LOOK AT HER!

On March 7th, Jeff and I became the parents of a very adorable baby girl, Rebekah Claire, at 4:17AM(Rachel was born at 2:11AM)! She weighed 7 pounds 12 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long. We are very proud of her. My labor started early in the morning, so I decided I would have lunch with a friend and go to 2 grocery stores on the way home. I also went to Jeff's soccer game (which he won 7-1) and put the beef and chicken I had bought into the freezer. After Jeff got home was when labor started picking up. Jeff has said a few times (jokingly, of course) that I should have the baby on Friday night after his soccer game, so that he would be home and not have to worry about school. We joked on the way to the hospital about how it was really happening that way!

Rachel has also been marvelous. She loves to give Rebekah hugs and kisses. She is also big helper. I'm so blessed to have had Jeff home since the birth because Rebekah's nights were starting around midnight or so and Rachel has been getting up around 7AM. With at least 1 or 2 feedings between those hours, I would probably be exhausted and in serious need of help. We are hoping to get Rebekah on a better evening schedule so that I will be able to function once Jeff goes back to work.

We have enjoyed our time off so far. We have been walking at least 3 or 4 times since we came home. Of course it helps that the weather outside has been gorgeous. This pregnancy, labor, and postpartum period so far have been completely different. So much so, that I was convinced Rebekah was a boy. The only reasoning I had for believing she was a girl, was because we had such a hard time coming up with a boy name, again.

Rebekah got her first real bath today. We even managed to take pictures of it! Thankfully she is getting into a better nighttime routine, so there's hope that I won't be completely exhausted the 1st day Jeff goes back to work.

Late again!

Okay, so in the last post we were preparing meals, moving Rachel to a new room, and getting ready for baby. Well, with 2 1/2 weeks to go (or so), Rachel has been sleeping in her new room every night for the past 2 weeks! We thought we would need a month to have her completely acclamated to the new room and to our surprise she asked to sleep in her big girl bed at night almost exactly a month before the baby was due. On the 3rd or 4th night we did find her like this when we checked on her before we went to bed.

Rachel is such a trooper! I am just hoping that she doesn't regress much when the baby gets here. She loves looking at new babies. We've had 3 friends give birth in the past couple months and she goes crazy when she sees their pictures on Facebook. She even screams with delight..."Ba-by." We are having so much fun with her.

I must digress back to how she slept in her bed at night for the first time. Jeff was at a soccer game and around 7:30, Rachel walks into the living room with her blanket and pillow from her twin bed like she's ready to go to sleep. Taking this as a good sign, I say okay and proceed to change her diaper, brush her teeth and put pajamas on her. She was apparantly tired, because she didn't want to do any of it. I laid her in bed and said good night. That was the end of it. She stayed in her bed all night as best we can tell. It was very helpful that the first night was on a weekend when Jeff would be home the next morning!! It was totally great and I was absolutely loving how great our child is!

Since she's in her new bed, we have converted the crib back to the "little baby" stage and put the bumper pads back on and everything. It looks kind of like this all over again! We are ready! It's only a matter of time now. If only I can manage to get all of my last minute visits with friends in before I have to figure out how to make those visits work with 2 kids we'll be doing great!

Looking for a new home?

Wow! How time flies. It's hard to believe that we're about 6 weeks away from having another baby in the house. Well, in preparation for that, we've been cleaning, cooking, getting things done for when the baby arrives. We finally got the rest of our Christmas stuff put away in the attic and pulled all of our baby items out. My parents were in town over the weekend, so they helped us do all of that. We are very thankful they were able to help. We even cut the angle for the lid to our toy box. Now all we need to do is stain it and attach it.

Rachel will be moving into a new room and my parents brought the twin bed that she will be sleeping on. Thank you for the bed!! Mom also made her a quilt that looks amazing and matches the room beautifully!! She absolutely loves her bed. If you ask her where her new bed is or if you want her to show you her new bed, she runs into her room and throws herself onto the bed. Keep in mind it's just the mattress sitting on the floor. We haven't had her sleep in it yet, because we are trying to clean out that closet for her to use.

I'm quite proud of myself for already working on getting a few meals into the freezer for after the baby is born. I'm trying to double recipes occassionally so that I can put the other half away for later. Now if I can only keep up with the rest of the housework in the middle of all the rearranging and organizing, then we'll really have progress.

Rearranging a closet takes a lot of energy. You have to decide if you really need to keep the items being stored in there, and if not are you going to throw them away or give them away. Well, I am glad to say that we got rid of a lot of things over the weekend. My parents took 4 boxes of stuff from our house to give to The Blessing Box, and we realized the next day that we had other things lying around that needed to go with them as well. Maybe we'll get together another box and they can take it with them next time they're in town. FYI- The Blessing Box is a small town church's version of Goodwill.

What a Lovely painting!

We are so excited!! Over the Christmas holidays Jeff and I painted our office 2 shades of purple for Miss Rachel's new room. She will be moving into this room so that the baby can sleep in the nursery.

Since the room was tan and navy, we decided she needed something a little more girly!

Jeff is also in full swing coaching soccer. The JV has played 1 tournament already and plays its last tournament this weekend in Allen. Rachel and I have enjoyed watching soccer and Rachel especially loves watching all the boys kick the ball!! She even tries to tell them to Go Go Go!! She's rather cute and has been a trooper at the games, even when it's a little cold.

Over the break, we also gave Rachel her first haircut. Her bangs were getting a little long, so we cut them. I was very excited to be able to cut her hair for the 1st time. We even saved as much as we could in an envelope, but there's not much there.

We started the process of transitioning Rachel into her new room yesterday. We don't have her twin bed yet, so I tried to put a pallet on the floor for her. I'm very proud to say that she stayed on the pallet the WHOLE hour she spent in her new room, but didn't sleep. I tried again today to put her in her room, only this time I put her crib mattress on the floor. She screamed at me for a couple minutes, but I left her in there anyway. I checked on her a little while later and discovered this....

Isn't that the greatest thing you've ever seen? I'm so proud of my little girl. Lots of her upbringing has been so easy because she's such a good kid and has nothing to do with what Jeff and I have done. We are so blessed to have her. Of course many people are rather concerned because they think this next baby will cause us lots more grief and agony because the first child is, for all intents and purposes, an easy baby. I hope you are having a wonderful inauguration day!

Lazy days are here again

Okay, so maybe the days aren't so lazy, but we have completed our stay at the Lehmann's home and our holiday travels. We had several Christmases to attend and enjoyed ourselves at all of them. We had Christmas with the Lehmanns on Christmas Eve morning, where we hosted the first Christmas not in the Lehmann house. It was great to have everyone home from New Zealand, except for the New Zealand residents. We also enjoyed having Jeff's brother Drew here and hope to see him more often now that he's home from his enlistment in the Air Force. Rachel was lots of fun this year and tried to help everyone open their gift whether it was paper wrapped or in a gift bag! She likes doing it all! We are also VERY excited that one of our gifts this year is a cousin that will join the family sometime in July 2009!

We did Christmas morning here at our house before going to my parents' house in Winnsboro. Rachel got her first baby doll and stroller, and just loves pushing her around and giving the baby kisses! On Saturday after Christmas we went to Athens to spend time with my extended family and had lots of fun, got a few exciting gifts, and again Rachel really enjoyed opening presents!

After Christmas, Rachel got to spend a few days with Nana and Papa without Mommy and Daddy. We think she enjoyed herself, but she started getting sick before she left and she's now quite congested and has a cough. We think she's on the way up, but if her illness is anything like the illness Jeff and I had over the break, she'll be like this for several more days. Jeff has already started back coaching and goes to school tomorrow, so our holiday will soon be gone. I guess now is probably the best time to take down those Christmas decorations that we erected oh so early this year! I hope everyone is having a wonderful beginning to 2009.

Am I lucid?

Okay, so I have finally finished breakfast. Right now that involves feeding myself, then feeding Rachel, then the dog, and finally Grandpa. The breakfast routine usually lasts about 1 1/2 hours or so. It's actually quite interesting. After 1 1/2 weeks here I have a real routine.

Well, I guess we've been bad about posting pictures and blogging regularly. I'm sure there's a lot we could put in and forget to write about. Rachel keeps us really busy. Jeff's schedule keeps him at school longer than we're used to, so he only gets to see Rachel for a couple hours each day. It's crazy how time flys! It's hard to believe I'm already in my 3rd trimester and with soccer season coming up, March will be here before I know it.

We are looking forward to staying in our own home soon, even if it is only for a few nights before we're on the road again and living out of another suitcase. Christmas is going to be crazy, but hopefully we'll enjoy it and not get stressed out by it.

Since we live in Texas, schools like to call an ice day on days where the roads aren't very icy. Tuesday was one of those days. Jeff was able to stay home from school and spend the day with us. We took turns being at home so we could do some Christmas shopping for each other.

Thanksgiving went well and we ate too much. We had a block party for our neighbors and had a wonderful time. It was a small turn out, but for the first year, we're happy with how things went. I made WAY too much food, but I was able to return some of the extra that I bought. That week was very stressful because it was our first week at Jeff's parents and I got sick on Tuesday, so I wasn't able to do anything to prepare for the party that day. I did TONS of cooking on Wednesday and Thursday, so there were a lot of dishes. Thankfully, the family who came to watch Grandpa for us during the evening did ALL the dishes for me!! I am VERY thankful, because I think I would still be doing them if they hadn't done them. I think that's all the excitement going on around here. I hope everyone is done with their Christmas shopping, or at least almost done, and getting ready to have a few days off next week. Enjoy your Christmas!

Long-Lasting Silence

Okay, so we're really bad about posting on our blog. I don't think either of us are great writers, so coming up with something to say usually takes some effort. Rachel is a handful. She walks/runs everywhere and talks all day long, but most of it is unintelligible, so we'll just have to keep guessing about what she's saying. We've been fairly busy, but it's mostly busyness preparing for the upcoming busyness of the holiday season. We have house-sitting, parties, soccer practice, Thanksgiving, teaching Sunday School, Bible study, and probably a few other things going on. We are actually hosting a couple of parties, so we have some added responsibility on our end. In anticipation of these many things (of which we are very happy to be doing), we have begun our Christmasing early. I know for many people it drives them crazy when homeowners and retailers put out Christmas decorations the day after Halloween. Well, we weren't quite that early, but we did put the tree up almost 2 weeks ago, and some of the house lights are already finished. We will be adding to them in the next week, so for all intents and purposes we are ready for Christmas! I have even been really good with our resources and have gifts for SEVERAL family members already. This feat has NEVER occurred before, and may never happen again, so I am relishing the moment.

Please excuse the blurryness. I will take another picture and might replace it, but for now here is the tree. Now if I can only get on top of the gift wrapping process and figure out whether or not my 1 year old will completely rip into them once they are placed under the tree, we will be doing even better. I think we are starting to count down the days we have to finish all of the things we need to accomplish before we start house-sitting. Time is going by really fast, which I am anticipating this to be a good thing, because I'd like to be able to hold Rachel again, and have this little baby kicking at blankets and toys instead of my stomach. Have a fun-filled weekend before Thanksgiving.