it's another little girl.

the big news. we will welcome another little girl this coming january.

here she is a bit smashed...but she is perfect to us.

we sat holding hands real tight as the ultrasound technician took what seemed like hundreds of little measurements and photos. she kept saying..."oh, beautiful. right on. good job. looks great." to which there are no words for what those words did to our hearts. we could breathe. she is fine and she is healthy and she is ours. something we do not take for granted. not even a little bit what an incredible miracle all of this is. when we saw her little profile and her ankles crossed we knew it was a girl...ava crossed her ankles when she was a baby, too. when she officially announced it was a girl...i wept. a boy would have been the best but in our heart we knew it was a girl. in a second i could envision our family and what ava would be like and that it will probably be hard b/c girls can be a pain for sure. mostly i cried because we are here. i am 20 weeks pregnant with a healthy little girl. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!? this is real. this is life. i did not know if my body would ever be healthy and strong enough to grow a little human. but it is. God is good. this is incredible. i realize i have been pregnant for a while now and you would think the joy and emotion would already have sunk in...but clearly not. seeing her little hands and feet and how she likes her hands real close to her face...is nothing short of one of the most amazing things i have ever seen. she is a she not an it or a baby...but our daughter. almost exactly two years ago to date i sat in a chair wondering if i would see ava grow up or grow old with justin and in two short years i am healthy, with a little girl on the way, and my hair is to my shoulders. who would have thought? but i love it. i love that time heals. i love that in one second everything seems to change forever and then you realize that in the midst of all the ways it changed us...we are making it and our story will not define us but simply add to our character, our heart, our strength, our life, our family, and how this little girl...she signifies victory. ava gave me purpose to fight and this little girl has given me hope. hope of a full and more complete life than i ever imagined. today my heart is bursting with thankfulness.

***

we want to tell ava together that she is going to have a sister so we are waiting for tonight when justin is home from work. i may even video tape it. so if she does something real cute or even if she does not we will have it recorded. instead we celebrated with lunch at the park even though ava had no idea what we were celebrating.

she is constantly on a bug hunt. today it was butterflies.

thankful for technology because we feel so many of you celebrating this joy alongside us.