Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Presenting...Eden Adele Swint!

Miss Eden Adele Swint
*12/20/2011
*7lb 12oz.
*19"
*8:58am
*Apgar scores = 9's
*Less hair than her brothers...more toward Owen's color than Asher's.  Less curly than Owen's at birth and more curly than Asher's.
*a tiny little peanut!
(*not. a. sleeper....hope that changes!)















Friday, December 16, 2011

T minus 3 days, 9 hours and change...

...little nervewracking knowing one is going into surgery.  Wish it were not so.  But alas, grateful for good care since it is.  I had my telephone pre-op today and found out that we need to be at the reception desk at 6am, not 6:30am.  So, with 50 minute transit, and the need to take a surgical shower with chlorhexadine something something that morning (hibiclens), and general getting ready, Tuesday is going to be an early morning :} Also found out that surgery with each subsequent C-section takes longer because of scar tissue and adhesions at the incision site.  How does a body take all this abuse?  (Aunt Liskin, less some divine intervention, you don't need to worry about knitting us any more stockings, know what I mean?)

But we're going to meet our little girl!  I'm mostly just excited!  We're down to a short list of names now, which is serious progress.  Owen doesn't like a one of them, and is still insisting on 'Flower', or if he really has to be flexible, 'Rose'.  Good thing I know he'll come around quickly (and I told him that he can call her whatever he wants and Flower can be his special nickname for her if he wants to call her that...he is satisfied).  Here's what happened with the girl name...we both love the name 'Asha' for a girl (pronounced like Sasha without an S); have since before we found out Asher was a boy.  Well, we didn't have many boy names we liked, and our affection for Asha actually led us to the name Asher, which of course we also liked!  But we had this conversation many times:  "But what if we actually have a girl someday...then we can't name her Asha if we use Asher for a boy!"  However, we decided not to think that far ahead.  And now we've been in a pickle of not having one name that we both equally love for a girl.  Furthermore, our front runner at the moment is an uncommon-but-not-weird name that is already owned by a little girl in Owen's Sunday school class at church (and we were her teachers last year).  Her parents seem to pick unusual names on purpose, so it will be kind of obvious that the name probably came to us more than it otherwise would have because of her presence in our class, although we really think we came on it independently as well.  But we hate to be name-swipers.  And, 2 days before Asher's birth, we discovered that a family in the church with a new baby 3 months older than ours was also Asher.  We might get a reputation...but it's a big church...

It's hard to name your child!  It feels very important!

We were joking about changing Asher's name so we could get Asha back, and wondering how long it would take a 2.5 year old to adjust to a new name.  Oh my gosh, that is so mean to even think about I feel bad that we were even laughing about it!  Can you imagine how confused he would be??

Also, I have to state that when one's husband has 5 siblings, and each sibling has between 2 and 4 children, there are a lot of really awesome name choices that have been claimed!  This is no small feat :)

My mom is coming tomorrow!  So very thankful for awesome family support and prayers as we welcome 'Flower Rose'.  We appreciate your prayers!




Monday, December 12, 2011

Capeesh?

Just overheard from the basement:

"Asher, now we have to take this basket of clean laundry upstairs for mom...capeesh?"

Ha!  I think Reuel says that.  So funny.  Awesome=4 year olds who think laundry chores are great fun.

The baby's here!

Ha ha, just kidding, not THAT baby.  The OTHER baby...the bathroom project!  I just calculated, and would you believe...the bathroom was 9 months in the making.  That is officially too long a gestation for a home renovation project, especially when it involves going down to one toilet in the house while the mother is pregnant with reduced bladder capacity.  Ah well, we've made it, and we are very happy with how it turned out!  The long gestation was the trade for spending a fraction of what it would have cost if we had hired out the job (I was SO game to spend money this time around, but Reuel wanted to DIY, and stepped up to the job with vigor...well done, hubby!).  Just in time for Mom to arrive on Saturday and not only have working fixtures, but paint and towel racks too (oh, the luxury).

Actually, I still have to get a bigger mirror.  And a few accessory kinds of things.  But it's 99% done.




Buh-bye, mishmosh peach, pink and black with crooked everything!  You are not missed.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Christmas in the air

Today was Owen's preschool's Christmas pageant.  Wow, what a crowd!  I don't know what I expected, but the parking lot was overflowing, the sanctuary at the church where his preschool meets was packed, and suddenly it seemed like quite the big deal.  Then, the spacey, glaze-eyed 3 and 4 year olds were led out in costume and stood there for about 15 minutes while a script was read, and if you studied the scene carefully, you could see that here and there some kids were executing motions and speaking parts to accompany the script.  And of course, we parents ate up every minute :)  Owen was a shepherd.  I was worried that sending Owen with the requested bathrobe costume might not be what they had in mind...his is bright blue and has trucks, traffic lights and his name embroidered on it...but when some of his fellow shepherds showed up in transformers and race car robes, my fears were relieved.  Owen was very excited about his 'show' and very concerned to ask us if we loved watching it afterward :)




Some other Christmas shots...many in response to Owen's, "Please take a picture of me with this!"






Aunt Liskin...we cheated.  We figured out that the baby's stocking was in your goodie box and we couldn't help ourselves because it looks so pretty hanging with the others and reminds us of how soon we'll get to meet our little girl!  Thank you!!  Owen has been filling it up all week with goodies he thinks his sister will like :)

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Santa picture!

What a difference a year makes...can't believe how much older Owen looks this year!  Rather than crying after being sat on Santa's lap as he did last year, Asher instead planted his feet firmly, a healthy distance away from that strange man, and said simply, "No."  All urgings, comfortings, beckonings by his brother (C'mon Asher, Santa is waiting for you!):  "No."  So, we have a one-boy picture :)  When they handed out button pins as Owen got down from Santa's sleigh, Asher took his and tried to share it with Santa, though.  So he was curious enough to want to test approaching him, but no way does Asher share seating space on the first date.  And a year between dates makes it hard to get to know one another ;)

2010:


2011:

Friday, December 9, 2011

Default

Reuel, darling, if we do not come up with a satisfactory, agreed-upon name for our daughter in pretty short order, we default to one of my choices, most of which you are not very fond of.  Just stating the facts.  :)