She's here!

Mallie Jane
12:22am
7lbs 5 oz
21.25 inches

Little MJ is here. My girls have been more than cooperative about waiting to come until my parents get into town. I wasn't actually suprised that it all happened last night. You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you how fast the labor and delivery went so I'll spare the details for now. I want to sit down and timeline it for my journal so when I do I'll post the birth story sometime this week.

Ashton woke up this morning and saw the birthing tub in the living room and asked David, "Did Mommy have her baby?" He's so dang smart. Then as soon as he actually saw baby Mal he asked for Hannah - I think he thought she had been replaced. This whole pregnancy I've felt that if this baby was a girl it's Hannah's little best friend and that they must've made a pact to come down close together despite their Mom and Dad's plans for spacing. It'll be hard on Hannah for a little while since she's still so little but I just know she'll be thrilled that her little sister is here and they're only 14.5 months apart. And if you ask Ashton he is very proud to now have 2 sisters, just ask and he'll tell you.

Until next time...

This isn't the baby post yet...

thank goodness. My parents fly in in just a few hours and I'm relieved to still be pregnant. David and I had a list of things to do (including buying the minivan) before this baby arrived and thankfully we got them all done. We were so glad to have everything checked off our list that we decided to take the kids to the zoo in the 100 degree heat. It was worth it even though we all left drenched in sweat.
Next time I'll have to remember to get a picture with the real animals.

This picture made me laugh. Some of you may remember this post of Ashton leaving the zoo in his diaper. Some things never change. So in case you didn't know - I'm a pretty classy mom with my 2.5 year old eating a fiber one bar and my 1 year old leaving in her diaper. That's the way we roll around here. Hannah wasn't complaining, out of everyone she stayed the coolest.

So here's the last post until baby #3 comes along. And here's hopefully the last picture of this pregnancy!

Getting ready...

I went out to the garage to grab some onesies from each kids' clothes box and I got bit by 3 mosquitos in about 20 seconds so I scratched that plan. Instead I went to Target and bought a 5 pack of pink and blue ones so this new little one will have something of his/her very own atleast for the first couple of days.
Everyone has asked us if it's been hard not knowing the gender of this baby... and up until this past week I have answered it's been really easy once we decided we wanted to keep it a suprise. But David & I find ourselves getting more and more anxious as the time comes closer. Not calling it by a name is so new to us and we're getting more and more excited to meet this little one. Ashton called it a boy up until this week and now he calls it his baby sister - so we'll see.

Thankfully the house is clean and hopefully we can maintain it for the next 10 days or so. My parents fly in on the 29th - so we're aiming for sometime after then. Hopefully it all works out as smoothly as last time! My bet is the 30th - any takers?

And just b/c she's cute here's Hannah's latest obsession. She also has to be wearing shoes all the time now. She's growing into a little girl and it's sooo fun to see the differences already of raising girls vs. boys.

4th of July Family Pic

I would post the real one of all of us smiling but this one is by far the best picture taken that day.

And here are all the grandkids. This new baby will be #26. It's not so much the number of grandkids that is so impressive it's that the oldest is only 11. It's pretty incredible to see 25 cousins that aren't more than 11 years apart.

We had a great 4th of July and were so grateful to celebrate the freedoms we all enjoy watching fireworks being shot off Memorial Hill.

Nesting but not exactly by choice.

I don't know how many of you know the the logistics of homebirths so I'll explain. Anyone whose gone natural can agree that it's much more comfortable to labor at home than in a hospital. Having done both now I can atest it's also much calmer to deliver at home. That being said the one part I don't love about doing it at home is having to keep my house clean so that in a few minutes notice I won't mind having a baby there and not be distracted by my mess. Which means basically once I'm 36 weeks (b/c that's when my midwife will deliver at home) I am in a constant state of picking up and vacuuming because when labor starts it's go time and it's all happening right here. It's no easy task to keep a house orderly when I've got two toddlers running around and I'm huge. But I guess I can say I'm secretly grateful I have no choice but to stay motivated on the cleaning front since I've neglected it for the last couple of months with my tired pregnancy excuses.
So wish me luck - I'll probably need it more for the up keep of the house than the actual birthing part. Call me crazy but the latter is looking much more appealing at this point.

This is what happens

when you have an obscenely talented sis-in-law and brother who have picked up photography as their new hobby. They got a shot of both kids sitting still AND smiling in 10 minutes.

Thanks Abe & Kim!

The 4th of July family reunion pic to come as soon as I can get it to upload.