husband isn't around for the past 6 or 7 years, with all of these little gentlemen. They are always racing to the door ahead of me to hold it. Claire indeed is a blessed little girl to grow up in a house full of such good boys!

I'll update you later!

Snapshots of our Easter Week

The eggs we dyed this year. We made stickers from low-tack painters tape and craft paper punches. 

Then we dyed the eggs with the stickers on.

 Once the eggs were dry we carefully peeled the stickers off and revealed the pretty eggs!

 Hunting eggs at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Sunday afternoon.

 Claire enjoyed her first egg hunt.

We made it challenging for the big boys! 

 She soon discovered that the reason some of the eggs rattled was because they were filled with CANDY! A very rare treat for my children!

Our Easter Garden

A few days ago I stumbled across a blog called Embracing the Now. The writer, Erin, had a sweet idea for making an Easter Garden.  I thought it would be a fun thing to do to give the kids a visual while we read and talked about the events that led up to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus this week. I had everything on hand that we needed so we got started after we had church on Sunday morning.

Jesus and the Angel standing by the empty tomb.

{*We have church at home usually. Rodrigo leads us in prayer and worship and we take turns reading a selection from the bible that we have chosen together earlier in the week to share with the family. We discuss it with the children, asking them questions to make sure they understand what we have read and allowing them to ask any questions they might have. We also try to have family devotions after dinner every night, but some nights I serve dinner too late, or life just seems to "happen"! But we do try! This week our after dinner devotions have a distinctly seasonal bent to them, as we discuss Jesus's arrival in Jerusalem on a donkey and the people laying branches in his path and singing psalms in his praise, then his dealings with the Pharisees, his parables, his late night vigil in the garden of Gethsemane, his arrest by the roman soldiers, his trial, crucifixion and death and last but definitely not least his glorious resurrection. Which is the basis of everything we believe as Christians!}

The boys loved Embracing the Now's peg people Jesus and the Roman soldiers. So we copied them! (Why mess with a good idea?!) They helped make them and within an hour we had most of the important players for the week! (I ran out of peg people so I'll need to go pick up some more peg people so they can have a couple of Pharisees and Pontius Pilate and any others we come to think we might need.)

Jesus with 2 of his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus's arrest in the garden by the Roman soldiers.

The angel telling the two Marys of the empty tomb and our resurrected Lord.

Complete (so far) Easter Peg People Cast of Characters. 

The adorable reason one of Roman soldiers has a bent sword! 

At 16 months she is still too  little to understand the meaning behind the story, but she loves the new "babies" and the little garden to play in with them! Several times a day I hear the gleeful cry of "Babies!" and turn to find her like this... :-)