Can you tell they're related?

We love our Hungry Caterpillar and Beautiful Butterfly!

Happy Birthday Shiloh (only about a month late!)

What a blessing our little two-year-old is! Shiloh fills us with so much joy and we were thrilled to celebrate her 2nd birthday with her! The morning of her birthday, we made blueberry muffins together for breakfast. She loved helping to make them, especially adding the blueberries. Most people don't enjoy making their own breakfast on their birthday, but 2-year-olds don't seem to mind! Shiloh loved blowing out her candles and by 8:30 am knew how old she was. What a great beginning to her birthday week!

Aunt Laura came from Wyoming the night before and enjoyed supper with Shiloh and Mommy. We had one of Shiloh's favorite summer meals, corn on the cob and cucumbers!

Gigi and Papa stopped by to wish Shiloh a happy birthday and bring a few gifts from relatives not able to be here.

Grandma arrived from Colorado on the evening of the 4th. She got to spend a week with Shiloh and they enjoyed rides together in Shiloh's new wagon!

We celebrated Shiloh's birthday throughout the week, eventually giving her our gifts and letting her open gifts from my side of the family as well. The big party, though was on Saturday. Shiloh was surrounded by loved ones and family and noticed all the presents coming in the door. Who cares about eating lunch when there are presents to open! She insisted on doing that first and was very blessed to receive many nice gifts (thank you everyone!)

After presents we ate a yummy lunch and then it was time for the cake!! The night before we labored away making these super fun puppy cakes! I had enough of the zucchini chocolate cake left that I made a body and Shiloh dug into her cake, while our guests enjoyed the cupcakes. It was a beautiful week to celebrate a beautiful girl. Check out more pictures here!

Welcome Avdon Christopher!

The short version

After 5 1/2 hours of labor, start to finish, we were blessed with the birth of Avdon Christopher on Friday, August 20 at 5:33 a.m. He weighed 6 lbs, 7 oz. and was 20" long. Everyone is doing well and we are grateful to God for this new blessing and all the ways he blessed us throughout this event. His name means Christ-bearing servant, and it's a name we pray blesses his life and foretells the type of man he will be. Check out his pictures by clicking here!

The long version (if you want to read the details that I wanted to save for myself)

It was Thursday night, August 19, a little over 2 weeks before our due date. I went to bed around 10:30, wishing I had finished up a few more chores that night than I actually did and looking forward to the weekend to work on cleaning up the house some more. Around midnight I woke up with contractions. Chris wasn’t home from work yet, so I just lay in bed, adrenaline pumping, hoping that this wasn’t labor. I had finished up some important tasks at work, but hadn’t touched base with the people taking over for me while I was gone and was definitely not satisfied with the status and cleanliness of my “nest.” When Chris got home and crawled into bed, I indicated that I was awake and having contractions. He was pretty tired and suggested we just try going to sleep, but I insisted that we pack our bags for Shiloh and for the hospital and then we could try sleeping. Just in case. We started packing, and the contractions continued. I was able to empty my bladder and bowels and ate a banana and some string cheese. I could feel that my contractions were fruitful, really pulling and stretching a lot. I settled into bed, but there was no way I was going to sleep. We timed a couple contractions, and they were lasting over a minute long. We never got around to timing how far apart they were, but I could tell it was 5 minutes or less. Chris helped me to relax through the contractions, but it wasn’t long before I sent him to call his parents (he called them at 2:30). I was nervous about getting Shiloh to Chris’ parents’ house and nervous about when to go to the hospital. As I lay in bed, Chris prepared to get sleepy Shiloh into her Gigi and Papa’s car. I was anxious to have him come back. I was able to handle contractions so much better when he was around to help coach my relaxation. Very shortly after Shiloh left, we got into the car. I felt like my contractions had spaced out a little bit, but were still strong. I was able to walk to the car and get mostly settled in between contractions. This was so different from Shiloh’s labor, as I was in transition while getting into the car with her and extremely uncomfortable the whole time. This time I still felt in control of things. I think this caused me to doubt our decision to go to the hospital. I didn’t want to get there and find out I was hardly dilated.

Chris drove slowly and warned me of bumps. It was really nice to feel like we didn’t have to speed to the hospital, and to just take it slow, allowing me to work with my body. When we arrived at the hospital, Chris parked right in front of the emergency room and got a wheel chair for me. It was around 3:30 a.m. While we waited to get checked in, I was uncomfortable and very cold in the emergency room. Sandy, our midwife met us there and she walked us up to the birthing unit, allowing us to stop when I had a contraction so I could concentrate fully. We went straight into suite 4, and I found out that a co-worker, Tracey, was going to be my nurse. I was thrilled! I had the best medical team I could imagine to help support me through a natural childbirth. We got settled into bed in the dimly lit, quiet room with just the four of us. Sandy examined me and told me the good news that I was 7 cm dilated and 100% effaced with a bulging bag of waters. That was the best news I had heard, as I was still doubting whether or not it was appropriate for me to be at the hospital! I settled into bed with lots of pillows and they quietly monitored the baby’s heartbeat by just placing the monitor on my belly instead of strapping it all on. Then they just let me labor and Chris continued to provide comfort and encouragement to help me relax. I worked really hard to visualize my uterus just pulling my cervix open those 3 more cm.

Before long, the contractions intensified and I was getting ready to push. In preparation for this birth, I was planning on doing “a better job” during 2nd stage. With Shiloh, I laid on my side to push while Chris had to hold one of my legs in the air for an hour. We were both hoping for a different experience this time! While it was different, I don’t think my talents include pushing out a baby! I obviously get the job done, but perhaps not very efficiently! I think I started pushing a little prematurely and things didn’t just feel right, probably because of this. I had remained in control and pretty relaxed up until this point. I got really warm and uncomfortable. I moved from my side to sitting up, getting ready to push. Things get a little fuzzy here as I had to work really hard to keep breathing and not let the contractions get ahead of me. There were reminders from my great team to take deep breaths, and I responded well to that. Sandy broke my water at one point to help things keep moving. For the first time I started doubting whether or not I could do this, and my sensations moved from strong pulling contractions to feeling lots of pain. I had trouble just pushing the baby and spent a lot of energy pushing my legs too! There was plenty of grunting and screams, which really do seem to help, and finally he came out!

He was posterior (face up), which added to the difficulty I had pushing him out. It also added to the tearing and stitches I needed as a result. But none of that mattered when I could feel his little body slipping out. Wow! Apparently I yelled at one point “get him out!” and Chris did just that. He got to pull our little guy right out and immediately bring him up to me. I had shed my clothes back when I started pushing and wasn’t in the least bit disgusted by the slippery little body on my chest. I was pretty amazed. Five and half hours before I was in bed, not in the least expecting I would be having a baby today! He came at 5:33 a.m., and I couldn’t have been more pleased with the whole experience. I was so thankful and so blessed and so in love with this new little man.

The placenta came out before long, which feels really nice and smooth, almost cleansing. Sandy said it looked like there was no need for pitocin, so I went without. We attempted nursing, and had great success within an hour after delivery. Our wonderful nurse Tracey left us alone as much as she could, delaying as many procedures as possible. We opted out of eye drops, but consented for a vitamin K shot and blood sugar testing. Everything went well. Chris asked about our car at one point, assuming that vallet had moved it out of the way. He assumed wrong, as our nurse apparently had received word that someone had abandoned a car right in front of the emergency room. Vallet wasn’t even operating yet! Oops! He got that moved, I called my mom to surprise her with the news, and they finally had to come take Avdon from me in order to weigh him in at 6 lbs 7 oz. He was 20” long and his head was 12 1/2 cm.

The whole experience was rather surreal. I wasn’t even to the point in my pregnancy that I was feeling “ready” or uncomfortably large. But what a blessing to have this beautiful new baby. I am so thankful for the loving coaching of my husband, and that he once again spent time preparing for this event by attending a few Bradley method classes with me, encouraging me to do my exercises and eating a healthy diet throughout pregnancy. I am so thankful to God for all he provided and for keeping us safe and complication free. And now that I’m back home, I’m continually grateful for Chris’ servant heart as he helps take care of our family. I’m healing up, but am unimaginably tired, especially on the nights I’ve gotten 3 hours of sleep altogether! Avdon is quite the nurser, occasionally giving me a 2 1/2 or 3 hour break, but often wanting to nurse every hour and a half or more. My milk was coming in already on Saturday, so he's been getting substance for a while now. It might explain why he's only 2 oz. under his birth weight less than a week after being born! He’s quite the barracuda as well, so each time he latches on, I work hard not to scream out loud. It’s getting better. Slowly. Shiloh is adjusting well. She of course, is very interested in sitting on my lap now, especially when I’m nursing, and is very concerned to do anything without me around. Chris is doing a nice job distracting her and attempting to allow me some rest time. She loves her brother and has read books to him and shared her cars with him. She will be a good big sister.

With that, I’ll be done with this novel and let the story continue from here!

What a big girl!

Shiloh is such a big girl!

She got her first haircut this week

Slept in her new twin sized bed this week (and has really transitioned quite well!)

And takes her bath in the regular tub (we finally gave up hope of saving water as she has most definitely outgrown even the toddler side of the infant bath tub!)


Now...if only we could convince her that using the potty is an important part of being a big girl too....other than talking about it, she is just showing no interest. I am getting used to the fact that we will have two in diapers at once. I will become quite good at doing diaper laundry!

Camping!

We took our first camping trip with Shiloh over the July 4th weekend to the family campground at the Bible Camp Chris and I both worked at. We had beautiful weather (thanks to the weather experts who predicted rain later in the weekend, convincing us to go camping earlier than we first were planning!). The campground was quiet and we remembered most of the supplies we were hoping for...Really, who needs things like hand soap or blankets/sleeping bags to keep warm with anyway when you're out in the wilderness?

Shiloh and this friendly kitty hit it off. She was thrilled that the cat stuck around our campsite the whole night. And when she sees this picture says "kitty was petting me!" which it really was, I suppose!

Playing at the playground was a huge hit. Shiloh loves to climb up ladders. She has yet to demonstrate any fear of falling, though and will just sometimes decide that she is done climbing and let go...

It's not camping if you don't make some sort of tasty treat that will stick in your hair!

Sleeping turned out to be the most challenging part of the trip for all of us! I normally enjoy sleeping on the ground when camping, but this time around I decided we needed to have an air mattress in hopes I would get at least a little bit of sleep. We showed Shiloh her sleeping bag and offered the mattress as well, but it was still hard work to convince her that we would come join her in the tent. She was pretty skeptical about going to sleep in there all by herself! She talked and roamed in the tent for quite awhile while Chris and I sat around the fire and enjoyed our s'mores, and where does she end up finally crashing? Horizontally on the air mattress! We managed to all squeeze on the mostly inflated mattress for the night, but I'm pretty sure Shiloh is the only who slept!

We spent the next morning picking wild raspberries. Shiloh had a blast. She was completely unaffected by the scratches on her arms and just dove right in to eat the berries. Her face and hands were totally stained, clear evidence of a good raspberry picking morning!

Despite Shiloh not contributing a single berry to the bucket, we still ended up with quite a large stash of berries. I made two batches of my Mom's tasty raspberry coffee cake and we made a quadruple batch of raspberry gelato with the leftovers that we couldn't eat with our cereal any longer. What a fun way to end our camping trip. We'll definitely do it again, and this time with a more complete list of what not to forget at home! Check out our picasa photo site to see some more pictures of camping and visiting the camp farm during our morning outing!

Brand New Life

Things are changing for the Family Trip. We have started what my friend Emily likes to call a Brand New Life (or BNL). And we're anticipating a brand new life to join our family in 7 short weeks!

Our BNL actually began June 1 when I started work as a part time employee! Wow! What a huge blessing this has been. We have been praying and searching for a way for me to be home a little bit more and I was able to become one of the first employees ever to go part time at my agency after a proposal I submitted about a year ago was accepted.

This definitely hasn't come without adjustments. I feel like my life used to be work with everything else squeezed in to the weekends and sometimes evenings. I had little left to give to my family! Now I feel like I have life and work is just a part of it. So it took me a few weeks to sort through my thoughts on my self-worth (especially as I sacrificed a part of my job that I have been most passionate about for the last 4 years to do this); who I spend time with (I have some great co-workers who used to be pretty much my only social interaction as well!); and how to spend my extra time constructively. I'm learning how to just spend time playing and being with Shiloh, even though I'm so driven by checklists and to-do lists! And I love not having to squeeze quality time with her in on Saturday when I'm trying to do laundry, get groceries, clean the house, and everything else it takes to run a household!!!

In my BNL, I strive to practice my cello more often, exercise more regularly, spend time with God more regularly, plan outings for Shiloh, connect with friends and family more, cook healthy meals, be more consistent with taking care of our home, and actually get to see my husband too! I'm not there yet, by any means. Especially if I let you know that blogging is one on my list to do at least once per month!! And even as I try to find a new "normal" I'm reminded that it will all be flipped upside down when Baby #2 comes very soon! So I've also been working away (and "encouraging" Chris to work away) at projects before time is devoted to caring for an infant again!

I love feeling less stressed and more willing to get out and do things! I've gone to yoga class at church when I've been able, we went camping over July 4, Shiloh and I went to Omaha this past weekend, we go to the park a lot, we have fun at the grocery store, Shiloh and I did a 5 week Kindermusik class together, and we planted our first garden. Woohooo!

I promise I'll be posting again soon with accounts of camping and trip to Omaha. But for now, these ultrasound pictures are FAR overdue. Pregnancy has been treating me fairly well after getting over the ickyness of the first trimester. Baby is healthy, very active, and has a heart rate around 150. I'm 33 weeks right now and we're joining up with our Bradley childbirth classes again to freshen up on the information tomorrow.

For now, enjoy the long-overdue ultrasound pictures of our little babe. We're getting very excited to meet him and cuddle him up!

This is his face from the most recent ultrasound (June 2)--it might help if you squint!

More shots of baby's head