Evan just had a nice talk with the baby.  He stepped right up to my belly and said, "Hi Baby.  I'm Evan.  There's Eli.  You're in Mom's tummy and soon she'll be your Mom too.  And over there is Dad."  (And he poked my belly in the direction of Dad.)

Here's the list of names the boys have gone through so far:

Evan:  Bob, Skyler, Kai (he thought it would be funny to give the baby the same name as a cousin)

Eli:  Coner, Josh

They've been less imaginative when it comes to girl's names.  They heard the name I liked when they were both born and they haven't ventured from that.  In fact, when we first talked about names, they pretty much came up with the one girl name and a boy name each and stuck with it.  They just weren't into thinking of all the possibilities. :)  I haven't gotten too into that yet either. 

Now, Eli and I will go surf some baby name websites while Kendall and Evan continue their game of Monopoly.

One.

Yep, that's the exact number of babies jumping around inside of me.  We are both disappointed and relieved.

It was fun to see that little guy in there again.  The ultrasound tech said he was very active, flipping all over the place.  Nothing like an active boy to liven up this boring, quiet household!

So, yes, that's the second piece of "information" we got, though I hesitate to even call it "information" because the tech was much more unsure of this than she was that there was only one in there.

For awhile, the baby was being modest.  "It has its little foot up in its crotch," she said.  Then the tech said that it was not quite developed enough to see.  But before the end of the ultrasound, she pointed out a pointy little protrusion and said, "Looks awfully 'penisy'."  So we'll see...  Hopefully we'll get a good view at our next ultrasound in a month or so.

In the meantime, I think I'll name him Delmar.

A Bit More to the Story, But Still "2 Be Determined"

So, if you checked in yesterday, you read the attached letter. I received a couple excited grandmother calls, comments and a some URGENT private emails.  And believe me, I was in shock when I myself read the letter.  Of course, the nurse practitioner had already told me what it sounded like and even I could hear two different-sounding heartbeats.  But when I requested a quick ultrasound to know for sure, she wrote up this letter and handed it to me.  There was something hilarious and outrageous about seeing this huge possibility in print.  I immediately drove over to Balmertown to find Kendall in his office just because it was so much fun to simply hand him the following letter:

There is more to the story and I will blame my husband that only part of it was posted yesterday. 

I agree with the people who contacted me that it is all rather astonishing.  Except, that Kendall and I snuck a peek and it really looked like there's only 1 in there.  The ultrasound is scheduled for this coming Monday.  But Kendall has been wanting to sneak me into the hospital to try the new ultrasound machine.  The suspense behind this letter proved the perfect chance. 

Tuesday evening we were on the way home from some friends' house.  We stopped by the hospital for Kendall to pick something up.  Then he came back out to the van and said the coast was clear and snuck me and the boys into the Emergency Room through the empty ambulance garage.  I don't know who was more embarrassed by all of this- me or our easily embarrassed son, Eli.  (Actually, Kendall assured me that it was all totally fine to do and the hospital was just really quiet with an empty ER.  He wasn't sneaking, that was just me and Eli.)

A bored nurse joined us with the ultrasound machine.  Neither she nor Kendall knew too much about it and the first view we tried didn't show much.  But we did see a tiny little heart pulsing so happily!  The second view was much better.  There was our baby!  She was waving her little hands at us.  He seemed to have hiccups.  Even Eli and Evan could clearly see what was going on.  Unfortunately, none of us could figure out for sure how to look for a second baby.  "It's only one," we decided.  Then the other nurse said, "No, wait!  That's not the abdomen!  I think we're looking at the top of the second head!"  (Eli and Evan didn't know we were looking for twins and I think that exclamation freaked them out!  2 heads!)  Well, we kept trying and finally got a good profile of the entire baby. 

Around that time a stranger stuck his head around the corner.  The visiting doctor from the big city!  We were caught!  He must have been confused to find a nurse and an entire family gathered around the ultrasound machine with the patient herself holding the wand on her belly!  Introductions were made.  (He surely wondered what kind of small-town hospital he was at!)  We asked him if he knew anything about ultrasounds.  "A little."  He looked at the screen and seemed confident that there was only one baby, but declined to take a guess on the sex. 

We were disappointed.  (I was also quite relieved.)  But I guess we'll find out for sure in a few days!  I think I would like to have twins.  I've never wanted twins before, but at age 35 and with Kendall and me hoping for at least 2 more kiddos, I say, "Bring it on!  Let's get this done!"  So if you want, you can pray that Baby #2 was hiding behind his sister.

But, oh my, would we actually survive the first year or two?  Would this middle-aged body even survive pregnancy and delivery of two?  It feels so much older than it did 6 years ago when Evan was born. 

Well, good thing we can't choose for ourselves.  I would never know which way to go.

Stay tuned for more news Monday night...

Oh, by the way, I apologize to those of you who nearly had heart attacks yesterday.  Like I said, I am blaming this on Kendall who peer-pressured me into posting only the letter.  I had this post already written and ready to publish.  Kendall read it and convinced me to leave out the rest of the story.  It's his fault.

2 Be Determined

More to come...
Enjoy the suspense with us.

An Announcement

I know, I know.   After such a long silence, you would think I'd have something more newsworthy to blog about than this:

But this has been Red Lake's big excitement for the past few weeks.  We have a Tim Horton's!

The excitement is probably hard to comprehend if you're 1.)not from Canada and 2.)not from a tiny, remote, Northern town like Red Lake.

First of all, all Canadians know that Tim Horton's (more affectionately called 'Timmy's') is a national symbol of...  Well, I'm not sure what it's a symbol of, but it's something very important.  (Can any Canadians help me out here?)  It's part of the Canadian identity.  I'm not joking.  I know there are a few in the States, but it's very, very Canadian and we're proud of our Tim Horton's. 

Secondly, having a Tim Horton's in Red Lake is extremely strange.  It's very weird for me and I'm only a Red Laker of 3 1/2 years.  I've heard the lifers talk about how strange it is for them.  Most people in Red Lake "go out of town."  It is very common to take a day trip to Kenora (3 hours away) or even to Winnipeg (5 hours away), though that is often an overnight trip.  People go much more often than we do and it's for shopping, doctor's appointments, concerts, etc.  I don't know how to explain it except that it's just part of the Red Lake culture.  At first I was surprised to run into Red Lakers at the Dryden Walmart (2 hours away), but I soon realized that it is nothing surprising at all and I am just as at-risk for embarassment shopping for underwear in the Dryden Walmart as I was at a Walmart in Goshen.  (I know, I'm 35- I should be past that.)  Anyway, my point is that Tim Horton's was always an "out of town" thing.  People always try to make a stop there for donuts and coffee.  It's just what you do.  And now we have one of our very own!  And when we go in there, we feel like we're out of town!  Except that you have to have conversations with everyone you know in there...

So here we are the first Saturday morning our very own Tim Horton's was open:

Do I dare to tell how many times I've been there since it opened 2 weeks ago?  Okay. 4.  It's just too exciting to stay away.