It's a......

 GIRL!

On Saturday, we were surrounded by our family and close friends for our Baby Colt Gender Reveal Party!  We had a wonderful time catching up with family and friends, that we haven't seen due to our busy schedules.  It was quite the night!  Around 7:15pm Chris, Allison and I grabbed a cupcake and bit into it!  Low and behold, our filling was PINK!!  SO....in December we will be welcoming a baby girl to the Colt Clan.  Of course, I was super excited ( i would have been no matter what) to add another girl!  Since I know the "girl things"  I think Daddy was hoping for a boy, but he was pretty sure that we would get a girl!  The nice part about having a girl.....we can doll her up all classy like....but living in this area....we can throw some camo on her and she can sport a bow or gun (when old enough) and she can do "boy" things!  Big Sister Allison is pretty excited.  Chris kept telling her that she will have to do her share of diaper changes and she replies with a big NO!  I'm sure she will be all about helping feed the baby and rocking her.  We are all very excited and we are happy that baby is healthy and growing!  I'm hoping this kiddo has a head of hair when she comes out, b/c my heartburn is just through the roof!  :)

Here are some photos from our fun party!

First day of 1st Grade

I just can't believe it!  My "baby" started 1st grade this year!  She was somewhat excited to get back to school to see all her friends, since she hadn't seen most of them all summer!  She met her 1st Grade teacher the night before school started, Mrs Wolthuizen.  She is the perfect match for my bubbly lil gal!  Very accepting of Allison's daily hugs, which she pretty much gives to every staff member/teacher in the school when she sees them!  She is quite the popular lil 1st grader.  We are hoping that she continues to excel in her reading and math skills!  She sure loves her books!  Best wishes to Miss A as she begins a fun and exciting year in 1st grade! Love you sweet pea!

20 weeks and 3 days....HALF WAY THERE!

We have reached the 20 week marker of our pregnancy!  Which is really exciting!  I had my very first ultrasound/sonogram with this pregnancy on Tuesday afternoon.  It was a very fun time, as we got to see Baby Colt for the very first time!  10 fingers, 10 toes and baby is growing right on time for a December 31 arrival...if not a few days sooner!  Our appointment was unique in a way that....we did not find out if Baby Colt is a Boy or a Girl.  That information was secretly stuffed into an envelope and sealed tight!  ( I even held it up to the light to see if I could catch a clue, with no luck).  This envelope will be handed to a special baker this evening so she can make cupcakes for us and some guests at our "Gender Reveal Party" next weekend!  So.....we are just a tad bit excited.....as well as our families too!  We took our "20 wk" pregnancy picture last night, so here it is:

We visited the farm the other night and figured we better get a picture in front of Allison's GIANT sunflowers!  The photos were taken with my cell phone, so they aren't that great of quality, but here they are:

We can't believe how tall they are this year!  It all started back in 2010 when Allison and I planted the mammoth sunflowers.  We normally harvest the seeds off the flower heads, but last year the birds got to them first and a lot of the seeds fell to the ground. SO....that meant....lots of flower stalks this year!  Mom and Dad debated tearing them out....or digging up the plants and replanting in another area of the farm, but never got to it.  I think I even pulled a few out of the ground so there wouldn't be that many, but I guess I didn't pull enough!  We are looking forward to harvesting the seeds this year, so we can plant them in other spots next spring!  Or....we might just bake them up and eat them!  YUM!

We also spent this past weekend up at Lake Okoboji, at the LCMS Camp Okoboji on West Lake with Mom's side of the family!  We had a blast as usual!  On our busiest day/night we figured there were 28 of us in the cabin.  We also figured up, if everyone could have made it this year, we would have had 40 people there!  Maybe next year!  Grandma was so happy that those of us there made it.  While waiting in the cabin before checkout time, Grandma was figuring up the numbers and she had a huge smile on her face and I'm pretty sure she wiped a tear or two away.  She just loves having everyone there!  Just like the old days, house full of kids :)  I will try to post some photos of our weekend there in my next post!  Until then....

Hello family and friends!   Decided it was time to start up a blog for our growing family, so you can keep up with all the happenings in the Colt Family!

First off, many of you know that we are expecting.  Baby Colt is due to arrive December 31st.  I start my 19th week tomorrow and pretty excited to almost be at that half way point!  We had a rough trimester as I didn't have a great appetite and dealt with a lot of nausea.  I have avoided a lot of my favorite foods due to the fact that they just didn't taste great.  I lost about 15lbs within the first trimester.  But I know that I will be gaining that back with no problem as soon as we get further along!
We are still waiting for our appointment to find out if we will have a boy or girl...or even multiples!!!   Our first soon is scheduled for the middle of this month. We will then be throwing an exciting gender reveal party!  Which....we will find out the sex of the baby at the same time as the rest of our guests at the party!  So that's...exciting.  I'm sure there are going to be a lot of happy tears!  Here is my first bump picture that we've taken:

Now...onto others.....my sweet Miss Allison!  Allison will be 7 in October and will be starting 1st grade later this month!  Growing up fast.  She's spent most of the summer in Missouri with her dad but we've been lucky to have her home for almost 2 weeks throughout the whole summer.  She's getting really tall...and still looks like a string bean.  Sounds like she is excited to get back home just in time to spend a long weekend in Okoboji with the White Family, which begins in just a few short days.  We are looking forward to getting her back home and settled in for the school year.  Here is a photo of her from the 4th of July weekend:

I'm hoping to continue to update everyone every couple weeks as we progress throughout our pregnancy and also throughout all the happenings of our growing family