We spilled the beans.

Or rather we spilled one tiny bean on Monday night.

As you must know by now, PG is a big league surpriser. Naturally he was the brains behind our big reveal.

The Ingredients:

1. white t-shirts

2. ultrasound pictures

3. iron on transfer paper and a whole lot of trail and error

4. a family dinner from my loving mother

First we made our shirts. This was a two day nightmare. I highly un-reccommend trying to attack the complexity of transfer paper with a pregnant brain. Here's how it went down:

We bought the T's and paper and took it to Kinkos to print our ultrasound image. It jammed and almost broke their machine. We tried to go to another printing press place and it was closed. We went back to the craft store and bought the type of paper for our home printer. We went back home and printed them. Phew! Finally something went right! We ironed paper one onto shirt one. We realized the writing was backwards. One shirt trashed. One of many. You get the idea. It was painful. I even learned how to write backwards. Finally everything came together just minutes before we drove over to do the big ta-da!

We asked the whole family over to my parents house for dinner (both sides). Everyone believed it to be a normal fam-gathering. The house was packed and eating and chatting ensued. Kids were playing all over. My stomach was doing flips (and it wasn't the tender babe). I'm always ready to give up a secret or tell the punch line of a joke too early. I'm not big on suspense. So I left it up to Phil to initiate THE surprise. 

At Phil's family dinners everyone goes around the table to share highlights so Phil suggested we share. Since it was his idea he was asked to start first. He said to the big fam, "Well my highlight is, Aubrey and I got these really cool shirts from Richard's."

We stood up and unzipped our sweatshirts to reveal matching T's with a blown up picture of baby and a message that read, "Coming December 2011." Everyone screamed and carried on and hugged and shared shocked faces. 

I may not love the stress of a big surprise but oh how I love the outcome! It was so fun to share the news and finally be able to talk baby with the clan. 

The kids reactions were some of my favorite. Sylvie asked to see my tummy and Fiona said she had enough cousins already and "they're annoying." ha! 

I'm so relieved to have the cat out of the bag. After the party subsided I had trouble staying awake! My body was completely and finally relaxed. The next day my tummy started to pop out. I guess my brain told my body I didn't have to hide anymore. 

My jeans are already getting just a tiny bit pushed down around the waist and I'm scared this means I'm going to look like a hamster ball by December. (Although I also kind of like the idea of being gigantic!) Time will tell!