a picture to make you smile

while we're all waiting for amelia's arrival, i thought i'd break up the silence with a picture of the cousins. this was karina's first visit to our house since the kids got the swing set, and as you can see, they were all having a ball swinging in the "big kid swings". (this picture was obviously taken during the warmer days of early january... poor kids haven't been outside much this week because it's been FREEZING!) take note of caroline's ponytail. she really only asks to wear a ponytail when she sees karina, whose hair is pretty much always in a ponytail. :) the kids love spending time with karina, and i am so thankful that they have the blessing of growing up just minutes from each other.

and now i am so ready to introduce karina to her newest cousin!! i was over at kristie's last week when she was putting karina to bed, so i went in to say good-night to my precious niece. kristie told her that very soon, she'd get to come to the hospital to see auntie em's new baby. a few minutes later, the conversation turned to their plans for the next day, and kristie said, "...and you know where we're going tomorrow?!" and karina exclaimed, "to the hospital for aunt em's baby to come out!" (or the two-year old equivalent to that!)

i'm as ready as karina is to see this baby girl!! stay tuned...

the Calendar

well, on the way to my appointment this morning, i prayed for patience. and apparently, i need the practice in patience because that's what it's gonna take! patience! i am now dilated a whopping 1.5 cm and my cervix is soft. of course, i was hoping to be a little further along than that, but at least it is a little progress from last week. i also found out that my preferred doctor (the one that delivered ethan and caroline) is not on call again until my due date, next thursday, so that fact makes me in less of a hurry... of course, if i go into labor over the next several days, i will not care who is there to deliver amelia!! :) i gave my nurse a good laugh when i told her that, in addition to the cramping, i had two really strong contractions last night about 2 minutes apart. she looked at me and said, "emily, you can't birth a baby on two contractions!" but better than NO contractions, right?! :)

my doctor and i had a great discussion about how he really wanted me to be a little further along before he felt comfortable inducing me (with a vbac, they are leery of rushing your body to deliver before it has shown signs of being ready because they are concerned about uterine rupture). i told him that yes, i was ready to have this baby, but i of course wanted to do what was best for the baby and my body. because i'm "a vbac", the doctor must be on site at the hospital once i am in labor. therefore, he wanted to go ahead and schedule an induction for my due date because he will already be on call. he told me that he reserves the right to cancel that induction if he sees me next wednesday and i have not progressed. SO nothing is set in stone really. i could either go into labor this week, be induced next thursday, or have to wait a few more days past my due date. :) how's that for uncertainty!? the "scheduler" in me is going crazy, but i just keep telling myself that amelia's birthday is already circled on God's calendar!

in Your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
psalm 139:16

just waiting....

well, it's not too much longer until those sweet new ten little toes come into the world! i always get so excited when the expiration dates on things at grocery store finally match my due date! amelia is still moving and pushing with all her might, and i just keep telling her to move DOWN! move DOWN! hopefully she's listening! at my 38 week appointment last week, i was dilated 1 cm and "a little effaced". so nothing to jump up and down about, but at least things are starting to happen. last night during bible study, i began feeling a little crampy, and i continued to feel contraction-like-but-consistent-cramps throughout the night and most of today. nothing that i could time or keep track of, but i definitely felt them. and it is definitely a sign that my body is getting ready to have this baby! we got our bags ready "just in case", and i went to bed hoping that i would wake up in the middle of the night with serious contractions... but no. my next appointment is in the morning, so i am really hoping to get some good news about my progress. i keep telling myself not to get my hopes up, but after the last 24 hours, i can't help but to get excited!!

i've officially been in obsession mode for the last week or so. every little thing has made me wonder if i'm in labor. every time i get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, i think, "maybe my water will break!" every time she moves like crazy (like she's doing now), i think, "oh, she's packin her bags!" so this whole cramping thing has really pushed me over the edge. i'm ready. and i hope she is too. :) but i'm actually feeling really great. i am not as uncomfortable as i remember being at this point with both ethan and caroline (i think i told brian at the end of my pregnancy with caroline, "if i ever tell you i miss being pregnant, shoot me in the head!"). i am huge, don't get me wrong, but my back really isn't hurting much, and i still feel ok getting around at my almost usual pace. but i do look forward to enjoying amelia on the outside!! the little ticker at the top of my blog made me laugh so hard the other day. here's what it said....


if you can't read it, it says, "i'm at least 7 lbs, and if i decide to stay in here, my fingernails will need be clipped." um, if she "decides to stay in there", the last thing i'm really thinking about is her fingernails! ha!


the kids are getting so excited. we've been talking a lot about what amelia will do at first (sleep, cry) and little noises she'll make. we've practiced how they can tickle her toes and kiss her head softly, and they just giggle and giggle thinking about it. caroline just walks around the house saying, "mee-yah, mee-yah", and ethan has decided that he will teach her "how to say some things". he told me, "i think i will teach her how to say train." you're not surprised, are you?! :) tonite, caroline said, "mee-yah! i like her eyes" out of the blue. as usual, i repeated what i thought she said to make sure i got the translation right, and she said, "pretty eyes!" if you ask caroline, "where's amelia?", she'll say, "still in tummy!" so i'm not the only one ready to see this baby!


it hit me last week that i'm actually about to give birth again. the idea of having another baby around the house has been a wonderful thought, but i just hadn't really contemplated labor much... which is probably a good thing. of course, we're praying that all will go well and that i will be able to avoid a c-section again (2 out of 3 wouldn't be too bad, huh?). it's a blessing to know that God has already written amelia's birth story, and now i'm just ready to live it out!! as the girl at the publix meat counter said to me the other day, "haven't you been pregnant for like 30 years?!", i do feel like it's taken forever to get to this point. but in a week or so (or less!??!), this will all seem like a blink of an eye, and our sweet amelia lynn will have stolen our hearts. i wish i didn't think about it every second of every day. the days would probably go by faster that way, but i can't help myself. it's just as exciting as with the first, but this time, i have an idea of all the joys ahead. :) so come on, baby girl, there's lots of people waiting to love you!

ringing in 2009!

another year has come and gone! i have looked so forward to ringing in 2009 because it means we have entered the birth month for amelia! yay!! we decided to forego our usual new years' plans and try a little different celebration this year. there's a new, beautiful shopping complex in our town, and they advertised a big new years' celebration... so we thought we'd give it a try. we bundled up, slurped our starbucks, and watched the kids go crazy to the music. we planned on staying out there to ring in the new year, and we actually gave some of our friends and family a hard time for leaving really early. well..... about 10:30, the starbucks had worn off, everybody was freezing cold but me, and my feet were killing me. so we gave in and decided to watch the ball drop from the comfort of our couch. even though we tried something new this year, we remembered to take our traditional new years' picture (see above). 6 year old natalie did a great job taking this picture for us! :)

i love the next picture of jonathan and brian's floating head!


and here are my hot chocolate lovers! ethan and caroline loved this special treat!


on our way home, we found out that brian's parents were on their way out to meet us... so they came by our house with fireworks and donuts instead! the kids loved watching daddy & pappy light up fireworks from afar. at first, they observed from the porch...


...and then once the loud popping of the fireworks began, caroline retreated to the foyer. (the foyer that looks like a scene from home alone!)


eventually, the kids warmed up to the quiet sparklers, and they happily rang in the new year! here are our new years kiddos with nana and pappy!


hope you had a wonderful time ringing in the new year! praise God for the blessing of another year and the excitement that it holds!

wii wish you a merry christmas!

well, this is the last chapter in the "christmas blogging that never ends"! our last stop for christmas fun was at brian's parents' house. wii always love spending time over there, and christmas morning was no different. as soon as wii arrived, wii dug into our stockings from nana & pappy and then went right on to the presents. wii started out intending to watch everyone open one present at a time, but somehow, the kids all started opening theirs at once, and it just got crazy from there. i wanted to make sure wii had pictures of the kids opening things, so i stayed on camera duty, and brian did his best to help both kids at once. since karina lost interest in the whole presents thing pretty quickly, kristie was able to help caroline open her gifts (and caroline was happy to help karina as well...haha! what a helpful cousin, huh!?). so next year, i vote for truly opening one present at a time, even if it takes awhile. but i'll also have a very mobile crawling (possibly walking?) baby next christmas, so i may change my vote to the "get it done as soon as possible" method by then! ha! here are some pictures of our gift giving at nana and pappy's. (some of these pictures were taken by jeff & kristie, who just got a great new dslr camera. a big thanks to them for sharing the pictures!)


a mommys' sidenote: i love this first picture of ethan looking in his stocking because of something only i would notice... his sweet toes! look at both of his big toes. ever since he was a baby, ethan has flexed those toes. he will probably read this at 14 years old and give me the "oh mom!" look, but it's those little bitty things that make your children who they are. :) and my firstborn flexes his cute toes. :) ok, back to christmas...

ethan was so excited to find an "m&m" man in his stocking! he was later even more excited to discover that there were m&m's inside!! :)


caroline was very deliberate in how she opened all of her presents this year. she made sure that every little piece of wrapping paper was off of a box before she even looked inside. she really took me back to the days of my childhood when wii tried so hard to be patient as my grandmothers opened presents the same way! :) it's funny because caroline really isn't very careful with much that she does...so this surprised me! here is careful little caroline opening her baby doll stroller. and below that one, you can see her showing off her new minnie mouse pajamas! she could not wait to wear these!



so the first thing up nana's sleeve was a present for the boys. all the boys, young and old. ethan was beside himself when he found out that he got to open up a present with daddy, pappy, and uncle jeff... look at that happy boy!


and the remote control crazy cars that they unwrapped were a hit! they light up, spin around, and their wheels do all kinds of wacky things. nana always finds the funniest things for christmas. i remember the first year that i spent christmas with their whole family, and she gave all the guys robots that could fight each other! anyway, here's the cars at work... i think karina actually had the most fun with these cars. she is a little gadget girl, i tell ya! wii got to take two cars home, and they were so much fun till the batteries died 30 minutes later. i'm not sure if wii are gonna keep feeding those things batteries, but maybe every now and then, wii will pop the rechargeables in there. here are ethan and karina having fun with the cars, and below, you can see that even my grandmother took a turn!



i've included this picture because nana is opening our present wrapped in my favorite wrapping paper for this year! i saw this red and white pattern at hobby lobby and fell in love with it! her box was the biggest, so i knew i wanted to use this paper on that one. i think i'll be able to use it all year because it's really not overly christmas-y.


our big present to nana was silhouette plates of the girls. i'd made one of ethan for her when he turned 2, and i decided to wait to do the girls' plates until they were the same age as ethan was for his plate. the girls' plates were a little more of a challenge because of their hair, but i still think they turned out pretty cute. the silhouette style doesn't really do caroline's bouncy curls justice, but there was really nothing i could do about that. ethan was able to tell me who they were, so at least they passed the recognition test. :) it was neat to compare the three cousins' little profiles! they all have the same little button nose, and karina's lips and chin are her very own. i also framed silhouettes of ethan and caroline for my mom because i knew she'd have a better place for frames vs. plates. it really is a special gift that is fairly easy to make. (remember, i'm really not that crafty!! if i can do it, YOU can do it!!)


and speaking of crafty, check out the beautiful pillow that kristie made for brian & jeff's grandmother! those are tons and tons of buttons, folks. kristie glued and then sewed all of the individual buttons on the (handmade) pillow to make a "g" for gloria, mama hawkins' first name. she also did one for brian & jeff's mom. they turned out so great! the really special part is that the buttons were mama hawkins' mother's buttons. what a wonderful heirloom gift!


well, wii were not the only ones with total surprises for our kids this christmas! as wii were cleaning up the paper and mess from the crazy giftapalooza, nana said there was one more present hiding... it was a big ole' red sack that was too heavy for me to lift. wii dragged it to the middle of the living room floor, and the boys took a peek. check out their facial expressions... for two grown men who rarely show much emotion, these guys were elated to find a nintendo wii at the bottom of that bag! i think brian summed up the excitement when he exclaimed, "i'm seven again!" i just love this picture. brian is grinning from ear to ear, and it looks as if jeff is singing, "haaaalelujah!" :)


i mean, brian smiles a lot, but not that kind of smile. i was telling some friends last week that i think i've seen brian smile that smile a handful of times... when he proposed, when wii got married, and when our babies were born. and when his mom got a wii. :) and i am smiling because the wii stays at nana & pappy's house! yay!!! the best of both worlds! wii can go and enjoy it whenever wii want, but it's not at our house!!! here are the happy boys with their sneaky mom... they are saying, "wii love mom!!!"


while wii were preparing lunch, the boys got started with the games. ethan was already familiar with how it works because he has played it at my dad's. here's daddy and ethan playing a little golf, and below, you can see pappy and ethan duking it out with a little boxing.



it's a good thing that ethan didn't knock out pappy in boxing because wii needed neil to carve the meat! wii had ham, boston butt, and a little bit of turkey. yum yum, was it all so delicious! i didn't subject everyone to a family picture at the dinner table... i know, i'm slacking... but i was hungry. :) but know that wii were all smiling and stuffing our faces! here's neil starting a little early with the stuffing of his face. :)


what should follow christmas lunch other than christmas cookies?!? i dedicated a whole post to these beautiful cookies last year, but again, i'm slacking this year, so i only got a few pictures of the kids devouring their cookies. (and i was busy eating them too!) i think it's slightly easier to convince 1 two year old and 2 one year olds to cooperate for pictures than 1 three year old and 2 two year olds... and wii will see what next year holds! ha! wii may just end up with pictures of the cookies themselves and no kids! so anyway, here are a couple of shots of ethan and caroline enjoying their christmas cookies. i don't think caroline got quite a big enough bite, whatcha think!?



i love this picture of nana reading to the girls. i was happy that i caught this moment since caroline didn't stay up there for very long...


and i will end this post with two beautiful pictures that jeff took of my grandmother and caroline during our christmas festivities. i guess it's as close as i'll get to having a picture of the two of them together this year :), but i love these pictures. as i said in a previous post, it was so wonderful to have my grandmother here to celebrate with us this year. wii also loved having brian's grandmother with us, and it is so special to be able to share our kids with them. granted, they pretty much just saw the kids running around in circles all day, but i think grandmother and mama hawkins both enjoyed the time they spent with us. wii sure did enjoy our time with them!



so this wraps up another christmas. i enjoyed every minute of it, yet it was so nice to pack everything up and get ready for 2009. (especially when that "getting ready" includes preparing for amelia's arrival so soon!!) i pray that your family was blessed with lots of family and fellowship this christmas. i pray that you were able to contemplate the absolute amazing Gift of Jesus Christ coming as a babe to redeem us. and i pray that wii will carry that amazement and joy with us all year long!