Finally...

Ahh... The news is officially out there in cyber world. Which means that pretty much everyone in our little world now will know the secret we've been keeping since March 16. 

We're having another baby!

We are all super excited, especially Cayman and Charis. But unfortunately they have had to keep the secret since March 16 as well. "Mama, this is a LONG secret. I just want to tell everybody!" Poor Cayman. We have been letting him tell anyone he wants to for a little while now and he always gets so excited to spread his news. Here's all the juicy details for everyone that's been kept out of the loop for so long now. ;)

How Alyson Found Out She Was Pregnant

On March 16, I had an idea that I was prego. I'm not usually late, and I realized that I was late by two days. Ian always makes me take a test whenever I think I'm pregnant because he doesn't want to hear me pondering and wondering for the next few days... So for this particular pregnancy test, I did my business in the bathroom (with my little shadow right in front of me the whole time), handed her the test, and she walked it out of the bathroom and straight to Ian who was waiting by the front door for the big news before he left for work that morning. Instead of telling his wife what the result of the test was, Ian read the result (to himself), made no faces or indications whatsoever, and said, "Well, I'll see y'all later!" And walked out the door. (Yes, I'm serious.) I'm sure plenty of you are thinking that I went straight to the bathroom and took another test, but I didn't! I was actually excited to find out the results in a totally different way than every other time. So, the kids went about our morning. We had made St. Patrick's Day cookies to take up to our employees at Chick-fil-A, so we headed to the store, fully expecting to see Ian there. We walked inside, asked for Ian, and Clayton (one of our managers) informed me that Ian was not there. "Hmm....strange...." I thought! In the back of my mind, I wondered what he was up to. But I was also keeping in mind that two Christmases ago, down in FL, I gave him a negative pregnancy test, wrapped up in a present, and videotaped him opening it. So all morning long, I figured he was finally using this as a chance for payback! :) Ian finally arrived at Chick-fil-A, and he could not come up with a good excuse as to where he had been since he left the house - silly man! The kids and I then left for Wal-mart for some groceries. We ended up being away from the house for close to an hour. I think Ian thought we were running into Wal-mart and running out because in the mean time, he had gone home, parked his car at Clayton's house who lives around the corner from us, walked home with a bouquet of flowers, a card, and a sweet typed letter to his little wifey. He set everything up on the kitchen table, and he set up the video camera nearby to video tape my reaction. He then waited a loonnngg time until we drove up into the driveway, scooted out the backdoor, and then walked back in the front door after giving us a few minutes to get inside and see the surprise! :) It was definitely a fun way to find out that I'm having another baby!!

All the Other Details

I'm around 13 weeks along, and I've been nauseous since late March. But thankfully, it has started easing off in the past week or so. The official due date is November 20. Other due dates have been the 22nd and the 18th, but the doctor is sticking with the 20th. We have had two ultrasounds so far; the kids have been at both and love seeing their "Baby C." We went fairly early in the pregnancy (6 weeks) because I was nervous about some pain and other issues. So they saw me earlier than normal and did an ultrasound to make sure there were no signs of a miscarriage. Praise God there weren't, and things have been smooth sailing since then. We had another ultrasound at 11 weeks and got really good pictures of our little baby. He/she was very active and even "waved" to Cayman and Charis once! :) I think the ultrasound tech was having fun watching the kids' reactions to the TV screen because we got lots of printed pictures that day! Let's see...what else? I DEFINITELY have an evident baby bump, I can wear some maternity clothes, but I don't HAVE to wear them yet, Cayman and Charis love sneaking the baby kisses whenever they can (I have had to teach Cayman that he doesn't HAVE to lift up my shirt to kiss the baby everytime.....some things are better left hidden, if you know what I mean...), the baby's name will either be Colby or Callie, and NO we will not find out the gender this go around!

We are so thankful for this third precious gift that the Lord has granted us, and we cannot wait to hold him/her in our arms later this year!

This is how Grammy was supposed to find out at the airport.
I accidentally let the cat out of the bag last week on the phone.
I'll save that story for another post. But I loved the idea so much
that I had to go along with it even though she already knew!