Another Surprise!

And you thought that having a 5th baby on the way was shocking?

For those of you that are colorblind, that last stick figure representing our unborn child is PINK!

Finally, we are on team PINK!

So what happened?

We had our ultrasound today. Grandma came down to hang with the boys. I drank a Sunny Delight in the car on the way over to give the little baby a kick so it'd be moving around for the ultrasound technician. We explain to her that we have 4 boys at home.... She did her scan. Baby is perfect in every way, nothing amiss, SO HAPPY!
She finally said, "well, I think you're finally getting that baby girl."
I said, "are you sure? You HAVE to be sure."
"I'm pretty darn sure, see those 3 lines?" ...... etc
I still let her get another technician to verify, and baby was cooperating, spreading her legs and everything for them, 2nd opinion, YEP it's a girl.

I kinda cried. Kinda. Why? I'm still not sure? Happiness, maybe. Fright, definitely.

Then after the happiness settled in, the shock started. What in the world are we going to do with a little girl in this house? A house of stick, slugs, and slime? Oh, this is going to turn our home upside down.

But we're excited and so are the boys. Now we are having the hardest time thinking of names. But the list is forming.

Awaiting baby XX, October 3rd, 2013.

A Day off for the Gibbons

We are the coolest parents EVER. We let the boys play hooky from school!  It was my grandma's birthday, so we thought we'd celebrate it in style, without her (hey, she was invited).

We started off the day by going to IHOP. My kids think that IHOP is the nearest thing to heaven. What a treat! They were very well-behaved. Win#1

Then, we went to the theater and saw "The Croods" in 3d. We had the whole place to ourselves, because who goes to see a kids movie at 11 am on a Wednesday? Great for us, Rand had a blast running up and down.

We came home for piano lessons and then headed back out to hit the beach. We stopped at our dear Pacifica Taco Bell on the way to Montara Beach in Half Moon Bay. Walking out on the empty beach, we noticed a dead seal, huge, bloated and stinky. Gross. Then we noticed a little baby seal crying on the beach and my heart sank. I know about mother nature, blah blah blah, but whatever, it's still sad seeing the poor thing suffer. I took pictures and moved on. Rand LOVES the beach and ran up and down and up and down, played in the sand and tried to keep up with his brothers. Later on, a man showed up and said that he got a call about a seal pup. We said we'd seen it and told him where, but the pup was gone. After a few minutes, the seal came back up on shore and we got to help rescue him!! It was so cool!  He was taken to the Marine Mammal Center where he will hopefully grow up strong and be released back into the wild. They informed us that the seal was NOT his mama and that he was a Guadalupe Fur seal, very rare to find in this part of California because they are usually hundreds of miles north of here. He is still alive and we can check on him here. He is currently the only one of his kind at the center, we can go visit him and got to name him. Nick named him, "inu" which means dog in Japanese.

 

What a great day!

I really cant believe that he's already 7

Mace is rockin the 1st grade. He bounces off the walls at home, but at school he's showing just how quiet and focused he can be. Who knew?

He's exploring the world of withholding information from mom and dad (hoping to not get in trouble). He's learning quickly that we find out things and he gets in double trouble.

 yeah, It's been so fun.

But really, he's a loving and caring kid. He never hesitates to tell us he loves us or offer a hug. He wants to help with everything. 

He also LOVES to talk about farts, barf and bugs.

He's a boy. And now he's 7.

On his 1st birthday.

Our Leap Baby is 1!!

He loved every minute of eating that jumbo cupcake.

Poor Cooper and Allergy Season

need I say more?

Wicked!

One of the great things about living in San Francisco is that we're so close to some good theater. I got some cheap tickets to see Wicked, so mom and I headed out. The seats kinda sucked, but it was awesome! I LOVE LOVE that the ugly girl gets the guy in the end. I had read the book and was pleased with the changes that were made for the play. The book was a total downer. Even though it was nice to have background information on all the characters, I could have done without some of the garbage in the book.

I would like to see it again please!!

A little surprise

WARNING TMI!

So back late November/early December I got to experience a lovely thing called a miscarriage for the 2nd time. We were excited to be pregnant again, but the excitement was short-lived and I felt a gush of blood and ended up in the ER one night. Come to find out is was a blighted ovum. It's when the gestational sac forms, but no fetus. So your body still thinks it's pregnant. It kinda sucked. I had to have another D & C, and had to be awake for this one. It wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be despite my wicked reaction to the local anesthetic.

Fast forward a few months. I hadn't really considered anything was amiss until I realized that I hadn't had a period yet. So I called my doctor and she did bloodwork. My HCG levels were in the pregnant range, however we weren't sure if it was from the miscarriage or a new pregnancy. Levels were taken again a few days later and had more than tripled. I was pregnant again and SCARED! I was sent for an ultrasound and saw a little grain of rice with a heartbeat. It was estimated that I was 6 weeks 5 days pregnant (this was on February 12th. I started bleeding again, off and on and was diagnosed with a subchorionic hematoma, a pretty common blood clot that form where the egg implants in the uterus. It bled itself out, not without a TON of panic and worry on my part. But my doctor was so kick-back about it, it helped calm me.

Now, to just make it to 14 weeks, so I can stop freaking out.

Scout Hike

One of the joys of having 4 boys is BOY SCOUTS. Sometimes I feel that my entire life revolves around scouts. But it does get us out doing fun things.

A visit from Uncle C

At the end of Winter Break, Nick's brother came for a visit. It was super fun for the boys to see their Uncle and be proud of our family serving in the military! Go Uncle C!!

We have been frequenting the California Academy of Sciences.

the fountain in Golden Gate park near the music concourse

playing some form of hide and chase Uncle C

Watching waves at Baker Beach

Washin' away 2012

Sometimes, my phone gives me these little severe weather alerts.... Today, it looked like this.

So we headed to the beach to check things out.

And the boys got a little (or a lot) wet.

   

Rockaway Beach Dec 2012 from Emily Gibbons on Vimeo.