Introducing our....

New son! Sanaa's wish came true and we are expecting a boy!

Nate and I were a bit shocked. I think I expected it to be another girl even though I thought it was a boy. For awhile I've been pretty certain we were having a boy since my cravings were drastically different than the previous two pregnancies and every time I thought about decorating the spare room or making a baby blanket I could only envision colors in blue. I didn't even consider picking out a girls name because I didn't think we'd need one. It wasn't until last night after the Sanaa and Layla were in bed that Nate and I finally decided on a girl's name, but I guess we didn't need it. :-)

We've chosen the name Malakai Daniel. (We tried hard to find a boy's name with multiple A's!! Just kidding. But having multiple A's is definitely a theme with us.) We've had the first name picked out for nearly 4 years. The middle name was harder. We had a different middle name picked out and then changed it this morning while we were driving to the doctor's office. We really like how these two names seem to flow together.

(Note from Nate the Word Nerd: Malakai is a derivative of the Hebrew word Malachi which means My Messenger, while Daniel means God is my Judge. It is significant for us that both names are Old Testament prophets, one Minor and one Major. Malachi in particular has always been one of my favorite prophets. By changing the spelling to Malakai we've essentially created a more Arabic word by attaching it to the Arabic root "malak" meaning angel or messenger.)

We got to tell Rosa's parents and aunt Karen in person this time around. We let Sanaa do the honors. When we saw Rosa's mom, Sanaa jumped up and down and said, "It's a boy!" The conversation with Rosa's dad was funnier and it went like this:

Rosa: "Sanaa, do have something you want to tell grandpa?"
Sanaa: "No."
Nate: "You want to tell grandpa what we found out today? Do you want to tell grandpa what you're going to get?"
Grandpa: "Are you getting a bunny rabbit?"
Sanaa: *starts walking away and shrugs her shoulders* "No. It's just a brother."

Malakai is growing well and moving a lot. I've felt the small flutter movements for a little over a week now. The technician doing the ultrasound made the comment that he's a big boy and is approximately 9 ounces in weight (nearly 10 ounces). But according to baby center that's an average weight. So I don't know that he's really that big.

And here's an updated picture of me and my big belly at 19 1/2 weeks. I figured after Sanaa's comment you all might be wondering just how big I am.