surprise!

We've been a bit preoccupied around here, and for good reason. In mid-August, when Lizzie was not quite 10 months old, we found out about this:

 her little sister. Uh-huh. Sister. We know that because by the time I thought I should maybe take a home test (just to rule out pregnancy), got my shocked self into the doctor, and got an ultrasound, I was over 19 weeks along. And since we were so far along, we found out the gender at our one-and-only ultrasound.

That puts her due date (hard to be super exact, since I was still nursing Lizzie & have only big-baby measurements to go by) in January, around the 24th. For many reasons, this is exactly what we were NOT going for, but God is telling us once again that he is the Creator of life, and that babies are born when he wants them to be born, in the exact gender he wants.

So, 16 weeks left on this pregnancy and lots of girl stuff to take back out and wash!

Oh, and in case you're wondering how a person could be so very pregnant and so very oblivious, well... so was I. Except that I had just a teensy bit of nausea this time around, easily attributed to shifting hormones. And I was tired, but Lizzie was only 6 months old when I conceived and I'd had issues with recovering from her birth up until the 5.5 month point, so of course I was tired. And I was run-down, but that's nothing new. And everything else I felt could be chalked up to some other factor in life. Until the belly got bigger while the number on the scale and my exercise routines both got better. I had joked around with Beloved that I wouldn't know for sure if I was pregnant because there was no cycle to miss, and that if I got a belly I would take a test. Which is exactly what I did. And the rest, as they say, is history.