Day 4 and counting....

I am loving having a baby in the house again. It has been fun to watch her & snuggle with her. Tonight we had to take some pictures, but it's funny 'cause I think all baby photos look the same...but I tried. Hope you enjoy these new photos.

My babies...


Big Brother




Abby with her "man face" on


the "little angel"

She's here!!

Ryan and I are very excited to announce the arrival of the newest member of our family...Abigail Elizabeth!

So here's the long story....

On Friday morning at about 1am I woke up with contractions. I didn't think much of it, because I have been having a lot of "false" labor during the last couple weeks & it has been keeping me up for hours on end for the past couple weeks. By 3:30am I realized that it wasn't going away & was actually getting stronger. So I woke Ryan up & we began to get ready to at least head down the hill & get things checked out. Of course, we really weren't ready to go because she wasn't due until November 10th, which is 2 1/2 weeks away! So by 7am we had dropped Micah off at the Pastor's house & we headed down the hill to the hospital (which is an hour & a half away). Of course, through the drive & our initial arrival at the hospital I noticed that my contractions were disappearing & it looked like it really was false labor, but we had driven that far so we figured we'd better check it out. After about 2 hrs of monitors with only about 3-4 contractions/hr Ryan & I were convinced that we were going to be sent home. To our surprise the nurse came in to check me after two hours & said that I had progressed from 4cm to 6cm!! What!! How could that be the case? The next thing I know the Dr. on call is walking in the room offering to break my water...I wasn't too sure if I was ready for all...I still have another 2 1/2 weeks!!! But being that this was a small hospital and there was only one OB on call for the entire maternity ward, and it was a busy day (they delivered 8 babies that day!) I knew I was going to get to wait. So about 4 hrs later (3pm) the Dr. decided to break my water & things took a dramatic turn. I began to have INTENSE contractions (much more than I ever had with Micah) and they quickly progressed to 1-2 minutes apart. After quickly getting my Epidural (man, I LOVE those things!!!) we were off to the races!!! I began pushing at 5:10pm & we had our little girl in our hands by 5:36pm. This was a VERY different labor than Micah's. With Micah I never had very strong or intense contractions before my Epidural & I pushed for over 2 1/2 hours. I expected to endure the same this time around, but it was quite different.

Abby is a beautiful baby girl, with deep blue eyes & a little bit of brown hair on top. We aren't too sure what color her hair will eventually be because she has VERY light eyebrows & eyelashes...maybe a redhead?!! We stayed in the hospital for only 24 hrs & everything checked out fine, so I was eager to return home & introduce Micah to his new baby sister. Micah is actually doing really well with her & we continue to remind him to be gentle with her. She is a VERY quite baby & sleeps a lot & has to be reminded to eat...but I'm ok with that.

I am blessed to have my parents here & hope to send Micah home with them for a week before we take our "big" trip up to Portland to show Abby off. I hope all of you get a chance to meet her soon also!!!

One last escape...

One last great escape. As many of you know I don't like to keep my feet on the ground for very long :-) But now that I'm nearing the final strech of this pregnency it starts to get hard to be "stuck" at home. It's shocking to realize that I have less than 4 wks until this baby is born (much less than that if she follows in Micah's footsteps). So last weekend we decided to take one last trip away from home & the hospital. We went over & spent the night in Eureka. It was beautiful! The weather was georgous & we had the chance to explore & enjoy the "big city" (which really isn't that big for most of you).

On Saturday, after we had finished our shopping (this is usually a ritual whereever we go because of our remote location) we decided to head south on 101 & explore the Redwoods. We took a beautiful 31 mile drive through Humboldt Redwoods State Park. It had been over 9 years since we were last in the Redwoods & we had never been south of Eureka....it was amazing. We really wanted to get out and hike, but we knew two things stood in our way...a sleeping 3 yr old in the back seat & a pregnent Mommy with the best of intentions who can only make it 100 ft. So we explored from the car & roadside stops. But it was enough to make us want to come back & camp...SOON!!

But until our little girl shows up & gets a little bigger I doubt there will be much camping...but we did have Micah camping by 2 1/2 months...so there is hope :-)

Me at 36 wks...the tree doesn't look quite as big with my big belly in front of it :-)


An angle you NEVER want anyone to take of you...but it was funny all the same :-)

It's begining to feel a lot like Halloween

The other day we were at Babies R Us & Micah was trying to convince me to buy him a new Halloween Costume. I don't think he has any idea about Halloween, but he does LOVE to dress up & Halloween is like candy for a kid who likes to dress up. So today we pulled out last year's Halloween costume & were excited to see that it still fit. It's definatly a bit more snug & was hard to get the pants up over his waist...but guess what, Micah is going as Curious George again this year!!



This is last year's photo...it's hard to believe that a year ago we were still living in the 5th wheel, it has sure been a LONG year!

Baby Shower

From Fall '08

What wonderful sister-in-laws I have! This weekend Andree & Christina threw me a baby shower. It was great to get all the cute girl clothes & exciting to see that I don't have to dress my little girl in ALL pink, but a little bit never hurt anyone.

From Fall '08

Watch out!! Don't let the pregnent woman sit in a chair she can't get out of :-)

From Fall '08

I was blessed to have both sides of the family there (including a great sister-in-law who drove all the day down from Seattle!!)

From Fall '08

From Fall '08