This is the photo that triggered Elena to exult and Jonathan to cry.

I was fairly certain that Baby No. 4 was going to be a boy. That’s what my wife’s maternal instinct told her and that’s what my paternal self wanted as we went yesterday to get the final, determining ultrasound.

When our ultrasound technician Eileen told us that we were having a girl, I was almost in disbelief.

“What? Are you absolutely sure?”, I asked her.

“Yes, she’s got her legs wide open. You can see the three lines perfectly.”

“Well, what if something starts to grow in those three lines?”

“Nothing is going to grow there. Those three lines mean mean she’s definitely a girl. She’s opening her legs wide open in the ultrasound as if to tell you, ‘Ready or not, here I come!’”

“Well, have you been wrong before?”

“I’ve been doing this for six years and I haven’t been wrong yet – that I know of.”

As I completed my friendly exchange with the technician, my wife Angela was cracking up. She was chuckling not only because she wanted a girl and because I could no longer dream of trying to name her potential boy “Presley” but also because she knew how much I wanted – NEEDED really – another boy to “balance” the massive estrogen thing we have in the house. My poor 11-year-old son Jonathan and I will soon be severely outnumbered in this house: FOUR to two!

As the girl news started to sink in, I began to appreciate the funny and positive side of having three daughters. Privately I’ve ALWAYS laughed at dads who had that many girls but now I’m going to be one of them. The silver lining: every one of those fathers is fiercely loved by their daughters. Maybe it’s because they had to put up with so much to help get them through life.

One controversy the girl helps my wife and I avoid is the battle for a baby boy name. I very much wanted to call my son “Presley.” Since it’s going to be a girl we probably won’t have any conflict but that’s the subject of a future post because we have a long and interesting history about naming kids in my family.

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Perhaps the most interesting reaction to the baby’s sex news came from my older kids, Jonathan and Elena, 7.

Elena is the one who when she first learned that her little sister Briani was born was initially told in the waiting room that Briani was a boy. We captured the prank on video at the time as she was devastated. Jonathan has always made fun of Elena for her reaction that day.

This time the tables turned on my son. When Elena saw the news in the photo accompanying this part of the post, she began whooping it up with “Yes! Yes! Yes!” over the phone.

Jonathan’s reaction stunned me.

“Papito, what do you think about the news?”

Silence.

“Papi, are you there?”

Continued silence.

“Hello! Jonathan?”

His mom Mari got on the phone.

“Manny, he’s very emotional right now. He really wanted a baby brother. Maybe you should explain to him that you felt the same about wanting a boy.”

When Jonathan got back on the phone I could barely hear him at first. Then suddenly he started to quietly rant his concerns:

“Now this means Elena is just going to hog up the baby, just like she does Briani.”

“When we go on road trips, Elena is going to get to sit next to them and I’m going to be left alone.”

“Angela is just going to care about shopping with them and won’t want me to go along because she’ll say that I’m a boy.”

Jonathan kept venting about the news until I reminded him about the one cool perk in all this: he’s THE big brother and the ONE and ONLY brother stands out more than the “Three Sisters.” I think that made him look at things a bit different. Now all we have to do is guard him from thinking he’s the BIG BOSSY brother which would seem to be the natural tendency for an Only Brother.

The biggest silver lining is that Jonathan’s already a great big brother. Having three younger sisters has to be one of the best ways to train up a future husband. By trial of fire, Jonathan is going to KNOW how to be a perfect gentleman.

The moment of truth is upon us.

Today – moments from now really – is the big day we finally learn our baby’s sex.

Between my wife Angela and daughters Elena and Briani, I have tons of estrogen in the house so it sure would be awesome have a second boy to help balance things out.

My wife and Elena want a girl for different reasons. Angela thinks another girl would be more seemless for us to transition to because we have all of Briani’s clothes, the rooms would only need minor touch up and besides that, girls are like little dolls.

Elena wants to feel like the Boss Big Sister so for her she would enjoy having another one to show the ropes of Sisterhood. She’ll also enjoy dressing her up.

My son Jonathan, daughter Briani and I are rooting for a boy. Badly. My son and I are united by one major motive: we want another footballer in the house! We need some testosterone to help us control the wild banshees in the house. Yes, there’s a little too much drama in the PapiBlogger homefront so it would sure be sweet to get some more balance.

Briani says she wants an “hermanito” but given what I know about her when she gets jealous with Elena getting attention, Briani wants to remain our family’s youngest princess. My wife and I have a Briani Sister Plan if that comes to be.

Boy or girl, we’ll all be grateful to have a healthy Election Year baby. I tried to convince my wife to let the sex of the baby determine who would name him but she doesn’t want to do that. In just moments we’ll learn if it’s a boy or a girl and then we’ll commence looking for names.

I’ve taken lots of weird photos in my lifetime but the picture posted here today with this story eats the cake. My wife, three kids and I ran into the woman whose legs are pictured here the other day at the valet for a local mall. The apparently well-heeled woman was casually standing with her husband when the PapiBlogger dude in me pulled out his iPhone and silently snapped away at what you see here.

All of us, the kids included, were ready to burst into laughter but fortunately we did not humiliate ourselves. The valet came before we could do that. After we stopped giggling, my wife, kids and I chatted about the cotton ball legs. Here’s what we thought about this mystery cotton ball wearing person:

- If she was going to have so many cotton balls attached to her legs why didn’t she just put on some pants? She was in a busy mall!

- Did you notice the gauze tape holding all the cotton balls in place? It makes her look like she’s wearing a spider web!

- What if the prank was really on us? (Maybe a hidden camera was capturing our reactions as we quietly giggled and snapped away)

- What if she looked like that because the lady had just had some sort of varicose vein treatment?

- 15 cotton balls appear in this photo but it would have been cool to do a 360-pictorial of her legs because there were cotton balls all around her legs!

Our last major thought has to do with you.

- Maybe if we post this photo on PapiBlogger somebody who’s real smart will chime in with the answer to the mystery cotton balls. Conversely, maybe somebody doesn’t know what the heck this is about either but maybe they will want to add their own commentary.

What do you say about this cotton picking mystery?

When I was 11, my teenage cousin Tammy and I had a memorable conversation about the number of kids that we each planned to have.  Tammy and I didn’t have a clue about parenthood then so at the time it sounded cool for us to say that we would do a competition to see which one of us would be the first to have 50 kids in all 50 states.

Thirty years later my cousin and I have three kids apiece but now that’s about to change because I recently learned – on my birthday, no less – that PapiBlogger is about to be a dad for a fourth time!

When my wife told me the news I instantly remembered the crazy old bet I made with my cousin.  Here’s what else instantly streamed into my head:

- YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?!!!  In fact, my wife initially planned to play a joke on me that she was pregnant.  Then she saw the pregnancy test and the joke was on both of us, two 40-something year olds who didn’t think they would have more kids again.  (If we live long enough we’ll both be old grandparents).

- This means we’re headed back to the parenting joys of diapers, compotas and sleepless nights!

- Maybe there’s a sponsorship opportunity in this pregnancy somehow.  Hey, if we’ve been able to get two consecutive, 40-plus day summer family road trips sponsored by major brands that love our blogging work, why not try to get one for our pregnancy and baby adventures?  I’ll be blogging, Facebook and tweeting about our pregnancy and the baby from this point forward.  (Yo, Pampers, can we talk?)

We won't be doing an epic summer family road trip this year like we did in 2011 with Disney and Buick but expect something fun and different from us in 2012!

- It’s time to get a new PapiMobile! My wife has been lobbying me for a new family vehicle for four years so now she’ll get her wish.  I’m a miser when it comes to buying cars but we need a bigger one that will last us a long time.  The current front runner to be the official family car? The Buick Enclave.  We had a terrific experience with the Enclave during our 10,000 PapiBlogger family road trip to Alaska and it also has a lot of nostalgia points with the kids.  (We’ll keep you posted on this).

The 2012 Buick Enclave is the early front runner to be the official family vehicle of the growing PapiBlogger clan. Here's the Enclave we drove this summer on our road trip in front of Crater Lake, Oregon.

- This is clearly a sign that one of my kids must be destined to be President of the United States.  God willing, all four of my children will be official Election Year Babies: 2000, 2004, 2008 and now 2012.  (In case you’re wondering, yes, for better and for worse, my presidential choice has won each of those elections).

- God help me be a great dad to four kids.   Believe it or not, this is the number one thing that I think about the most.  I know it’s possible to be a good father to four kids but I sincerely don’t know how the great dads of old did it with 12-children family homes.  I am sincerely depending even more on God to help me be the dad that Baby No. 4 deserves.

- There go our plans for this summer’s Hawaiian vacations!  This summer the PapiBlogger clan had scheduled a big family adventure for Hawaii but that’s now close to impossible because our baby is due right smack in the middle of the summer.  (We’ll try to do SOMETHING to make up for this but Hawaii seems totally out of the question).

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And for those of you who need help building some of the cool projects from Home Depot, look at these DIY videos:

My fellow blogger Rory from Mama Contemporanea and I hand-picked the gifts you see featured in our Holiday Gift guide. Unfortunately at the time the guide was sent to be published there were still a few items we had not had a chance to test out and therefore recommend. Nevertheless, these gifts are worth a mention and a post of their own because I’m that positive your kids, family and you, will truly enjoy them.

1) Disney Princess Storytime Belle
My 3 year old Briani loves anything Dinsey and this adorable Princess Belle doll is no different. She sings, smiles and laughs along with Briani. I love watching her interact with her doll as she reads her books and hangs out with her just like a regular best friend. If you have a little princess in your home, I highly recommend getting her this for Christmas. She will love it!

Available at Target

2) Epson Artisan 810 all-in-one printer

We do a lot of printing here at the Ruiz home and this  printer gets all the jobs done right. From photos to documents and labels…your results will always be satisfactory. It powers through Ultra Hi-Definition 4″ x 6″ photos in as fast as 10 seconds!  The convenient Wi-Fi and Ethernet networking allows me to  print, scan and access memory card slots from any room in the house.

Available at Epson.com

3) Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-TX10 16.2 MP Waterproof Digital Still Camera

I used this camera all through out my Papiblogger Road Trip. Needless to say,  I was devestated when I discovered I had misplaced it. I thought about just forgetting about it, but I couldn’t resist purchasing it again, so that’s exactly what I did last month– that’s how much I am in love with this camera. This camera takes awesome pictures,  is super easy to use,  it’s so small that it practically fits anywhere and plus, it is waterproof!

Available at store.sony.com

4) NERF VORTEX NITRON Blaster

The VORTEX NITRON disc blaster has a  cutting-edge acceleration trigger propels a full-auto storm of discs toward targets at extreme range for an all-out assault. My son Jonathan and I really enjoy having target-shooting competitions in our backyard. This blaster has so much power and it really makes you feel in control. It is a blast to play with.

Best of all this weekend (Friday, Dec. 16 and Saturday, Dec. 17 )  Target is offering savings of up to 40 percent on electronics, toys, home items, apparel and accessories. And if you spend $75 or more in stores, you  will receive a $10 Target GiftCard. This is perfect for checking-off those last gifts off of your list while saving a little money for the New Year!

Available at Target

5) Mophie Juice Pack Air Case and Rechargeable Battery

For those of you who know me, you know that I am almost ALWAYS talking on my phone..and when I’m not home, you’ll see me on my iphone. That’s why making sure my phone is always charged is extremely important. This juice pack never lets me down. I can rest-assured that I will never miss an important call from a client or family member knowing my battery will always be juiced up. I found mine at amazon.com but I’m sure you can find it at national retail/electronic stores as well.

So grab your computer, a mug of egg nog and join us next Wednesday, December 14th at 9pm EST for a very merry Holiday Traditions and Gift Giving Twitter party! Don’t forget to RSVP below.

Twitter Party Details:

When: December 14th at 9pm

Hosts: @papiblogger  @mcontemporanea

Co-Hosts: @naturalmentmama @cuponeandolive @mamaxxi

Hashtag: #SprintConnects

Prizes:

Samsung Conquer Sprint

Monster Wheel 4×4 Silverado from Radioshack ($69.99)

Fisher Price Kid Tough See Yourself Camera ($50)

Fisher-Price Playtime Bouncer – Animal Krackers  ($55)

A Season’s Worth of Pretty- Clinique ($32.50)

Clinique Skin Supplies Gift Set For Men ($36.50)

A Bobbi Brown “Bobbi’s Party” Eau de Parfum ($60)

(2) $100 Target Gift Cards

You must RSVP below in order to be eligible. Winners chosen by www.random.org

With Thanksgiving now behind us  what better way to welcome the holidays than with Papiblogger’s and Mama Contemporanea’s annual MEGA Holiday Gift Guide Twitter Party! Come celebrate all that the holidays’ can be with the help of a little planning. This guide will help you get some ideas and will come in handy when you do your holiday shopping. As parents, Rory and I have tested most of these products and know they will make great gifts for your tweens, kids, toddlers, babies and even for yourself!

To start the holiday season right, we will be giving away  these awesome prizes during our Holiday Gift Guide Twitter Party!

(2) $150 Gift Cards from Home Depot

A  Nexus S 4G Phone from Sprint

A Blackberry Playbook 7-inch Tablet ($300 retail value)

i.Sound Portable Power Max ($80 retail value)

To join in the Holiday Gift Guide Twitter Party you MUST follow the Hispanicize Team & Twitter Party Co-Hosts:

Rory – @mcontemporanea
Manny Ruiz – @PapiBlogger
Louis Pagan- @LouisPagan
Flor de Maria- @flordemariaf
Maybelline Valenti- @NaturalmentMama
Hispanicize – @Hispanicize

Twitter Party Details:

Date: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 from 9:00 to 10:30 p.m. ET

Required Hashtag: #fiestashomedepot   #hispz

Language: ENGLISH and SPANISH

You MUST RSVP below to participate.

Winners will be chosen randomly from those answering Holiday Gift Guide questions and using the #hispz hashtag.

Open to US Residents ONLY.