Today, we have stayed home and cooked good food. We had plans to go to the home of friends for Thanksgiving dinner, but Kate got sick quite suddenly yesterday and although we were reassured at urgent care yesterday evening that she doesn't have anything serious like the flu, she does have a nasty little viral bug featuring a sore throat and fever. Our friends, the Pods, have graciously agreed to do a very unconventional food-swap with us wherein at the appointed hour, Dan will arrive at their house bearing half the cornbread dressing, green beans, sweet tea and salad I've prepared and bring home with him the turkey, sweet potatoes, dessert and rolls that Judi slaved over for us.

I'm sorry our plans were canceled, but since we'll be home and drowning in fantastic food, I'm going to get out our good china and set the table with candles and crystal. (OK, no crystal for Kate.) We're going to sit down and bow our heads and thank God for Kate and six and a half years of marriage, and especially this Thanksgiving, for this:

Our son! I'll grant you it's a little hard to tell, but that's his face. Yesterday morning we had our ultrasound and we have a healthy little boy to meet in April! We are ecstatic, my family is gloating mightily in their correct prediction, the Wachdorf side is celebrating the fact that the family name will live on, and even Kate seems to have adjusted herself to the news, referring frequently and happily to her "Baby budda."

Since this is our second time around, I thought the ultrasound might be a bit less dramatic an event, but I was wrong. There's really no way to see that sight without being excited about it. We told the technician right up front that we wanted to know the gender, and it wasn't 10 seconds after the screen lit up with on image of our baby before she told us it's a boy. My first reaction was to laugh. My next thought was "What am I going to do with a boy? I don't know how to have a boy!" But if I have learned anything from two years of parenting, it is that you learn what you need as you go. So I'm going to try not to worry about it too much, although if what the parents of boys tell me is true, I am going to be seeing a LOT more of the inside of that urgent care waiting room and possibly the ER once this little guy is up and running around.

I'm excited for Kate to have a brother, and here is one reason why: My dad and brothers are in West Texas right now, somewhere near Canadian, TX, which, as I understand, is where you end up if you drive through Oklahoma City, cross the state line into Texas, take a right and then fall off the end of the earth. OK, maybe it's not that rural, but it is true that they don't have great cell phone reception while they're there. So when we found out the news, I just assumed I'd have to wait until they were headed back to Mississippi to tell them. Instead, Wednesday night, I got a call from Aaron. He'd managed to find a cell tower so he could check in with his wife Kelly, who told him he should call me if he wanted to hear what we're having. This is what I love about my brothers: When I told Aaron the news, and a few minutes later told Ryan, they both hooped and hollered like it was the greatest information they had ever heard in their lives. It isn't that it wasn't awesome when my sisters reacted much the same way. It was. Still, you expect that from girls. My brothers are manly men. They are Marines. They drive trucks and hunt deer. And as I've learned in the last couple of years, they love babies, or at least they love my babies. I've loved seeing that side of them, and it makes me look forward to seeing them become dads themselves, which will happen for Aaron in January. I love having brothers. Even if I did give them a hard time when we were kids.

So now we know that we're going to have a son, and Kate is going to have a brother. My parents and Dan's will have a new grandson, and our brothers and sisters have a new nephew. Today we are thankful for that, and I know we will be thankful for this child every year from now on.

"The Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes." - Psalm 118:23

This last shot is of the baby's feet. He wouldn't let us see his face a lot, but he was really proud of his feet. And also his, umm, business, of which we have some VERY convincing photos. I'm not going to post those, but let's just say we have no concerns that we'll be surprised with a girl come April. Nope.