Happy Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception!

In honor of the feast day, I'd love to share just one more announcement...

• We're all super excited and one of us is incredibly nauseous.

• Yes, we know how this happens.

• We're not crazy. I mean, maybe a little bit...Six kids is a lot in this world of ours. We just feel so incredibly undeservedly blessed and have a lot of love to share in this little home of ours. I feel so in awe of God's generosity and know well not to take the gift of our health and fertility for granted. Every single one of our children is beyond anything we could hope for or deserve and we know the same is true for this new little one. He or she will bring a presence and personality and uniqueness that in a year we couldn't imagine our lives without. May God grant us the grace to give him or her everything he or she deserves.

• I feel exactly like I did in my other healthy first trimesters, which is awful, gaggy, and exhausted...but it's all good in the sense that it gives me peace that this little one is doing okay. I'm counting down the days until week 12ish hoping that history repeats itself and I'll be soon rising from the dead again. It's a bit of a bummer feeling like this during Advent and probably through Christmas but I know, I know, that it's worth it (she repeats to herself over and over).

• No, we're not hoping for a girl ;) We are absolutely in love with whoever this new little person already is and he or she is exactly who we want.

• Due in July! Summer baby!

• Ben is still nursing the tiniest bit but he's been out of diapers for several months so there's that!

• And I've already told my midwife that I'll do *everything* I can to keep this little one head down. As fun as that last birth was, I'm really not hoping for a repeat ;)

• We told the boys by giving them those shirts and then together they unwrapped the onesie and figured it out. It was crazy sweet and they've been *trying* to take care of me and let me "rest." I'll just leave it at that...

• Thank you in advance for sharing in our joy and especially for any prayers you'd like to offer for this little one. And as long as you're praying, please add in to some for a few very special unborn babies of friends that could use them as well.