hello sister!

hi amelia, it's your big brother ethan here. mommy said she is done writing about waiting on you, so i figured that i should say hi before you get here. are you comin' or not? they have been talking about "when amelia is born" for what seems like forever, and mommy looks like she can't hold you in much longer. did you know she has all these lines on her belly? do you have crayons in there or something? and how can you be comfortable in there? mommy has your pretty crib all ready for you. believe me, there is much more room on the outside. mommy's belly gets in the way of so much right now! she can't tuck me in on my top bunk, and she gave bathtime duty over to daddy a long time ago (though i really think she likes the break from bathtime duty!). and every sunday when we stand up in church, her belly bonks me in the head over and over! can a kid not sing "holy, holy, holy" without a belly interrupting him!? anyway, please come soon. we pray for you everyday, and i have so many things i want to teach you. we have a ton of trains and balls that i know you will love. daddy & mommy keep telling me that at first, you will just sleep and cry, but that can't be all you'll do. surely you want to play with trains, too! well, caroline wants to say hi, too, so i'd better go. we can't wait to hold you and kiss you and make you smile! please come soon, amelia! i'm really getting tired of waiting! love, ethan

hey mee-yah. it's caroline. your sister. your BIG sister. will you please come out now? i really really want to see you. and i really really want mommy's lap back. i never wanted to snuggle when i was a baby, but now i am wanting to make up for lost time... and apparently this is really bad timing. because mommy has no lap. and her belly is poking out of her shirts. at home, i am always telling her to "close amelia" to pull her shirt down over her belly. i know that once you get here, mommy's shirts will fit and she will have room for me again! i have been having so much fun playing with all your baby toys in your room. mommy is trying to teach me how to push your baby swing gently, but i think you would really like to swing really high in it like i do in my swing in the backyard. i am all ready to sing "la la lu" to you just like the mommy in "lady and the tramp" sings to her baby. i practice singing this all day so that i will get it just right when you get here. i am such a big girl now, and i am ready to hand over the "baby girl" title to you. you get to wear all my clothes from when i was a baby, and i am also giving you my room. maybe one day we can share a room- we will have lots of fun as sisters, i know it! so what are you waiting for? come on out and see us soon! i love you, caroline

wait, we have a couple more pictures before we sneak back to bed... mommy likes to take these pictures of her holding her belly every now and then. we're not really sure why because we are frankly getting tired of the belly... but we'd better put this picture on here for mommy. we heard her say that she is at 39 and 1/2 weeks, whatever that means. maybe this will be the last belly picture mommy takes before she goes to the hospital.


ethan, don't forget this one of me! i've watched mommy take so many of these belly pictures that i knew just what to do!


ok, amelia, we can't wait to see you! mommy has been going around the house organizing and cleaning up all kinds of stuff, so maybe that means you are on your way soon!

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!