Cat(s) are out of the bag

Ellen here posting.

Well, Christmas finally arrived and Kevin and I had waited to share the news with my family until we were all together. Side note to post: M & D knew but were sworn to secrecy and I had talked to my family this summer to give them a general idea of our plans for surrogacy.

We were all gathered at Scott & Karen's house to celebrate the holiday and we prepared a little surprise. Kevin brought a box into the room and said we had an announcement. He said we needed to add two new stockings to the mantel for next year. Then, he opened the box and we had two Christmas stockings, each with a bottle of champagne in it, with baby hats on the bottle (picture attached). So, obviously the biggest reaction was due to the fact that there were TWO stockings and both of the bottles were wearing BLUE hats!

We had a great Christmas and we heard many suggestions for names that we would like to note will NOT be under consideration...Calvin & Hobbs, Ogilvie & Starship (Kevin's brother) and many others.

Now, we will officially begin the panic that time is ticking away and we have lots of things we need to do to start preparing. We need to move our focus from wallpaper removal to nursery preparation very soon. As Brooke and I discussed on the phone, we are about at the halfway mark and agreed that in some ways, it has gone by fairly quickly (I know you wouldn't think that by reading our earlier posts). The various doctor appointments have kept things moving along and all of us have been a bit surprised that we already have appointments every two weeks! Brooke is about due for another belly shot picture.

Happy New Year and cheers to an exciting 2010!