amelia's blog debut

we are home with precious amelia! thanks so much for all of your prayers and sweet comments... we are doing great, we are just super tired. i think i have had about 3 hours of sleep since waking up thursday morning, so i'm doing well to be constructing any sort of sentence at all! i just wanted to share a couple of pictures from amelia's birth day to tide you over. never fear, there are many more to come!! here we are as a family of FIVE!


i'll be back in the next couple of days to share more of our baby girl and her proud, proud brother and sister!

amelia lynn has arrived!

Hi--This is Emily's mom just letting you know that Amelia Lynn is here! After a short labor, she arrived at 12:16 p.m. weighing 8 lb. 4 oz. and 20.5" long. We all think she looks just like Ethan when he was born! They are planning to come home on Friday afternoon, so check back later this weekend for "a few" pictures. Thanks for all your prayers for a safe delivery and a healthy baby.

walkin' out the door!

good morning! isn't it a BEAUTIFUL day at 5:35 AM!??! :) we will be leaving for the hospital in just a few minutes!!! i'm just slightly excited as you can tell. our wonderful pastor just called to say hi and to pray for us over the phone, so you really can't start out your birthing day any better than that, can you? brian and i talked last night about how it feels like so long ago that we were doing this with caroline (a whole 2 years! ha!). it feels so different this time around, but i really don't know why that is. maybe it's that there are two excited kiddos waiting to meet their sister... maybe it's that i've had the vbac experience behind me, so i know more what to expect... i don't know. but two things are the same. 1) i could not be any more excited and 2) our God is the same as He was when He perfectly orchestrated the births of ethan and caroline. that is something to hold on to today and to rejoice in!

two cute stories to tide you over till pictures of amelia start overtaking this blog....

-yesterday morning, i got home from my appointment and got the kids out of bed. i greeted them by saying, "guess where mommy's going tomorrow?!?" and ethan exclaimed, "to have amelia!!" in his excitement, he shouted, "i'm going to hug her like THIS!" and hugged his stuffed giraffe with all his might. caroline climbed out of bed and exclaimed, "NOT LIKE THAT!" and slapped herself in the head. oooooh dear, amelia better come out wearing a helmet and shoulder pads!! caroline continued this mantra all day, and i did my best to focus on how we will pat amelia instead of what we won't do!!

-as the kids and i were having a "picnic" on the living room floor yesterday afternoon, we talked about how today would be amelia's actual BIRTHday. this concept was kind of hard for ethan to understand, and he asked, "what kind of birthday is she gonna have?" wellllll....... a DOCTOR's party, i guess! haha. so we're hoping to have a little birthday party for amelia tonite when the kids come to visit.

alrighty, we've gotta get on the road! thanks for your prayers today. we will do our best to get the information out as soon as possible after she's born!

a green light for tomorrow!!!!!

so you can see there is good news to share today! my doctor has given the go ahead for my induction tomorrow morning at 6 am! woohoo! i am dilated to 2 cm, 50% effaced, and "very soft". amelia's sweet lil' head is lower this week, just like i was hoping! thank you Lord! i spent all of monday night and some of tuesday morning timing contractions, so i know my body is preparing to get this baby out... and if i don't go into labor today or tonite, then tomorrow it will be! thank you for your encouragement and prayers. please remember us in prayer tomorrow as we welcome our sweet amelia into our family.

we're gonna try to rig up some kind of internet access at the hospital tomorrow, so hopefully we can share pictures from amelia's BIRTHday pretty soon after she's born! my doctor doesn't plan on breaking my water and getting things rolling till 9 or so because he has a surgery to do earlier in the morning, and he wants to make sure he is completely available for me... we will be twiddling our thumbs and hanging out for awhile. all that to say that i don't expect her arrival before lunch since we'll have a late start. we will let you know as soon as we can! we can't wait!!!!

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!