The Cat's Out of The Bag

It's no secret anymore - Clay and I are expecting

a little addition to join the party in June 2011!

We have been trying to keep the pregnancy a secret for over two months, and it was absolutely excrutiating not to tell at times. There have been multiple instances where one of us (usually me) almost caved in or where someone made a comment that threw us off guard. But for the most part we feel like we were pretty good at hiding it!

Clay and I wanted to tell our families after we had been to the doctor for the first time, but we also wanted to make sure it was a HUGE surprise to everyone. (Most people are expecting us to announce it any day. We can tell by your looks. ;)) We knew that if we did anything out the ordinary, it would be a dead giveaway. So we thought and thought about how to break the news...

Since a quick trip to Florida to tell my parents was out of the question, we decided the next best thing was video chatting. I sent a little package to my mom and dad with a webcam, a picture of us, a few other things (to throw them off our trail ;)), and an envelope labeled "Do not open until instructed." So for our inaugural webchat, we asked them to open the envelope and read each of the cards out loud. Here's what they said...

Postage to send this package: $4
Belated birthday CD $11
Webcam: $22
Realizing there are actually three people in this photo: pricless

My parents were SO excited! They had already been talking about how they would love to take grandkids camping, fishing and hunting one day. Looks like that day is coming a little sooner than they thought. :D

We had planned to go to Abilene to spend Thanksgiving with Clay's family. It was a little tricky figuring out how to tell Clay's immediate family without disrupting the traditional flow of events, but eventually we decided on creating a little word puzzle. Clay was the brains behind this operation and came up with a pretty fancy word scramble. So on Wednesday night after dinner as we were all gathered around the kitchen table, we pulled out a "Thanksgiving puzzle" for everyone to solve...

The answer to the riddle "Everyone was confused by the new names" was, of course, "Mom and Dad"!

Oh, what fun to see the reactions. :)

We're especially excited as our Christmas cards go out this week
with a special message from my growing belly. (Thanks, Ashley, for the super-cute cards!)

More and more people will be discovering that the cat's out of the bag! :D