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 : )

Nesting and a few more days...

Nesting.. David and I have been catching up on long put off organizing and cleaning. What fun it is to be nesting. Almost everything is reorganized and cleaned up. Day before yesterday I spent the day organizing our MP3 players and all the cords/paraphanelia that goes along with that. I emptied the MP3 player memory and started fresh for the hospital visit. There are no radios in the L&D rooms so it will be nice to have an assortment of praise and worship music. Jack Johnson might be my new favorite artist. He's a Secular musician but soooo mellow. You can listen to several selections of his at amazon.com if you're not familiar : ). back to cleaning...over the weekend and into Monday and Tuesday, David and I spent time cleaning up the garage. It's amazing as we seem to have to reorganaize the garage every few weeks. Tis a good thing we don'thave a basement because I don't think we could keep up! The garage is where we just go and dump things...We also have oodles of boxes of baby clothes and baby toys, stuffed animals, eletronic cords, tools, etc. stacked from floor to ceiling in the garage. So at any rate, the laundry will be caught up again today, the bathrooms might get cleaned, yesterday I cleaned out the van. I have to move around the car seats in the van for Evelyn and Elora to be in the back seat so that Emma can ride in the middle. That should be interesting. Evelyn yesterday (as she helped clean out the car) informed me that she did NOT want to give Emma her spot in the car. She was very adament that it was her spot and it was not okay for Baby Emma to have it. Uh-Oh.
As I have been organizing I have been trying to put stuff away in the girls photo albums..only to realize that I have not printed photos from our digital media since Easter last year. So in an effort to catch up I have orded 780 prints. Some are duplicates though, so it's not like we had 780 individual photos...just prints. THat should be a fun pile to organize by date and then put into the photo albums...my guess is I'll have to buy new albums after this as theirs will be stuffed full! All along with having Emma at home. Wow.. I should have done this months ago.

We have 5 more days until we meet Emma (today included). We are a definite for Monday morning. We have to arrive at the hospital at 6am so that I am ready for my IV and paperwork around 6:30am. That's crazy!! I can't believe its time. The girls really have no comprehension of what is going on. Our bags are packed and lists are made. I have explicit directions written out for those who are taking care of Evelyn and Elora. Oh what fun!!!

Our new washing maching is soooo very cool. It chimes a melody when the wash load is complete. So cool! Evelyn and Elora love taking turns to help push the buttons to make it start. Praise the Lord for the "Child Lock" Option.

The girls are done with breakfast and so my time is done. Have a Blessed and Wonderful Day!

A SLUMBER PARTY!!!!

Last night, friday night David was again Super Daddy and Super Husband. A girlfriend of mine had a girls night out/slumber party at her house and David kept the girls and off I went. It was such a blast. Sara has been a dear friend of mine for several years (the pastor's wife that married us). We laughed for hours and hours! We played a great card game...apples to apples. Lots of fun. Very hilarious!
It was very refreshing just to hang out with girlfriends and pig out on junk food.... chocolate fondue....bannana pudding....egg rolls... chips and dip...fudgy brownies...wow... if I weren't pregnant I would have been on a serious diet the day after!

Waiting...

April 21st is the magic date.. Our doctor has scheduled us for an induction... Very Very Exciting. We were hoping for the 17th or 18th including the Dr. but the hospital was booked for inductions already. The doctor's office will continue to call and see if there is anyway to squeeze us in for the 17th or 18th. Ah well, the waiting game begins. Will Emma wait? or will she arrive on her own?

A very big day....

Well, it's been quite the Saturday. We packed it full of lots of fun! We started the day out by Evelyn playing on her new "Smart Cycle". It's a stationary bicycle that gets plugged into the TV and then the kiddo's play a video game by pedaling the bicycle and steering to earn points. She has a Dora the Explorer game for it and a Learning game. She really had a blast. Elora likes to push the buttons and cheer Evelyn on. She's a little too short to ride. David left for an appt at 9:30 and the girls and I quickly got antsy for our chance to get out of the house. So we ventured out to the recently uncharted territory of the Mall. We spent a fair amount of time at sears and investigated a new washing machine as ours broke earlier this week. The washer would agitate but not spin to release the wash water and start the rinse and spin cycle. So at any rate, as I looked at the washer I thought I could figure this out and in the process broke the sensor that registers when the lid is down so that the washer can run. Ha ha, now that I broke the sensor David had no chance of trying to figure out what was wrong with it. So we went today and purchased a new LG front load washing machine that can accomodate King Size comforters (Praise the Lord!!!) It will also wash our 8x10 living room rug : ) Hooray!!! The Washer also has the ability to "Steam" items... Hooray for us as that will cut down on the ironing that I should do but never get around to so we wear somewhat wrinkled clothing at times : ) Boy oh boy do I feel lazy.... At any rate. Our new washing machine will be delivered tomorrow and I can begin to catch up on the laundry that has begun to pile up after a few days : ) Oh yes, David joined us at Sears and we had lunch at Chick fil a and let the girls play in the play area. Whew, busy morning. We left Sears and went to the Flowertown Festival that takes place in downtown Summerville. The area was expecting heavy rain and storms so we took our ponchos and umbrellas, and enjoyed walking around looking at the craft vendors and eating delicious "taste of summerville" foods. Yummy. Our friend Brenna joined us with two of her kiddos, Jonah and Adalyn. Brandon, our long lost naval buddy also joined us for the day. We had sooo much fun sweating outside in the humidity until they closed the festival due to impending bad weather. So we rushed as much as we could to the cars and made it back just in time for it to start raining. What fun : )

We left the festival and headed for Chuck e Cheese. This was the first Chuck e Cheese experience I have had as a parent. And I really have very little desire to return on a weekend. The kids enjoyed it and so did the adults(as much as possible). We brought cupcakes to celebrate Evelyn's birthday with and split two pzza's with friends and family. Dawn, Brittany and Isaiah joined us, along with Nan, Brandon, and Brenna, Michael, Shelby, Jonah and Adalyn. Wow.. it was quite a crowd.

We were very happy to come home and relax. The girls and I watched Cinderella on our return and they are now snuggled happily into their bed.

Tomorrow the washer will be here early between 9 and 11 am. No church for me. A risk we took when we agreed to Sunday delivery. So hopefully I'll be doing laundry by noon : )

Have a Happy Day.

A note from "Daddy"

I would like to say I have been so busy with school, work, and the girls that I haven't had an opportunity to post on this site, but in actuality, I just can't compete with the writings of my wonderful wife. This week Claire has been doing all she can to keep up with the girls and keep the house clean. She even taught dance on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights! Picture Claire with baby Emma hanging out in front, hip hopping with a bunch of young ladies! I don't know where she gets her energy, but it is truly inspirational!

We have been trying to have me spend more time with Elora in order to prepare her for Emma's arrival. We are also attempting to get her to go to bed without one of us sitting in the room with her. Tonight we placed a baby gate in front of her room and let her cry for 5 minute, 7 minute, 9 minute, 11 minute and 14 minute periods of time. After the eleven minute period I went in to check on her and she was standing up in the doorway, leaning on the wall and the gate fast asleep. It reminded me of the time fell asleep while walking from the barracks to the galley in boot camp! A quick flash of the camera and she was awake again (hence the 14 minute period). After which she fell asleep on the floor in the doorway and I promptly scooped her up and put her back in bed. She is now fast asleep along with Claire and Evelyn. Good night!

Back at the Ranch...

We are back at the Irminger Ranch and we all have colds. Grandma is spoiling us very nicely and helping us get the rest we need to heal. Last night we accompanied Grandma, Lee and Tracie to church. During children's chior practice, Evelyn sat in a pew and sang along with the big kids preparing for their Easter program. Later, Evelyn turned around and was imitating Ms. Mary Edith direct the children's chior. She decided she wanted to be the teacher. Elora put up with chior practice for about 10 minutes and then we went outside and played on the swingset. Evelyn was beside herself with joy to be participating with the big kids.

When it came time for pajamas Evelyn wore her Disney Princess nightgown and Elora chose a princess t=shirt. Evelyn wasn't familiar with the tshirt and i fully expected her to pitch a fit that she wanted that shirt instead of her gown. She very grown up like said, "Mommy, she has princess jammies too, How Cool is that!" Where does she get this stuff?!?! It was adorable. "How cool is that" I guess I say that occasionally!

Today is the day of the Homeschool easter egg hunt here at the Irminger ranch. Evelyn is out playing and running with all her friends and having a great time. Elora is napping soundly here in the camper. She'll be ready to play soon. Earlier today she put half of a plastic Easter egg in her mouth and choked. Scared me to death. Praise the Lord she got it out of her mouth. I didn't know what was going on until after she was crying and in my arms. I bought them cute matching Easter dresses. Evelyn and Elora are just cute as can be. Elora has been very helpful spilling the dogs drinking water all over Grandma's kitchen floor, she has also been helpful in feeding the dogs even when it's not time to feed them. Mom has a new style washer and dryer with the buttons on the front, so Elora just LOVES to push the buttons and make noise with them. She also has enjoyed riding ont he tractor any chance she gets. I should wake her up so she can go have some fun. Happy Day!

Once Upon A Time....

"once upon a time there was a bear...and his name is Elora...and another bear named Evelyn..and a bear named Dramma (Grandma) and a bear named PaPa (Grandpa)." The story ended there. It had no plot just characters : ) the mind of a two year old. That was the story Evelyn told at dinner last night. Then today I started with "Once Upon a Time there was a Princess Evelyn...and a princess Elora. Princess Evelyn and Princess Elora liked to play in the playhouse at Grandma and Grandpa's house." This story was quickly interrupted by Evelyn informing me "no princess elora just princess me". She is rather adorable and very much loves the Disney Princesses right now. Evelyn and Elora can spot a Cinderella a mile away. Evelyn very clearly can say Cinderella but Elora recognizes her as "Rella". Pretty darn cute in my opinion. Today we stayed home from church and enjoyed the beautiful weather here in GA. 72 degrees sunny and not too breezy. The girls are wearing capri's with long sleeve shirts and Evelyn is excited to be wearing "Summer clothes". Nothing too exciting happening here today. The girls had a picnic lunch on the front porch after playing hard outside in the playhouse and on the swingset. Evelyn informed me she was "bery sleepy" so we headed over to the camper and took naps. It's nice to visit the Ranch and have our own little spot to call our own.

Slacker Blogger...

Okay, I admit it, I'm a slacker blogger. But this isn't as easy as it looks : ). Yesterday we started listening to a new kids praise and worship cd. Evelyn LOVES it. We listened to it on the way to the store and by the time we got to the store and were shopping she was singing as loud as she could "I want to be like Jesus!" She really has a knack for remembering lyrics. As she and I were rocking out in the car she told me to turn down the music and she told me, "Mommy, thank you singing with me... I so proud of you". How cute is that!!! Elora kinda rocks her head back and forth as we sing and she every now and then pipes up. When we sing our abc's she waits very anxiously until the end when she can chime in on the very last word...."won't you sing with ME." She does this also with some of our praise music. What a cutie. We have been dog sitting this week. Our friend Brenna brought us her dog while her family is moving. So Bridges has been sleeping on the back porch and Elora gets so excited to look out the back window and see him. She runs to the back door to see him through out the day and so desperately wants to go play. "Puppy!!!" She screams..."Side" follows (her version of outside).
Elora's vocabulary has been increasing leaps and bounds. I asked her the other night if she wanted spaghetti pie for dinner. I figured she would nod her head yes and happily scamper to the table as she is always hungry, however, this time she responded with a decided "No" followed by "HOT DOG". Little girl LOVES food and she was determined that night to have a hot dog. That was the first time she said "Hot Dog" without seeing one, or me telling her that was what she was eating. I guess I have learned not to ask what she wants for dinner. Because dinner is for them whatever it is for everyone else. No options nor substitutions : )

THey are happily napping right now. It's raining outside. A beautiful restful day. Elora is cutting 4 teeth and growing rapidly. She and Evelyn are now sharing 24 month clothes. Evelyn is very compassionate to her little sister. She still calls Elora "Baby" and we are trying to encourage the use of Elora's name since Baby Emma will be here in a few weeks. When not calling her Baby, Evelyn prefers to call her Elora Madison. Elora can say Emma and knows that for some reason there is a baby that we call Emma in Mommy's Tummy. Amazing how they can just take what I say as truth even though they can't see what I'm talking about. This is reiterating to me how important children's ministry and outreach is. Kids trust their parents and elders so much that they readily believe what they are taught. What an awesome time to teach about the Love of Jesus.

Back Home....

We arrived back home after a loooonger than usual drive home from "the ranch". A 30 minute stop in Columbia followed by Elora crying most of the way home. She was so very tired and just couldn't bear to be in the car at bedtime. Before going to Grandma's house she was rocked to sleep for nap and bedtime, but in our bedroom at Grandma and Grandpa's there is no rocking chair so Elora became accustomed to falling asleep in her bed with me just sitting nearby. What a joy. Bedtime went off without a hitch tonight. Tucked the girls in their beds and David sat and read his school book in the rocking chair and 1o minutes later he was back in the living room. Praise Jesus! Bedtime has always been a struggle with Elora. She's doing much better.
David got home from work and the girls were so excited to see him. Frequently today Evelyn would say "I miss my daddy". She and Elora were so joyful when he got home, squeals of delight and a big hug from the girls. Evelyn ran away shortly after hugging him, but Elora took two steps back, squealed and then reurned to her daddy for another hug and kiss. One thing they missed while away from David was wrestling after bathtime. Tonight they wrestled for about 20 minutes and the girls were sooo delighted to play.

9 weeks....

Baby Emma is due to arrive in 9 weeks. My-oh-my how time flies. Nothing is done yet for the baby. Her bedroom is a playroom, the bassinet is in storage at the Irminger house, clothes are still in a bucket. Lots of things to do. I kept thinking that I had many weeks left before Emma joins our family, but two months and one week are all that remain. And depending on her timing she could come slightly sooner.
I've decided that Elora is an appendage of mine. She's very attached to me. She and her daddy are spending more and more time together in preparation for the baby. She loves her daddy but she's stuck on her mom. This week the big step for her has been that I have not been rocking her to sleep but just sitting next to her on her bed patting her back until she falls asleep. She has also spent much of the week with Grandma.
Evelyn is Miss. Independent. She really enjoys playing by herself, or sitting on the couch by herself watching a movie. She's very focused and intent on whatever she is doing at the moment. Usually the only time she wants to snuggle with me is when I can't hold her. As we're driving down the road she will whine, "Mommy, I want You". She just hasn't grasped the concept that I can't drive and hold her at the same time.

Visiting Grandma and Grandpas...

We're currently visiting Grandma and Grandpa's house. We're here for the week while David is back home working hard and providing a good life for us. The girls are spoiled rotten while here (of course, mommy can over ride any grandparent decision at any moment) but, I too am spoiled. The girls tend to over ride grandparent decisions when it comes to me resting or sitting at the computer. This is why our blog has started. I have had a few spare moments while here and am able to blog. We're getting ready to go to a Valentine's party. Evelyn thinks it is HER party that we're going to and Elora has no idea what we're doing beyond that we're going "bye-bye". Elora has spent countless hours chasing Claudia the cat. Elora tilts her head to one side and "Meows" as she chases the cat. That poor kitty. She can't escape the abuse.

Evelyn's Musical Repetoire....

Lately, Evelyn has been singing, singing, singing. She loves to sing her ABC's. Usually as loud as possible in the middle of the grocery store or whatever other public location we happen to be at. She is rather adorable. Elora also sings along and sings her own version. She tends to follow Evelyn's lead and comes out with similar sounds to what Evelyn just sang. Evelyn also sings "Row, Row, Row The Boat" this boat goes merrily down the street instead of the stream. "The bear went over the mountain" is another common song, she's not as comfortable with this but it still comes across fairly well. "Tinkle, Tinkle, little star" is a definite favorite. She likes to sing that as she sits on the potty. She is potty training now. This makes our outings more interesting. We carry a travel potty in the car with us wherever we go for emergencies! I never knew motherhood was full of such fun and exciting surprises.

A few nights ago at dinner I was getting frustrated with Evelyn. She was sitting on a bar stool that swivels and she kept swiveling. I was nice a few times and asked her to stop then, I just held the stool in place. She proceeded to accidentally fling mashed potatoes off her fork onto the floor. I got so agravated and told her she better behave or she was done eating. Evelyn's response to me was, "I'm just a baby, mommy".

Just a start....

I decided that in an effort to keep in touch with people I'd start a blog. I have no idea how this will go. I don't know that our lives are exciting enough for such journaling. But I'm sure we'll find out soon. Please, don't tell me if you're bored by my rantings and reports. Just smile and nod. It has worked for me for years.