our favorite christmas gift

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. 

We sure did.  It was nice to finally relax and enjoy the holiday after being so busy rotating between working extra hard "catching up" and so ending time in bed with yucky morning sickness.  Toward the end with all the parties and everything last week, I made the decision to surrender to later bedtimes early on and put the boys on a later schedule, which ended up being sooo nice.  (The only thing is that I forgot that Mommy and Daddy can't do that and we ended up with some serious sleep deprivation that neither of us was expecting.  Good thing we've got some time this wee to relax and take some naps. :)  We had fun together as a family enjoying the season.

Our favorite thing we did do this year was go get an ultrasound on Christmas Eve to find out if our baby was a boy or girl.  I was a little hesitant because I loved being surprised my last pregnancy with Jonah, and I wanted to do it again.  But when Wes said it was his "only Christmas wish", I knew I had to give in and that it was far more important to him than it was to me.  I had made plans for it to be a surprise, but those plans got foiled by none other than Wes himself when he decided, to my horror, that he wanted me to have things my way and told me that he didn't want to find out the baby's gender anymore.  We had to have a few serious talks and finally the decision was made to go in and get the ultrasound on Christmas Eve and surprise our families with the news instead.  (Which was really fun!  More on that later.)

On Christmas Eve morning, Kolton padded into our room first (which is rare....he's my late sleeper) and climbed into bed with us for a snuggle.  He told us that he'd been thinking about what he wanted the baby to be and decided that instead of a boy (which is what he'd been insisting it had to be all along), he hoped it was a girl "so Mommy won't have to be the only girl anymore."  It was so sweet. 

We got everyone up and fed and ready, and took off for our little adventure.

Once we arrived, we headed in the room prepared and excited.  All of the boys cooperated most of the time - including Jonah - which was a bonus.  We fell in love with our little baby all over again as we saw its little fingers and toes and profile.  It's always so amazing to me how quickly everything grows and develops in such a short period of time.  It brings tears to my eyes almost every time I have an ultrasound, just to realize the incredible miracle of life taking place inside me.  I always feel washed over with awe,gratitude, and love.  This, of course, was no exception.

Finally, the part we had all been waiting for arrived.  We scanned "the giveaway area" to find that Wes and I were both so sure it was a boy that neither of us believed our eyes.....


Baby Stewart #4 is a little girl!


The doctor had to convince us both a little before we believe him, and we walked out of the studio quiet and stunned.  I still don't think it has hit either one of us completely.  It seems to be slowly sinking in instead.  But, we are all very excited and blessed to know that we will be able to have a daughter.

When we stopped by the copy shop on the way home to get some things for our surprise announcement, Wes endearingly wanted to buy and put as much pink stuff in with it as we could possibly fit, which I gladly obliged, of course.  ;)

Se here we are, baby #4 on the way, and grateful we have found out because we have nothing short of one outfit I bought last time to bring baby #3 in in case it was a girl.  I had decided to save it for the girl I'd hoped to have one day.  Now I am going to have to keep myself and hubby in check and we prepare and buy hairbows, pink outfits, dresses, and all kinds of girly things.  This little sweetie with be so lucky to have three doting and amazing big brothers looking out for her, and that makes me doubly happy.

So, there's our big news.  We are excited to be able to share it with everyone.  Now, I am headed to bed to fight off this nasty cold I woke up with on Christmas Eve.  The boys are excited to play with their presents, so I am hoping for a somewhat restful day.  (Cross your fingers for me.)  We hope that everyone had as lovely, fun, and magical a Christmas as we did.  We love you all and Merry Christmas!