We will call her Lilly.

Just when everyone had stopped asking us when we were going to have kids we surprised everyone with the news. We were due for August of 2010. We found out that our little person is a girl and we have decided to name her Lilly.

It still seems a little unreal at times and I don't think I fully understand the magnitude of how this little life will affect our lives. We are very excited and looking forward to this change, however, I have to be honest that I have panicked a few times. One time I was doing some grocery shopping when I noticed that the expiration date on a gallon of milk was set for June. I immediately lost my breath thinking that our little girl was coming next month. It seemed like it had snuck up on me. Of course, at the time it was still May and Lilly isn't actually due until August 2nd. Typically, the women in Mari's family give birth a week or two early so we are hoping she doesn't keep us waiting too long and comes some time in July. I know, kinda silly, but what can I say?

Talk about scares, we got a good one at our second ultrasound. That's the one they do about halfway through the pregnancy to measure the baby and check the gender. We were told that they saw a spot on Lilly's heart. We scheduled another ultrasound to give it a second look because Lilly was not behaving very well from being poked by the ultrasound. We thought surely they had seen something wrong and it was no big deal. So at the next appointment, sure enough, there it was again. Even we could see the tiny white dot on the screen. We were referred to a specialist that could take high quality images. She took many, many pictures of Lilly and printed off so many pictures she asked me to hide them in my pocket when we left so she wouldn't get in trouble. She was the nicest lady and assured us that we didn't have anything to worry about. She showed us the spot on Lilly's heart and told us it wouldn't have any affect on her. What we were seeing was a calcium deposit on one of her valves, however, it was so small it wouldn't bother her at all. It will even stay the same size as her heart grows over time and we will soon forget about it completely. But, I think it taught us both something about the worrying that goes into parenting. We didn't worry outwardly about it, but I know I spent some time worrying about how this could affect my little Lilly and I'll bet Mari did too.

We have officially entered the "nesting" phase of the pregnancy. We have decked out Lilly's room in the past few weeks. One of our long time friends from high school just so happens to be an art teacher now. We asked her to help us with some decoration for the walls of Lilly's room. Mari and I put down a base coat of a color called "minty". It definitely makes you think of an andes mint when you see it. Leslie came over and sketched some lily pads and frogs on the walls and then went over them in paint. If you haven't guessed yet we have decided that the nursery's theme will be frogs and lily pads to coincide with Lilly's name. Plus, we hope she loves the outdoors as much as we do. Then, a few days later we made the drive up to IKEA in Charlotte. We found some decorations to go with our theme plus a shelving unit that fits perfectly in a nook in the nursery.

We'll be sure to post up some pictures of the nursery once we get it all cleaned up. We had our first baby shower last weekend and everyone was so generous we received a ton of goodies. Mari then wanted to get all of the loot in the nursery so she could find a place for everything. She is trying but the room is quite small.