We are excited to announce...

... that we are having a baby GIRL!!!!!!!!  

Wow, we were SO thrilled to receive the much awaited news at our doctor's appointment this week!  It felt like such a long time to have to wait another whole month to find out the gender, but fortunately, the busy holiday season seemed to help time pass by quickly.  

Now we can officially look for cute pink and purple baby items instead of blue!  :)  And, Derek and I are somewhat relieved that we do not have to come up with a name for a boy right now - we already agreed on a girl name but not on a boy name yet.

The baby was positioned with her head down this time (instead of breech), which is good news!  I am praying that she will stay that way so that I won't need to have a C-Section delivery.  We really appreciate all your prayers and support to continue having a healthy pregnancy!

Christmas lights at the Zoo

Last night we decided to brave the freezing rain and spend the evening seeing all the Christmas lights at the Zoo!  Derek and I took Logan, our niece Madison, cousin Michelle, and cousin Kristen with us.  We were all dressed in tons of layers to keep warm, and of course, we sipped on hot cocoa.  

The lights were so beautiful!!!  Every year they seem to add more and more to their display, and I loved watching the lights around the pond dance to music.  They were timed perfectly to whatever song was playing at that time.

To keep from getting too cold while we walked around, we ducked into several of the buildings to see some of the animals.  First, Logan and Madison wanted to go see Santa - so we took them to sit on Santa's lap and they each got a candy cane.  

Afterward we went in to the reptile building, where the kids were able to pet a real snake.  Ewww gross!  :)  Then we went on to the other buildings to see the manatees and elephants.  

Some of the pictures we took are below!  Great times!!!

Michelle, Kristen, Madison, and Logan sitting in the sleigh!

Here we are FREEZING as we pose for a picture!!!!
Logan and Derek in the Manatee building!

A day at COSI

Last Saturday, we spent the day at COSI!  This was Derek and Logan's first time there.

My work hosted a cookies with Santa event - so we went to get Logan's picture taken on Santa's lap, ate some cookies with hot chocolate, and then we spent the rest of the day seeing all the exhibits.

Logan loved the many Science a la cart displays they had throughout the hallways, and his favorite exhibit was Gadgets.  

There were lots of fun things to do and build in the Gadgets area!  We learned about pulleys, electricity, and helped to put a bridge together here too.

We went through most of the other exhibits they have on all three of the levels too: Space, Ocean, Life, Progress, etc.  

Logan was able to climb into a submarine and space capsule!  And we explored the old streets in the Progress exhibit - it showed the changes between life in 1898 to life in 1962.

On the second level there was a high wire unicycle ride.  Since Logan wasn't tall enough to go on the unicycle, Derek decided to ride on it.  

This would not be a good ride for someone who is scared of heights.  The high wire extended out over the first level 17 feet above the ground - it was too scary for me!!

We had a really great time!  Logan can't wait to visit COSI again soon!!!

  

Gender Update

Thanks for everyone's predictions!!  Derek and I loved reading all of them, and it sounded like the majority of you thought it would be a baby girl.

Well, we went to our doctor's appointment this week to have our ultrasound - the baby is doing very well!  The baby's measurements were right where they should be for 19 weeks. Unfortunately we weren't able to find out the gender because the baby was in a breech position at that time and was also moving around quite a bit.  It was just a little too hard to tell.  

We were a little bummed that we didn't find out, but the doctor said she would do a quick check to verify the gender at our next month's appointment.  So, we'll give an update next month...hopefully!

Is it a Boy or Girl?

OK, So we want to hear from all of our family and friends!!! 

We are having our ultrasound this week at our doctor's appointment to find out whether we are having a boy or a girl, and we want to know what you all think!  

Write us a comment and tell us your prediction!  I am posting a picture below so that you can see the way I am carrying the baby - it was just taken last week and I was 18 weeks along.

So....What do you think?  Are we are having a boy or a girl??

Thanksgiving in Toronto

Derek and I spent our wonderful long Thanksgiving weekend in the city of Toronto.  Yes, it was cold!!  But we had a really great time and the weather wasn't too bad. 

We toured the downtown area of the city near our hotel a bit.  We found the CN tower (pictured left) - you can take an elevator ride up the tower to lookout over the city.  Very cool!  They also have a really nice restaurant at the top.  

We had dinner at the top of the tower one night, which was

 great since the elevator ride up the tower was then included with dinner!  Our table sat on a rotating platform that provided us a view of the entire city in 72 minutes.  After dinner, we walked down to the observation deck and also looked down through the glass floor.  What a great experience!! 

Two things I discovered during my trip to Canada:  There are Tim Hortons restaurants everywhere and Canadians are BIG hockey fans.  Of course the main reason for our trip was to go to the hockey game at Air Canada Centre to watch the Flyers play the Maple Leafs.  And, we found out that the guy Tim Horton had been a hockey player for the Toronto Maple Leafs team and played in the NHL for 24 years.

Saturday was our day of hockey... So we started the day off by visiting the Hockey Hall of Fame.  Derek LOVED it there - it was like watching a kid in a giant candy store.  :)  There was a replica of the Stanley Cup and tons of memorabilia from all the different hockey teams!

Later that night we went to the game - proudly wearing our Flyers jerseys!  We found that there were several other Flyers' fans at the game as well, so we weren't the only ones thankfully.  And of course we were boo'd by some of the Leafs fans when they saw the color orange instead of their precious blue.

We squeezed in some shopping at their downtown mall on Black Friday since we weren't able to participate as we normally would if we were in the States.  And, we also had lunch one day at Wayne Gretzky's restaurant.  We had a really great trip!!!