Isaac

When you give a Javier a camera...

...you never know what you're going to get!

PINK!

There can never be quite enough pink for Lydda Grace.

We celebrated her birthday on Sunday in Chapin.  We were going to have funfetti cupcakes with white icing and colorful sprinkles, in pink cupcake liners.  Upon her request, these cupcakes turned into:

pink cupcake liners

pink batter

pink icing

pink sprinkles

Baked to a chorus of:

"PINK! PINK! PINK! PINK! PINK!"

Baby Girl, if you are anything like your cousin, I foresee lots of red food coloring in our future.

Lydda Grace

Upon finding out she was going to have a girl cousin, this precious girl commented as if it were the most obvious thing in the world:

"You can name her Lydda Grace!"

Someday you'll read this, sweet Lydda Grace, and understand that only YOU can be Lydda Grace to our family.  Uncle Mark and I love you!

Voting

The vote before the gender reveal (my side for boy, Mark's side for girl):

The record shows that almost my whole family was correct.  However, I believe most of them were just being contrary to me, because they really thought I was right...

Boy or Girl?

Mark and I didn't want to find out if the baby was a boy or girl...

....at first.

As we approached the 20-week ultrasound, however, we started to waffle on this decision.  We decided to have the ultrasound tech write down 'boy' or 'girl' and put it in a sealed envelope, in case we changed our minds later...and if we were completely sure we didn't want to find out, we would throw away the envelope.  

We held onto the envelope for 3 weeks, tucked safely away in a dresser drawer.  It never quite made it into the trash can.

I was convinced the baby was a boy.  Genetics backed me up.  In three generations of Boerckels, there have been three girl Boerckels and fourteen boy Boerckels.

Math and Mama's intuition combined can't be wrong, I thought, right, baby boy?

...

Right, baby boy?

...

Whoops, I mean...

baby GIRL!

I'm still shocked, looking at these pictures.  Good thing I wasn't standing closer to the edge of the dock or I might have gone for an accidental swim.

We can't wait to meet you, baby girl!