It's a GIRL!!!!!!!

Well, I suppose we can understand those who like a real surprise on the day of delivery to find out the gender of their baby, but David and I are way too "type A" personality to wait that long and leave that much planning to chance! So, we figure, it's a surprise and really fun no matter when you find out who your next kid is going to be. We had our ultrasound yesterday and found out that we will be having another darling little girl. My mom said "you mean another barn rat." She's probably right. Grace and I will have her riding before she can eat solid foods. We'll have to resist stopping at the barn on the way home from the hospital in May. Of course, David (as all fathers do), was hoping for a son. He is still excited to have another "daddy's girl" and if she's anything like Grace, she will love to do the things he likes to do too. Grace loves all the sports, the outdoors, the hiking, the camping... He is going to be very out-numbered in our house though as every breathing creature here is female except for him! I told him I'd get him a male fish, but that didn't seem to help.

I am very excited that Gracie will have a little sister to be her pal. My sister, Melissa, and I have been best friends our whole lives and I hope the same will follow for Grace and.... (what's her name?) We've been debating on names. We had the boy name all picked out - very solid - to be named after my dad, but the girl names are becoming more of a struggle. Names I had once been set on aren't sounding right to me. David came up with Harriet quite a while ago and at first I thought it was just plain silly (if you were raised in the same SNL generation as we were with Mike Myers and the gang - you probably know the movie "So I Married and Axe Murderer." In the movie, Mike recites a poem about "Harr-i-et" and that is definitely going to stick!) However, the name is growing on me. I didn't even know what nickname you would use with Harriet (she MUST have a decent nick-name!), but my mom said that her Aunt Harriet was called "Hattie" which I think is actually pretty cute even though my mom doesn't like it at all. Gracie and Hattie? We'll keep thinking about it....the middle names are an equal dilemma....

Anyway, no need to go shopping for "boy stuff." I can delve into the 20 some-odd bins of girlie stuff I have in my basement and pull out all of the darling outfits I was hoping to use again. :-)