Gender Reveal

I am creeping up in double-digit weeks, 18 weeks today! Its funny how weeks fly by so fast but then the numbers seem to be crawling. I feel like I have been pregnant for 6 months already! I get embarrassed when I actually tell people my due date is in July! I haven't wanted to post a photo of me due to my instantly protruding bulge... but I thought I'd share one reluctantly, so here's the first post of my ever growing bump.

Now I posted two weeks ago that we were finding out the gender of our precious baby. We did!!! (a week ago!) I thought a gender reveal thing/party would be so fun, but our social circle seems limited these days! Haha! So we called a few family members and friends and then a week flew by without any sort of announcement. I am sorry if you have actually been interested in knowing!

So how do I say it on here with it being fun? Really there is no way without just blurting it out, so I will tell you about our experience last Friday morning... We asked the kids to declare their gender guess by wearing boy colors or girl colors... here is a photo of them:

Foster, Charlie & Betsy wore Boy colors for sure... Willow had on a jean shirt & a peach tutu... she was pretty undecided since she couldn't do more than imitate our words... "boyie, guurl"... she had no idea what the question meant! Paisley was in pink for sure! JR was in blue head to toe and I wore (No photo of us sorry... forgot!) a coral top with bright color blue pants... I was 50% certain but really I didn't know!

We showed up to the location mid mornig, and asked the ladies, once they determined the gender to please whisper it to our oldest son Foster... The sono started and the baby was moving all around and in less than two minutes they called him over to share the secret, then we had him hold the secret and count to 10 & then he revealed...

These girls will be adding another sister to their bond! Miss Paisley was certain as could be I was having one baby and that it was a girl! We were so excited to see HER on the 3D ultrasound... here is a picture of the sono (sorry its not clear)... Her feet are hiding behind the placenta... but you can see her head, her right hand is up in front of her nose and mouth, then her left hand is bent and up by her barely developed ear.

We got to watch her swim around for awhile... and once the news set in I yelled out, I am so happy! But we had such a great name for a baby boy! I had said in my last post I was so thrilled to know the gender and call this precious baby by name! Even though I had a very real dream I was having a girl around 12 weeks & we started to search for girl names we did not walk into that appointment with any certain but a boy name! So no name yet... great ideas but nothing set in stone.

I had also mentioned in the last post that I was having a difficult time connecting with the baby, I have felt a great breakthrough through with that. The Lord shed some light on things in my heart that I was able to release and trust him with and I have found a great freedom in connecting with her!

Now that this is what's happening... I love it, 4 girls 4.8 years apart!!! These sisters will have a blast growing up, I am sure we will have our share of drama, and emotional breakdowns, but the vision we have over how we will pour into our children is great! I have heard numerous times, well wait until their teenagers... I look forward to the season! It will be an adventurous journey but I will not speak anything but life over my girls! The other night, Paisley our oldest had taken Foster's toothbrush, he had asked for it back, and she yelled "FOSTER, YOU ARE RUINING MY LIFE!!!!!" JR and I over heard this and although we were laughing hysterically at the dramatic outburst, we immediately called her down to us and addressed it. Little girls emotions and exaggeration don't have to run wild. We told her, her words spoken were meant to be true no matter who she was talking to, saying something like that was no different than lying... we gave her a visual of what her life "ruined" might look like and she committed to not talking that way.

We will have many more moments like the other night night and we know at certain points these girls will actually believe they have "ruined lives" but we will fight to stay connected and walk through those seasons with them, we will teach them in love how to handle the emotions they have. I know we don't have a clue really but we know the one that wrote the entire story to our existence. God is not just an idea in our home, he is not a religion, we have a genuine on going relationship with the Lord and we filter our every decision through Jesus. So these girls (and boys) are entrusted to us because for some gracious reason the lord sees JR as a father that is fit to raise 4 daughters and sees me able to mother them. We can't do this without Jesus. We wouldn't do it without him. We walk in our role as parents as though it is a high calling. Because it is.

So four daughters and two sons. that's the way its being written! Now we just have to name her! Are you ready to hear all my ridiculous naming rules? They are serious to me... so I am about to expose my neurotic thoughts and then you can see why name searching is keeping me up at night...

1. MUST BE MEANINGFUL (complete story as to why)
2. Two syllables, and can't end in the "ie, or Y" sound (We already have, Charlie, Paisley & Betsy)
3. Must start with a consonant but not a "F, CH, P, B, W"...
4. The meaning has to pertain to this season and what we want to pray & speak over her (So it can be cute and mean something great like Pure... but it has to resonate in our hearts).

So... I had these rules with Willow, they made it challenging to name her, but these restrictions are real to me... once we had a name we liked we prayed over it. I can remember the night my heart was overwhelmed with peace from the lord, to name her Georgia Willow June... Georgia is a name sake in honor of the family that we lived life with that mentored us in Atlanta. Willow represents life... trees are symbolic for life & growth and our season in Georgia was one of life & growth... Our little Willow came in our life at a time when we didn't think it was right or that we could handle it... We of course knew there was nothing to do but process, pray & prepare for her... she forever changed us... We are better parents and people because of how the Lord grew us through her birth (life).

Should I go into all the kids names and their meanings? We have prayed through every one of the meanings and is something we want to speak over them. They will begin to search out who they are at some point, we have been so intentional about thinking of them at 12 years old and 20 years old... junior high years and college years are years of transition, you define more of yourself in those times and we want them to know how important their identity was to us. We speak life over them... Naming is a BIG deal! I mean God put a lot of stock in it, if it didn't matter why do they have meanings? Why were people's names changed through out the bible?

So there you have it, I have a lot of restrictions but it is how my mind thinks... We have a few names we are talking about but nothing I am ready to share today... If you have heard a word from the Lord and have a name you want to share PLEASE email me!!! Haha! I will say this I won't be surprised if what we are thinking about now ends up being her name, and if that's true... We probably won't disclose her name until her birth... I don't want to hear what people think, I haven't cared what others think before nor have we kept names a secret... so I guess we'll see!

Now when she does arrive she is gonna have a few cute new things to wear since I got rid of everything for tiny babies or else she would be on round 4 of hand me downs, but I will need to restock some of my newborn to 12 mth stuff, if I had a few less kids, I would make goodwill & garage sales a part time job but that is not happening for me!

In other news,  Homeschooling around here is becoming a fun way of life. I don't foresee them home in high school but these young years together as a family make for awesome bonds and great memories we will never get back! I took the crew to the zoo on Tuesday morning, 60 something degrees and they seriously ran the whole zoo in an hour. It was awesome getting them out of the house, especially since its in the single digits today & frigidly bitter out.

 I cannot wait for spring to arrive... thank the Lord that February is a short month and although the weather is cruddy in March its always a refreshing month because you can smell the spring time coming... I look forward to lots of park days & long walks this spring.


That's all for now, enjoy your weekend! I know ours will fly by, but we always look forward to Sunday's, we have the best church body and its great to be in fellowship with everyone! So cheers to babies and finding out their genders! Boy or Girl we would love it, and we do, we love our newest growing and developing daughter!