Blue Eyes

First Smiles

These are the first pictures we have of Ellie smiling "for real." :o) She's been smiling for a week or so already, but now they are coming more frequently and it's so exciting!

Michigan

Hannah, Ellie and I were up in MI from last Tues. until this morning. Brian had to travel for work last week, so I figured that I'd spend time in MI, getting help w/ the girls, instead of sitting home by myself. It was a great time to spend with my family and friends.

Brian came and joined us Friday night and then we were able to get together with our Hope College friends Sat. Our dear friends Tim and Lyndsey Dykstra were in town from ID with their two children, so it was great to see them and catch up a bit.

Here's a funny Hannah story I had to add here...
We were sitting at dinner with my mom and she asked Hannah if she wanted some "Catsup" (apparently that's the "Dutch" way of saying it) on her hamburger. Hannah quickly replied, "It's NOT catsup, it's ketchup Grandma!" She doesn't miss a thing!

Grandpa Barker and Trudy meeting Ellie for the first time


Grandma Smith with her great-grandchildren Luke, Taylor, Hannah and Ellie (Grandma is 93 years old!!)


Great friends (aka "Hope Gang")

They just keep comin'

Hannah just keeps them coming!

Since having Ellie, she's only been a little bit curious about the whole nursing thing. I think it has helped that she's seen her Aunt Heidi feeding Jeremy over the past few months. Well, despite this, she does get a little intrigued when I'm feeding Ellie. Last night, she was sitting next to me while I Ellie was eating and gave me a funny look.

I looked back at her and she said, rather casually, "I'd like some of that."

Oh too funny! As soon as she said it, she grinned b/c she knew that she was being silly, yet somewhat serious. I had tried hard not to laugh as I explained, again, that this is how babies eat, not big girls like her. (although some la leche supporters might argue that "big" girls at 2 1/2 can eat that way too...hmmm, that's not my thinking) ;o)

Looking up to big sister


Pretty girl

Who is our president?

We watched part of the President's address on 9/11 and told Hannah that our President's name is George Bush.

Last night, out of the blue, Brian asked her what are President's name was?
She confidently replied, "Curious George Bush."

We haven't laughed so hard in a while...Ok, since the last funny thing she said.

A special man...

Gary Nederveld

Many of you reading this (if there are any of you out there) have probably already heard about the passing of my uncle Gary. He was my dad's twin brother (age 65) and a special uncle. He and my aunt Kathy have three kids who are close in age to my brother and I, so we were pretty close to them growing up. He died on Sept. 2 in a mountain biking accident while visiting his daughter and her family in Idaho. His death was tragic, sudden and very shocking. I wanted to write about him, even though I haven't ever done anything like this on this blog. I guess it's meant to be about family, and he is family. Uncle Gary was a generous, caring, hilarious, spiritual man. He made everyone smile and as they said in his funeral service this past Friday, he loved kids and never really grew up himself. One memory that will always stick out in my head was of our Christmas parties together as a family. Every Christmas, after a delicious meal, Uncle Gary would slip away unnoticed and sure enough, a few minutes later, Santa would arrive. He MADE everyone sit on his lap to get their gift, even Grandma Nederveld! He would have no problem embarrassing you and making you squirm just to get a laugh. At the service I learned that "Santa" made a lot of appearances over the years w/ friends and family. There are a lot of memories of this great man.

I looked at new baby Ellie several times over the past few days and thought about what a precious gift she is and what a precious gift life is. I thought about how we could have her for the next year or the next 65, as we had my uncle. I pray that both Hannah and Ellie will be healthy in life and grow to have the experiences of a lifetime no matter how long they are here. I also pray that Brian and I and the rest of our family will be blessed with sharing many of those experiences with them for a long time to come.

Sorry if this is sad, but it's what's been on my heart. Life and death...both precious. My uncle was taken way too soon, but I'm thankful that he is w/ Jesus right now, no doubt hamming it up and showing everyone a good time. We will all miss him dearly. If you think of it, please continue to pray for my aunt and cousins. I'm sure the next few days, weeks and months are going to be extremely difficult. Thanks.

Perfect

Conversation to remember...
Hannah - "Daddy, you're awesome."
Daddy - "You're awesome too Hannah."
Hannah - "No, I'm not."
Mommy - "Well, then what are you?"
Hannah - "I'm perfect."

Perfect or not, we feel so blessed to have these two little girls in our home.

Sisters...beautiful sisters.

Fishing with cousins

Matt, Stacey, Luke and Taylor came from MI to meet baby Ellie this weekend. Saturday morning was spent fishing in the neighborhood pond.

Big Sister

Introducing...

It's a GIRL!! Elizabeth "Ellie" Marie Giere was born at 6:55 am Sunday, Aug. 27, 2006. She weighed a whopping 9 pounds, 12 ounces and was 20 inches long.

Long story short, my water broke at 5:15am, we got to the hospital around 6am, after begging for an epidural and realizing that it was too late to get one, I "decided" to push her out at 6:55! That's 1 hour and 40 minutes from start to finish! Not what I was expecting, but in the end, it was all worth it...

Everything has gone so well that we already came home this afternoon. Hannah LOVES her little sister and is already showering her with kisses.

She's a beauty and we couldn't be happier.

Proud Daddy


Another angel


Keeping warm


Ready for home

1 more week...for sure!

After the initial greetings at my appointment today, my doctor asked if Brian and I (he came along for this one, which was great!) if we'd like to be induced at any time. Apparently (and I'm not sure if all doctors do this), she is more than ok with inducing a patient if they have progressed enough and are only a week or so away from their due date. So, that includes me! Well, of course I got excited because I really would like to have this baby, but on the other hand, since she was putting the ball in our court, it made it harder to decide. She gave us the days in the next week that would work to schedule it and after hearing those and talking it over, we decided to schedule the induction for next Tuesday (Aug. 29th) at 8 am!! I am still about 4cm dilated and am progressing in the other ways that the body needs to prepare. That being said, this baby could very well come before the induction. I'll admit that it's nice to know that we will be him/her in 1 week or less...for sure. It's scary too...but really I'm totally thrilled and excited to deliver this baby. I feel positive about going into it naturally or by being induced. For those of you wondering, the induction would mean that the doctor would break my water and see if things then progressed on their own (which they should). If, after a few hours, there wasn't significant progress, they may start pitocin. Wow is all I can really say! I'm still going to have to be patient and that may be hard, but it's all good.... :o)

On to Hannah...this past weekend, we were joking around putting a ball in her shirt so she could pretend to have a "baby" in her tummy too. She was so cute! She would ask Brian and I if we wanted to "feel the baby move" and then put our hands on the ball. She'd look at us and ask, "Can you feel it?" imitating exactly what I do and say when she feels the baby.

Like Mother, Like Daughter


"Little Mommy"

"I'm a fish!"

While in the bath tub last night, Hannah declared that she was "a fish!" Hmmm...I wonder where she got that from? :o) She has been getting more and more crazy in the tub. Her latest is to lay on her back with her head almost covered in water. (Don't worry...I'm safety girl and am ALWAYS in the room with her.) She thinks it's even more funny to scream while her head is under...I'm sure it sounds funny to her. Here are a few pics from last night's adventure.

"Snake" and "Froggy" sighting

Hannah is doing great with potty training! She's been amazing! She's still working on going #2 on the potty and that's ok. Sunday afternoon I was able to get her on just in time for her to go...it had been a few days (as usual for her), so I know her tummy felt better immediately. After going, she looked down in the toilet and said, "It kind of looks like a snake." Too funny! Needless to say, I was very proud of her and so was she. :O) What a big girl!

Speaking of being a big girl, I asked her the other day as kind of a joke, "What will I do when you grow up?" She replied with all seriousness, "It's ok if I grow up Mom." I had to chuckle and then said, "Just don't do it too fast." I think it's already too late for that.

On Monday, Hannah and I visited with "Froggy" the character from a children's series of books written by Jonathan London. Froggy made a special appearance at the North Aurora Library and Hannah loved it! As you can see, she was not at all shy around him...in fact, she kept going up to him trying to give him "high-fives" and hugs. It was great.



I went to the doctor again yesterday and got pretty much the same report. Although, along with being almost 4cm, I am now 50% effaced. That's good news!!! The baby could still come at any time, but I'm guessing it will still be a couple of weeks. I'm ready, I'm excited, I'm nervous, I have the "going home" outfits picked out (one for a boy, one for a girl)...we're all set! Oh yeah, the heartrate was around 144.

2 Weeks to Go!!

pop art

Another cool "trick" that can be done on the Apple...Brian loves to play with this as much as Hannah does!

coming soon...

I went to the doctor yesterday and to my surprise, I am dialated 3-4 cm already!! Wow! That was certainly not what I expected to hear! Of course, as the dr. said, that doesn't mean I'm going into labor right away, but it still kind of freaked me out! I'm still at -2 station and the baby's head is for sure down, so that's good. :o)

The heartrate was in the 140's again...

All this to say that I decided on the way home that I better get my bag packed! ;o)

Here is a picture of the baby from our 20 week ultrasound. Obviously I'm a little late putting this up, but I'd thought I'd include it now. Better late than never, right? (it's from the 3-D ultrasound they did...can you see his/her little face in there?)

goofy girl

With our Apple computer we can take silly pictures in the "Photo Booth" program. Here are a few of our goofy little girl.





Ok, and one of our goofy family. :o)

still going

Hannah is still doing so well on the potty! She stayed overnight and Grandma and Grandpa Giere's this weekend and had a "minor" accident, but I'd still say she's doing great!

I know moving her into this next phase of life (going diaperless) is supposed to catapult her into "big-girlhood" and it's supposed to be this happy time, but to be honest, although I'm happy, I'm kind of sad too. I'm sad that she's not my little girl anymore. I've been thinking about this a lot w/ the new baby coming too. The time w/ just her and I will be no longer and that makes me a little sad. I know she's going to love having a brother or sister and I can't wait to meet this little one who's been rolling around inside me for the past 9 months, but I can't help but think about how things will never be the way they used to. It's like a lot changes in life...graduating from high school, college, getting a job, getting a new job, and another new job and another new job (oh wait, that's just me). Anyway, I'm sure every family/mom goes through this when adding a new member to the family...and now it's my time. I know that Hannah and I will survive and she'll always be my precious little angel.

big girl now...

So far, so good! Hannah is doing GREAT w/ the potty training! I even dared to venture out to Target w/ her yesterday and put a pull-up on her "just in case." Well, she still told me when she had to go! We were able to run to the front of the store and make it to the potty in time! I am so proud of her!

I'm trying to stay realistic and know that we may have some set backs, but so far, she's really picking up on it. Maybe this potty training thing isn't as hard as I thought it was going to be (thus, procrastinating like crazy). And now I'm thinking that even though it wouldn't have been a huge deal to have 2 in diapers, it will nice not to, too! :o)

UPDATE AT 10:30pm...Hannah made it all day w/out an accident!!! She is amazing! :o)

attempt #?

I decided that since it's going to be blazin' hot for the next few days and we'll be inside a lot, this might be a good time to "attempt" to potty train Hannah again. I've kind of lost count of how many days I've started the training only to get frustrated and/or impatient, so I stop. So far this morning, we're on her 4th pair of underwear...hmmm, am I doing something wrong? Actually, she's doing ok, a couple of the pairs were only a little wet. Please pray that I can be diligent and stick with this for the next few days, no matter how hard it is (or gets). I'd love any advice from those of you who have potty trained before...please post your comments! :o) Thanks!

Doctors, Doughnuts & Heat

Doctor - I had a doctor's appointment today and everything looks great. The baby is measuring "right on track" and the heart rate was in the 140's (a little higher than previous appointments when it was in the 130's). Hmmm, what does that mean? The doctor (not my usual doctor, but another one in the same practice) talked to me about labor and when to come in to the hospital (when the contractions are painful...not just annoying), etc. It made me excited to think that talking about these things means the big day is getting close, but I must admit, it kind of scares me too. She assured me (as my doctor has) that things should be much easier this time (i.e. I won't have to push for 2 1/2 hours like I did w/ Hannah). Thank goodness! Even though labor and delivery is going to happen no matter what, it's still scary since you just never really know how things are going to go.

Doughnuts - After the appointment I was kind of hungry, so Hannah and I splurged and stopped at a Krispy Kreme doughnut place. I haven't been in a Krispy Kreme in years (not since living in Indy w/ the girls) and that's a good thing. I walked up to the counter and right away the clerk gave me two "samples" of fresh, hot, glazed doughnuts! I hadn't even ordered yet! So, of course I felt like I still had to order something, even though two doughnuts was enough...so, I ordered two more (Hannah had to have a chocolate covered one. She's a chocoholic just like her Daddy). So, instead of eating one doughnut each, I had 2 1/2 doughnuts and H ate one. Why do they do that? Do they want me to gain more weight then I would only having one? Crazy! But, I will admit, they were delicious and a nice treat.

Heat - It's hot! Oh my word, is it hot! I feel bad, but all I want to do is sit inside in the A/C. I think Hannah realizes how hot it is too b/c she really hasn't been asking to play outside as much. And when we are out there, she doesn't fight me too much when I tell we have to go in....what a good girl. The doctor did warn me about being outside in this heat, so I guess I shouldn't feel too bad about it...it's all for the baby. ;o) I just feel like since it's summer, I should be outside as much as possible...not this year.

Since we're talking about the new baby coming, I thought I'd put a picture from when Hannah was born. It's amazing how they grow and change so quickly!



Remember that head of hair?! (that's Luke holding her)