where do I start?

Surprisingly enough, we are settling into normal life. The girls are as amazing as ever, and David is enjoying his new job. I am enjoying Mother's Day. David and the girls made me waffles from scratch with a yummy homemade strawberry sauce. Emma is growing. We just switched her from regular formula to a soy based formula. Her stomach hasn't agreed with the cow's milk base for several days and so we switched! the first baby to experience soy formula in our family. she is a heavy sleeper..praise the Lord... and she sleeps fairly well at night. Usually up at 12:30 and 4:30 am. Goes to sleep around 9pm. The big girls are still adjusting to her but truly seem to love her. Evelyn's imagination has been amazing me. She plays princesses, mermaids, Dora and puppies all day long. Elora is just trying to keep up with her! Elora is 20 months now and that just flabbergasts me as she was my "baby" for so long and now she's the middle child and seems so grown up.

Well, my moment is over, Emma is stirring and ready for a bottle : )

Emma's first dr's appt...

Emma had her first doctor's visit on Friday. She weighed in at 8lbs 13 oz. She was born at 9lbs and left the hospital at 8lbs 7oz. She's a healthy eater! Her coloring is great, no jaundice, and the doctor had no concerns. Hooray!!

Emma has been our healthiest newborn. Evelyn had to have IV antibiotics for several days, She had an antennae stuck out of her forehead for her IV. Elora had jaundice, so we came home from the hospital with a blue light blanket and had to return to the hospital every day for 3 days to have her blood checked. That was not easy.

All is quiet....for the moment

Evelyn, Elora and Emma are all sleeping. David is reading a magazine, the tv is off, the dishwasher is not running (although, I should have started it before I left the kitchen), the washer and dryer aren't running (although, it should be!). The only noises are the hum of the air conditioner and the soothing dull noise of Emma's swing rocking her. Wow. What a moment. So you might ask, "Claire, why are you not sleeping?!?!" and the answer is, I don't really have a good reason. I could very easily lay down and sleep, but thought I would blog for a moment instead. Evelyn and Elora are adjusting nicely to having a sister, Evelyn likes to show her all the toys and stuffed animals. She also enjoys holding her for a moment or two until tipping the pillow Emma is lying on to try to push her off. Elora is a big helper. Her job is to carry the bottle from the kitchen to whomever is going to feed Emma. If I make the bottle, and am going to feed Emma I have to give it to Elora and then I follow her to either Bertha (David's man chair) or to the red recliner/rocking chair we stole from mom and dad. She's very proud of being such an integral piece of Emma's feeding routine. Elora then likes to climb up next to the feeder and help hold Emma's bottle, and give her hugs and kisses as she eats. It's all very cute until someone either gets hurt (Emma) or gets their feelings hurt (Elora) because she can't help as much as she'd like.
Evelyn and Elora are wonderful, sweet girls, and unfortunately I lose my patience with them all too often. They however are sleeping very well and falling asleep well too. Lots of work has gone into training them to stay in their beds and fall asleep quickly. Emma on the other hand has very little routine, except to wake up every night at 2am. This wake up session usually lasts several hours. Last night until about 5:30am. Frustrating that her days and nights are all switched around. Yesterday, Evelyn, elora and I left the house to go visit Aunt Dawn and then head to walmart at around 8am so that Daddy and Emma could sleep. Today it was my turn to sleep in and get a few extra zzz's. I wonder how it will work this week as David goes back to work and the girls and I are on our own....
Alas, life is good.

Family of 5...

Our family is complete. Well, all 3 girls are home and sleeping in their beds. Life is good. God is good. Having Evelyn and Elora greet Emma and hug and kiss her was a great moment. Evelyn was very excited to hold baby Emma and sat eagerly waiting in the rocking chair with a pillow across her lap to rest Emma on. She and Grandma had been reading a book about new babies this past week and Evelyn learned that she can hold the baby as long as she has a pillow. So she quickly ran to her bed and brought out her pillow to hold Emma. They are both intrigued by the baby and how small she is. Elora loves to just rub her head, pat her belly and gve her kisses. Just for a moment or two and then runs away. Evelyn likes to hold Emma and give her a bottle. Evelyn and Elora were showing off their belly buttons and asked to see Emma's. Of course Emma still has her umbilical stump which is not very pretty. Elora was very concerned about Emma's belly button, frowned in pain and said "hurts" over and over again as she pointed to her own belly button. She is a very compassionate child.

Emma is a very peaceful baby so far. I can remember lots of crying from Evelyn and Elora at this time. I have chosen not to breastfeed Emma so the feedings are much less stressful on both of us. So maybe that has attributed to her happiness. She is most defintely a joy. And our joy just woke up : ) It's bottle time!

Emma Joy

Emma was born Monday at 4:54 pm. I took my time all day but when Emma was ready to join us we couldn't stop her! She was born very quickly and very easily. Praise the Lord! We had wonderful nurses the whole time we were at the hospital. We are now home and very tired. Evelyn and Elora are visting at Grandma and Grandpa's house but should be returning tomorrow. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts, prayers and praises! Praise the Lord for Emma!

Music...

My girlfriend Gina recommended Matisyahu. A Jew from New York... He sings Old Testament Reggae. Very cool. Check it out: Warrior click here

Miss the Girls...but this sure is nice....

David and I are almost at a loss as to what to do with ourselves! David and my mom met last night at our halfway meeting point...a Sonic about 1.5 hours for each of us.. And David gave her the girls for the next few days. Praise the Lord!! I slept so well last night. No concerns and no girls needing our attention in the middle of the night. We've had a wonderful day full of relaxing, housework, and just spending wonderful time together. It's kind of like a date weekend instead of a date night : ) what a blessing just before baby Emma arrives. Today we visited the mall to make some returns and ended up shopping in the Christian bookstore. We purchased some excellent Christian music. We can now highly reccommend Caleb Collins- he sings beautifully! Something like Michael Buble or Frank Sinatra. Ahhh, the combination of Frank Sinatra style and lyrics about Jesus...something to soothe the soul. Very cool music. I think it's defintely David's new favorite cd! We also purchased a new Passion cd, and I've been hunting for Christian music with a Jack Johnson sound and we we introduced to Shawn McDonald...kinda similar...the lyrics are a little odd or cheesy..something just not quite there. Anyways...

We had a wonderful day. The day is almost done and we're down to less than 36 hours before we go to the hospital to meet Emma. The days of full nights sleep are over again. We're fairly ready here at home. The bags are packed, car seat is ready. The bottles have been ordered and should arrive in the next few days.

David took pictures of me so that everyone can see my pregnant beautyness. Enjoy! Laughter is totally okay, well maybe just a chuckle. David bought be a book today called, "bouncing back from pregnancy" it is based on the "body by God" and "Food By God" plan by dr. ben lerner. Looks interesting. We shall see : )