The suspense makes it so worth it!

First of all, I want to say Congrats to my friend Amanda and her husband Greg who found out last week they are having a girl!  SO happy for them.....but it messes up my gender predictions :).  She has really thrown me off now.  Everyone in the world (lol!) has only had girls for like the last 6 months...everyone I know, have heard of, read in the paper, etc. so I was sure this trend had to turn around sometime soon...I mean come on, how will these little girls ever grow up and get to have babies if there are literally no boys around?!?!  I have heard of 3 people having babies in October and I knew 2 of them were having boys so I was sure Amanda and Greg were having a boy too as this trend was finally reversing.  I figured we could go either way since October seemed to start the boy trend, but now with Amanda having a girl, I really don't know what to think about what ours will be.  OK--I know you are thinking I am nuts, but this is just a little part of the fun we are having with not finding out what we are going to have.  Soooooo many people seemed to think I was "crazy" or "would never last not finding out", but I have and I love not knowing so much more each and every day!  I think it is soooo fun!!  Here are some of my favorite parts of not knowing the gender of our little one:

-Getting to hear everyone's predictions (even complete stragers EVERYDAY when  we are out and about)
-Keeping everyone in suspense
-Driving people even more crazy when they ask what names we have picked out (Yes--we have names for both and have had the names picked since we first found out we were pregnant, if not before)
-My #1 reason for not wanting to know the gender and not sharing the names--I think it will be sooo AMAZING and so much fun when Nathan can go out in that waiting room after we have the baby and no one will know and he will get to say "We have a boy" or "We have a girl" and then share the name and all of it will be a complete surprise--that is the moment I am most excited about!!!!  I can't wait!!!

So far most all of my family and most all the teachers at my school have seemed to think we are having a boy--Nathan and I have been pretty convinced this whole pregnancy we are having a boy as well.  Over the past 2 weeks 4 random people have told me I was having a girl, so we shall see.  We will be happy with whatever God blesses us with but when people ask us if we could pick what would we pick and we both go with GIRL.  But, will be just as happy with our little cowboy/football player if that is what God has chosen for us.  I am really girly and would love to have my frilly little princess to dress up, etc.  No worries there though, I already have a basket FULL of headbands, flowers, bows, etc. in case we are surprised with a little diva.  I am also working on a bow holder today just in case we will need it to hang all those flowers and bows up and actually get to use them. If not, they will just get put away until we do get a princess one day. :)

In other baby news, I have us all registered at the hospital, so when that day comes we are good to go...just hoping we make it to the hospital (since I go to downtown Houston) and it takes us about 1 hour 10 minutes or so from our house (without any major wrecks or traffic delays)...that is my big fear right now!! :S

We have also been picking veggies like crazy out of our garden that I am so proud of.  I will be keeping my hands out of there from now on and it is all up to my husband to keep it picked as yesterday and Thursday (after I had already been poking around in the garden earlier in the day) Nathan called me from outside and told me to bring him the gun FAST.  He killed 2 water mocassins in 2 days in or right near our garden.  EEK! I guess it is because that is where we are watering--they were each about 3 feet long and way big around and nasty looking enough to mean I am DONE picking the garden!

My parents and grand-parents have always planted gardens and I love all of the fresh produce in the summers. We tried our hand in the fall and did not turn out so great.  SO in the spring, we moved the location for the garden, used organic fertilizer (chicken poop) in the soil and planted ALOT.  We are finally reaping what we have sowed and I picked out and planted alot of it to make baby food.  I am looking into seeing if I can flash freeze what we have now and then make baby food at a later date where it will not lose any valuable nutrients (as we will not be needing it for at least 7-8 more months).  We are pretty set on me making our baby food--if you know my husband you know why--he does not want any preservatives put in the food we feed our little one.  I know they do sell organic baby food now but it is not 100% organic, or still has added chemicals or preservatives.  If the nutrients will not be as good by freezing now and making later, then we will just have to continue with a fall garden which will be perfect timing to make and freeze baby food for a smaller time frame.  Either way it will all work out.  We have already planned out everything we want to make for the baby, and most of the veggies are growing in our garden right now! YAY!

I have already canned 12 jars of tomatoes (like rotel) and made 12 pints of homemade picante sauce this week.  Boy was it yummy!

I will leave you with a little picture of the first day we were able to pick...we have picked alot more each day since but these were our first little ones so they made us proud! :)