The Gender Reveal.............

This is one of the fun new traditions of the times.  Back in the day, gender reveal was also called "The birth of the baby," because you didn't know until the baby arrived what sex it would be.  Of course, parents can opt to decide if they want to know the sex of the child prior to birth, but techs and doctors are so used to revealing it that people say you really have to remind them constantly that you do not want to know.

Jessica and Elessia want to know the sex of the baby and told us that they would likely announce on Mother's Day (of course, Jena and I watched Liam and Zander so we knew that they would know the day before.)  However, Elessia decided that she would wait so that she would hear the sex the same time the rest of us did on Sunday night.  Jessica agreed to build everything for the announcement at work so that Elessia could also be surprised. 

So Sunday evening, we gathered in our backyard for the big reveal.  Chantel offered to video the announcement, while Elessia taped her phone on a post to film us reacting to the reveal.  The grandkids were running around and we were all making our guess.  Jena has always been fixed on it being a girl.  Scarlett was saying she wanted a girl cousin as currently she has only five boy cousins.

Jessica brought out this beautiful box and hung it on our umbrella tree.  We called Tosha and put her on FaceTime with us, so she could be part of the fun.  Niki was there too, but I am not sure if he understood everything that was going on.

 Liam was ready to pull the rope with Elessia....one, two, pull..............

A girl........................yay.  We were excited to see that.....

 Look at Scarlett....gathering the purple and pink balloons.

...but wait, look at this picture again.

Notice the black balloon in Elessia's hand.  It says,  "Baby #2."  What???!!!!  Gary said that he was confused as this was baby #3 for them.  The rest of us were just slow to figure it out.  Chantel was the first to say, "What- twins?"

Yes, TWINS!!!! And then Elessia popped the balloon and baby #2 is also a GIRL.  Can you believe that they kept it a secret for all of these months!!!  How exciting is that? 

So we are now expecting Grandchildren #7 and # 8 who will likely be arriving at the first of October, rather than the end at the original due date.  Jessica said that she has had lots of conversations with the twins to tell them that they want to be born in October and have the month to themselves, rather than join the many September birthdays we have already.  Of course, twins are unpredictable.  We hope for an October birthday.  My mom's birthday was in October and she said it was a great month for birthdays.

And Scarlett will have her girl cousins, just like she wanted!!

And how was that for a Mother's Day surprise!  My baby is having twin babies.  Life is a never-ending round of amazing adventures.

(And two days later, Jessica (the one who made me mother first) turned 35 years old.  There was a lot to celebrate.)