Welcome, Owen Isaiah!

We're praising God for the safe arrival of Owen Isaiah on January 14th at 6:56am. He weighed in at 6lbs 2oz and looks like his daddy. :) We're especially thankful that he made it to 36 1/2 wks - that allowed us to deliver here in town. With both our girls, my water has broken, and I've had to be induced. So with this little guy, I was expecting a very similar scenario. But of course, he's a boy, so why would things be normal??? :) On Thursday evening, I started to get contractions around 10:30. But after a few hours, they were still 10 minutes apart. And since I've never had to time contractions before, I was quite clueless about when to call my doctor. Finally around 2:00am, I called my doctor and said, "These things hurt even though they're far apart!" So she let me come in. I was only 2cm dilated, so she said if I didn't make significant progress by 5am, they'd send me home. I most certainly did NOT want to be sent home, so Nate and I walked around the floor (we were the ONLY patients!) and even did squats to get this thing moving along! (I'm sure we made quite a picture!!!!) Finally at 4:45 the nurse said that there wasn't progress with my contractions on the monitor - I begged to differ b/c they hurt really bad. So she checked me and said with huge eyes, "You're atleast an 8! Quick, let's get to the next room!" So off we went, me feeling quite justified that I wasn't delusional - I know the difference b/t a Braxton Hicks and REAL contractions. Of course it was too late for my best friend: the epidural, and I was quite disappointed. Yes, I gave birth with no meds, and no, I never want to do it again - "terrible" is the only word that comes to mind. Owen was born soon after the doctor showed up, and I was never so glad to be done with anything in my life.

Nate and I feel so incredibly blessed to be parents to this little boy. He has charmed all of us and is such a calm, sweet baby. He has jaundice, but other than that is very healthy. I feel better than I did after my other two, so I'm glad life can get back to our new "normal."

We praise God for the "good and perfect gift" he's given us in Owen!!

Baby Boy Birkholz

Yes, our little "princess/pink/girly" world is about to change in 4 months! We were so thrilled to find out that God has given us a little boy to look forward to. I had it in my head that this one was a girl, so it took me a few hours to get over the shock of it. :) But as soon as I saw him yawn on the ultrasound, I was smitten. We're praising God for this amazing gift and we can't wait to meet him!

*Names are still being debated. Adrianna's choices are Ginger and Peppermint.

Natalie's Second Birthday

Time has gotten away from me again! With all the fun activities of summer, I haven't posted anything in a long time. But I couldn't go longer without posting about my Natalie's 2nd birthday. Natalie keeps us on our toes and has proven to me that two girls from the same parents can be entirely different. I could focus on a few traits that I must choose to love about Natalie: like the fact that she hates meat and veggies, or that she eats candles, crayons, chalk, spices and other oddities, or that she consistently loves to get into dirty, gross things. But since it is her birthday I will focus on the things that I can't help but love about her. :)

*The adorable gap between her two front teeth (I see braces in her future)
*Her uncontrollable curly, frizzy hair
*Any time I sit down, she's on my lap ready to cuddle
*She is obsessed with brushing her teeth and washing her hands with soap
*I have to spell words like "cookie, candy, cake, brownie, sucker, gum" because Natalie goes insane at the mention of those words!
*Adrianna is her favorite person in the world
*When I am disciplining her and trying to get a point across, she frequently plugs my nose and says, "PEEEEWWWW!"
*When I play the piano, she gets her pink Bible and sings at the top of her lungs
*Her high-pitched voice saying "Hi!" to me as I open her door each morning
*The fact that she's our second child and hasn't gotten nearly the one-on-one attention that her sister did hasn't stopped us from being completely overwhelmed with love for our little girl.

Thank you, God, for such a wonderful gift!!

Summer Favorites:

*no snow
*no coats
*Natalie's chubby legs in shorts :)
*sunshine and loud birds to wake me up each morning
*eating lunch on the deck
*watching the neighbor's puppies (notice my peeping-toms looking through the fence!)
*the farmer's market
*planting our garden
*sun, sun, sun
*taking Nate lunch at work and having a picnic behind the church
*our swingset
*the girls sleep so hard at night after wearing each other out in the backyard
*bare feet
*seeing family on vacations
*the beach
*garage sales!!!!!
*picking berries
*grilling
*It's only June!!!! :)

A few Easter pictures

Reading Buddies

I've been looking forward to this time for the last year and a half: the time when Adrianna and Natalie would really enjoy doing things together. I'm sure every parent of two or more kiddos knows what I mean. Adrianna has usually enjoyed having Natalie around the house, but in the last few weeks, Natalie has become more of a buddy to her. On the top ten of my favorite things is watching Adrianna read to Natalie (not that we haven't had a few of those sweet times erupt into war). :)

My Valentines :)