An EARLY Mother's Day Present

May 6th: For those of you who know me well, you are well aware that my in-laws currently live in Nova Scotia, Canada. For those of you who don't, let me fill you in a little.

Richard's parents are originally from Miami, FL... but moved to Summerville, SC after Hurricane Andrew when Richard was still a little boy. Several years ago they retraced some family history, and discovered that my mother-in-laws family is from a small town in Nova Scotia- Granville Ferry. While they were there visiting, they discovered that the house that Miss AnnMarie's Great (x4) Grandfather built was 1) a bed and breakfast and 2) for sale. They bought the house on a whim, and spent summer's fixing it up. Then (at EXACTLY the same time that Richard and I started dating...hmmmmm?) in 2007, they decided to move up there full time, retire and run the bed and breakfast!! It is beautiful and suites their personalities perfectly. When (and you SHOULD) visit there, it hard to believe that they ever survived in Miami, FL.

All that to say, that when we found out we were pregnant with the first grandchild... we could not wait to tell them. But I had a dilemma.... they were coming down to visit for Mother's day weekend, because Richard's brother (Brian) was graduating from C of C, but we had not yet had our first OB visit to confirm the pregnancy and we were only 7 weeks pregnant!!

Solution!! So I decided to drop some pretty BIG hints, disguised at Mother's day presents! We just could NOT pass up the chance to tell them in person!!

Me and Miss AnnMarie before we told them our BIG news!! We had to hide in our bedroom, because Grandma Lipinski was sleeping and we had not told ANYONE yet about the baby except for our parents!

An abbreviated version of her Mother's Day card:

"Happy Mother's Day Ms. AnnMarie!! There have been some recent DEVELOPMENTS that we just HAVE to tell you about. It is VERY TINY, but in time I think you will think it is the BEST Mother's Day present!! This is a BIG, LITTLE secret so don't tell ANYONE. I don't want to tip my hand, but Happy (GRAND) Mother's day!!

Love, Richard, Lauren, and ....."

Do you think she figured out all the clues? If not, the next present probably did. We gave her baby stuff with little MONKeys all over it.... for our "little Monk-ey!!" Ms. AnnMarie was totally surprised, but Mr. Bill's response was the BEST. He was totally shocked, and in fact, he really didn't get it... for several minutes. For those of you who know him well, we left him SPEECHLESS! I know... totally shocked.

Yeah for baby Monk!!!