Little sister or little mister?!

This is the post in which I tell all of you that I've been lying.

LYING.

Ohhhh it's pained me so. I hate lying. It's wrong and it's sinful, but sometimes it just has to be done.

Like for a really, really BIG Christmas surprise.

So that's what we did. We found out the gender of our little babe on Friday, December 7th and pretended like we knew nothing and at the perfect moment at each of our family Christmases...SURPRISE! 

Let me start from the beginning....I didn't want to find out. I loved not knowing with Gwendolyn so I was really torn about it when Tom came home one day and said he wanted to find out. We went back and forth. And back and forth. And back and forth. I thought it over 100 times, at least and debated and debated but then decided that if we were going to find out, then we were going to make it memorable and fun and special and that's exactly what we did.

Planning was intense (not really) and detailed. I loved it.

We'll announce it at Christmas to our families and to close friends and the rest of our family via our New Year's card. I had seen pictures of balloon reveals online before so I contacted a photographer (that made it official - I couldn't back out now), started shopping for the perfect gray, cream, and red "holiday-ish" outfits, found my giant cardboard box, spent hours wrapping it, and very eagerly and nervously awaited December 7th, 2012. As you may remember from this post, our 9:30 am u/s went so well and everything looked amazing. We left the u/s not knowing what it was (she had written boy or girl down and sealed it up for us) and went immediately to Party City with our present-like wrapped box and the sealed results. They had done this before, but said my wrapped box was the largest they've had to fill. Ha.  (Like I said, I like to do things big.) I gave them the envelope and we went home to stay busy until we met with the photographer (she rocked) at 3:30. We drove to a tree farm and took some family pictures before the big moment. I was beyond nervous. Our hearts were racing. It was all very exciting. And then the moment...the moment in which we untie the red ribbon to reveal.........well, I wouldn't want to spoil it for you! Here, watch the picture slideshow for yourself (just click on the picture of Gwendolyn to be taken to the entire gallery....)

(Videos are always better with music, so feel free to go to your favorite Pandora station first *smile.)

It was QUITE the moment and very exciting. I had a feeling it was a boy, but the pencil test I took in high school said I would have girl, girl, boy, girl so naturally, I had become convinced that that was accurate.

Pencil test = not accurate

At least not for the Barntsens. It's taken some time for the "boy" news to sink in, but we're so thankful that he's growing and healthy. He's already started accumulating quite the adorable wardrobe for next fall/winter. (Love me a good sale.) Gwendolyn kisses and hugs my tummy when I say "give baby brother a kiss" and her adorable little voice saying "baby bruder" would melt your heart. We've been talking names and I would say we have 4 or 5 options as of right now. Hopefully we both agree on a favorite come the end of April. (Names will remain top secret...sorry.)

We told our families at Christmas each using a balloon with a message inside that was opened after it was popped. Tom's family was directed to view the above gallery and found out via the pictures, and my family found out after my mom opened up the very obvious u/s picture that I rolled up like a scroll and put in the balloon before I blew it up. Some were shocked that we found out while others had a sneaking suspicion despite my lies. Ha. I tried not to really talk about it (before the reveal) to avoid my face turning bright red, and I did have one slip up at church two days after we found out but thankfully had gotten somewhat used to calling it "baby" and just tried to avoid the gender discussion altogether until the news was out. It was hard though! But worth it. We had a lot of fun. And I love that it was captured on film, in typical Sarah fashion.

So Gwendolyn will be getting a little mister! How awesome that God knows exactly what we need and chose us to raise this little boy. He's already so loved and prayed over. Having eight nephews, I do know that we need to stock up on trains, bucket trucks, sporting gear and Legos.

Someone want to pay for our storage unit? *smile.

Oh, and I do hope that you'll forgive me for a few blogging fibs. I deliberately did this post before my 24 week post b/c I want to finally tell the truth!

Happy weekend, friends.