Surprise baby present!

Many have asked us whether or not we know the gender of baby #4. And the answer is YES! We have never found out before with any of the kids but decided that we would with this one. There are a couple reasons we wanted to know - one is so we can put the kids' rooms together as we renovate the house knowing if it will be 3 girls in one room with Elliott by himself in another or 2 girls in one and 2 boys in the other.
We also wanted to see what it was like to know versus not knowing and I have (not-so-secretly) hoped for a boy so I wanted to know and be excited for whatever it is when it's born instead of disappointed for a little bit if it's not a boy.

So how did we find out? A friend of mine found out in a fun way with her last baby and I decided to copy her. :) After an ultrasound we had the gender put in an envelope. A week or two later I took the envelope to Baby Gap and chose an adorable little outfit for a boy and a girl. I gave the envelope, clothes, wrapping paper, and money to a girl that worked at the store and asked her to look in the envelope and wrap up the right outfit as a surprise to me.
She was excited and said she had so much fun helping us with our surprise!

Michael and I sat down together one night and got to open our first little gift to Baby Cuatro. It was a very fun way to find out and now we have the perfect coming home outfit for the baby.

We opened the gift on June 25th - but I actually forgot to take a picture of it then so I snapped a quick one to show you - although the bag has now seen better days. :)

We're not sharing what we're having until the big day when the little one arrives. But I didn't realize how much people were going to try to guess and trip me up. Our other kids don't even know what we're having because we've never referred to the baby as 'he' or 'she' at all. It's funny when people think I've 'slipped up' and let them know what it is. Sorry - but I don't know how it's possible that we would have accidentally let anyone know because we haven't even thought about it ourselves. (although I think Michael has tried to slip in some confusion for people by saying something gender specific just to be funny or steer someone in a particular direction)

This week has been a little different though because we chose a name! That is a BIG step for us since none of our kids have been named right away. I'm especially excited about the middle name and can't wait to share it with you soon.

If you have a guess on what we're having...or when the 'tiny baby' will arrive and size details, name, etc. - feel free to leave a comment. It's always fun to see who has the closest guess. (by the way...my due date is November 19th - so that really narrows down the day options - someone will get it right on!)

And by the way - here's a post I did last year right before I had Isa that talks about my pregnancies. I didn't update it after Isa was born (she was the hardest labor of any of them) but it gives you a little peek.

It won't be long now and we can't wait to announce the birth of the newest little Caven soon!