The Good Things

Three nights ago my sister walked into my apartment. I was standing in my dining room on the phone with my mom (who knew all about the surprise and called me so she could hear my reaction) when my front door opened and a blonde walked in. My first thought was that someone was coming into the wrong apartment! But after a split second I realized that it was Vee. We hugged each other with the baby squished between us, and we laughed, and I cried. It was a wonderful, fabulous surprise and I am really enjoying having her here!

This child sleeps all.the.time. Apparently it's her favorite thing to do.

I have to disregard my own advice to other moms to never wake a sleeping baby. If I didn't wake her she wouldn't eat much! The only time she wakes on her own is in the middle of the night. That just figures, huh?

Isn't she cute, though? I love her tiny feet.

I can't figure out who she looks like. Last week I thought she looked a lot like the Boogie; this week, not so much. It seems like she changes a little bit every day.

We have still been receiving many gifts for her -- lots of clothes, and lots of diapers. We're not going to have to buy diapers for a loooooong time. Praise the Lord for His provision! And amid the baby gifts the Boogie has not been forgotten. A dear friend sewed some cute dresses for my big girl, and an aunt, uncle, and cousins sent her a new toy: a bubble-machine!

She LOVED it!

Slacking

I know, I know. Please forgive me for neglecting to write about and show pictures of the newest, cutest addition. If you are a parent you understand how less-important things get pushed to the side when a tiny new person joins your household. I hope these pictures will be enough to compensate for lack of blogging lately and in the near future ... :)

(not sure why this last one is sideways)

She's Here!

I was admitted to the hospital for induction on Monday evening. One doctor ordered pitocin to be started around 9 o'clock, but then another doctor stopped it about half an hour later, explaining that normal procedure is to start it in the morning so that the baby can be delivered during the day. She told me to get some rest and to expect the pitocin to be started again around 4 am. God was in that for sure because that half hour was all I needed to kick-start my labor (I had been extremely nervous about the whole induction process and the severity of drug-induced contractions.) I was able to labor medication-free and Phoebe Annette finally made her appearance yesterday morning, May 11, at 3:52 am. She was 21.5 inches and weighed in at a whopping 8 lbs 14 oz. Whew! I never expected her to be THAT big -- my doctor guessed 8-8.25 lbs and I figured he was probably right. I am thankful to have been able to have the drug-free labor and delivery that I really wanted. Praise the Lord for His hand in everything! Our sweet baby girl is healthy and content and the Boogie adores her!

Getting ready to leave for the hospital -- one last belly picture!

Hooked up to monitors

Baby Sister, at last!

Big sister meets little sister ...

... and it's love at first sight.

Now a family of four!

Three Year Olds Are Very Observant!

This has been mentioned a time or two before on this blog, and you will probably read it again: My Man and I love to watch Food Network. We do watch the cooking shows, but we also love the other kinds -- challenges, contests, what restaurants serve the best whatever, etc. On Sunday nights after church we will often turn on Food Network Challenge. My favorite ones to watch are the cake decorating ones. They are amazing! Cakes with a theme are assembled and decorated within a certain time frame. Once they are completed they are moved to a judging table. The winner of the competition gets a medal and $10,000. We make ourselves a late snack/dinner and watch while we eat. The Boogie, of course, watches too. I didn't realize how much she really observed until this morning.

She was playing with her blocks and asked me to help her build a castle. I turned the blocks into a big tower. Then she asked, "Is it a cake? Is it a cake castle?"
"Sure!" I said. (Why not, right? A block cake castle.)
"Can we move it to the table?" she asked, indicating her bed.
I was confused. "What table?" I asked her.
"The judging table," she said.

!!!

"Okay!" I laughed. We carefully moved the blocks to her bed. "Did you win?" I asked her.
"Yes," she said excitedly, "I won! I won! Where's my medal?"

!!!!!!

So I made her a "medal" out of a plastic necklace. She put it on and jumped around. "Ten thousand dollars!" she cheered.

What a funny kid! You just don't know how much they really "get" sometimes.

Another Pregnant Day

I feel like I need make an announcement each time I post: no baby yet!

The other night MIL and I took the Boogie to a college choir concert that SIL3 was singing in. We thought the Boogie would enjoy it but we had no idea just how much she would! She sat in her fold-down seat and shivered with excitement. She asked repeatedly where her Auntie was. She pointed out the lights. She applauded vigorously when everyone else did. She pointed and whispered loudly, "Look! Look! It's Auntie! There she is! See her? See her?" She listened attentively to every song for a while -- if it was slow she got a little distracted and started talking, but if it was upbeat she danced along for the whole thing. Her favorite was a gospel song where the choir clapped in rhythm and swayed back and forth while they sang. She swayed in her seat and clapped along -- I laughed so hard I cried. At the end of every song she would applaud loudly and turn to me and say, "Just one more song, okay? Just one more." She loved it! I will have to keep my eye out for something else to take her to.

Baby Sister apparently has no intention of being born. If she doesn't make her appearance by Monday night we will go to the hospital and have her evicted on Tuesday. I much prefer not to be induced but my doctor won't let me go more than 2 weeks past my due date. I am having lots of contractions so hopefully they will get down to business and do something productive within the next couple of days! Any day is just fine and dandy with me.

Derby Day

Yesterday was the 136th Kentucky Derby! If you've been reading my blog for very long, you probably remember our interest in the Derby. We had to do some grocery shopping in the afternoon so we barely made it home in time to pick favorites. My Man chose Homeboykris but when he realized that Calvin Borel was riding Super Saver he switched to him ... smart thinking! It was fun to watch and we got our annual "Boogie and the Derby" picture:

Last year:

2007 -- she was only a couple of weeks old! (I couldn't find the one from 2008 -- I think we must have taken it with MIL's camera so she probably has it on her computer.)

As I mentioned, we had to go grocery shopping. The Boogie likes to help put things away. Usually she does pretty well but yesterday she was a little distracted, I guess.

At least she asked me about the hairspray: "Honey, does this live in the bafroom?" This afternoon when she was supposed to be napping My Man went in to check on her and found a can of spaghettios on her bed. She must have hidden it somewhere in her room yesterday.

It has warmed up quite a bit and you know what that means for my feet ... puffiness! I have one pair of flip-flops that fit me, and that's it. I reeeeeally hope nothing happens to them ...

Baby Sister is apparently quite content and has no inclination to emerge from her cozy haven. I must say, though, it's nice to have made it to May. At least we won't have our anniversary and TWO birthdays in the same month. We want to spread things out if we can!

Some News

No, no baby yet. :)

I haven't blogged about this, but for almost a year My Man and I have been house-hunting. We found several houses that we liked ... we made offers on a couple of them ... God seemed to keep closing doors.

In February I saw a little house listed on a real estate website. It seemed priced low for the neighborhood, and there were no pictures of the interior which made me suspicious about its condition. But I kept thinking that it wouldn't hurt to just go look at it, and after a couple of weeks we did. We were pleasantly surprised to see that it was actually kind of cute -- VERY outdated, but cute and with a lot of potential. We prayed about it and made an offer.

It took several weeks, but the seller of the house finally agreed to our offer and we signed the contract over two weeks ago. That is, we signed the contract. He did not. He was supposed to, but was dragging his feet.

As first time homebuyers, we were anxious to be under contract by today in order to qualify for the tax credit. Today kept getting closer and the seller still had not signed. We finally got word that he was going to sign last night. As of this morning, however, he had not.

We firmly believe that God has a plan for our lives. We have prayed and prayed and prayed for His guidance and direction in every step of this house-hunting journey. Each prospect that didn't work out was disappointing, but we kept telling ourselves that God had something better for us down the road.

When I saw the email this morning that the seller still had not signed, I cried. I really did. I KNOW God's plan is best -- I keep telling myself that, and I truly do believe it. But you know what? Even though I know His plan is best, it is still initially disappointing to find that His plan doesn't coincide with my own. 

So I cried and prayed and cried some more and God gave me that peace in knowing that He is in control. A tax credit is a drop in the ocean for Him, and God does not need government money!

And then after work My Man got a phone call that the seller had signed the contract this morning.

We are under contract to purchase a house! We are so excited! There are still many steps to take, and there is still the chance that things could fall through. It won't be our house until we actually close, and there is a deadline for closing in order to qualify for the tax credit. But we're on our way and we are so thankful to the Lord for allowing us to get this far. He is so, so good to us.

Now, if this baby would just decide that she would rather be out than in ... :)

Okay, Baby Sister

I think I'm just about ready for you to come. This weekend would be perfect: your daddy won't have to take as much time off of work, and we have some other things planned between now and then. So if you would be so obliging, would you please plan for Friday night or Saturday? Thank you.

Last night we went to bed around 11:00. My Man instantly went to sleep (have I ever mentioned my envy of his ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat? It always takes me a long time to turn off my brain.) I started having contractions. After a long while I dozed off ... then a contraction woke me up. I either slept through some or was able to sleep in between them.  Then they started getting stronger. Not painful, just stronger. Then they were getting closer together. Then I wasn't able to sleep through them anymore. Then they were getting even closer together and I couldn't doze off between them. Then I started timing them: 3-5 minutes apart. Still not painful, but definitely very uncomfortable, and continuing to get stronger. Finally I gave up on sleep, got up to pee (again), got a banana because contractions in the middle of the night apparently make me hungry, sat on the couch and watched "Three's Company" and "The Cosby Show"  and waited to see what would happen next.

Then the contractions stopped. Just fizzled right out.

Then I went back to bed.

The moral of this story is: if you are having contractions in the middle of the night, eat a banana and watch a couple of tv show reruns and they will stop.

(Unless they are the real thing.)

The end.

My Helper

The Boogie is at that age where she LOVES to help. Last night My Man came home for a bit after work and ate dinner, then headed over to church where several men were tearing up a concrete floor. The Boogie woke up from her nap right as he was leaving and was a little bit sad that she couldn't go with Daddy. To distract her I told her that I needed her to be my helper! We washed dishes, made cookies, put together a puzzle several times, and a few other things. When her Daddy came home the Boogie was excited to tell him about what she helped me do -- I "interviewed" her a little later to see if she would say the same things.



I'm so glad she was around to help me watch my favorite game shows. Whatever would I have done without her?

Belly!

39.5 weeks! Baby Sister can come any day now ... we're ready!