The Magic number 15

Well Ladies and Gents,

It's happened once again. On April 15th beeeeeeeeeeeauuuutiful Miriam entered our lives and 3 became 4 officially. She was born 7 lbs 3 oz and 19.5 in long, she is definitely the little lady of the family.

 Miram and I meeting each other in the "outside world"

Daddy seems to like her too. In fact, up until this moment Ben was unsure of whether or not he wanted to have more kids seeing as John is entering the "two" phase a little early. But after she was born, he says, "Oh, well I guess we can have more." Cute, right? Miriam is already learning how girls get their way ;)

John and Miriam saying hello. What this really is, is an attempt to get a pic of John kissing Miriam, but the cameras all snapped too slowly or too quickly. I know it happened though and it was precious. From day one, John has been a great older brother. It was good to be back with my first baby boy, I missed him that whole day.

Part of Miriam's first bath. This was especially cool for me because I totally missed John's. I don't know why they didn't have me go and watch at that time. We didn't get any pics either so I made Ben take a bunch of Miriam. Both of my babies love getting a bath.

Wearing clothes for the first time. What a cute girl.

Pretty much everyone lost the bet on how much she was going to weigh since John was our 10 pounder. Right away Miriam showed me that each child is different from the other and thankfully she was born a natural breastfeeder. I was so grateful because I know how hard it can be (from my own experience and that of others) to get started and she has just never been a problem. Interestingly, my first night after she was born was the worst I'd ever experienced, which is remarkable since as I stated before, I gave birth to a Big boy. Naturally. As I look back on it I realize that it was probably from the anesthesia. When I was prepping for the epidural the anesthesiologist had to numb me three times because I could still feel the epidural needle. Since the pain seemed to be coming from that area I think it was the repeated poking that wore me out.

Because the practice of my OB office moved we ended up delivering Miriam in a different hospital than St Marks where we had John. As soon as I learned that I was all over the internet looking up reviews on JVMC and to my sadness many of them were not good. Luckily I noticed that the hospital had done some remodeling after the reviews were posted and I was also able to find some friends who had gone to that hospital's maternity ward in the past two years. Thank goodness they all had rave reviews and calmed my fears. As for my own experience? LOVED it! The nurses were wonderful, the rooms were big, I got a lot of time with Miriam, and the food wasn't too bad either. Overall I felt like they really wanted to do their best to take care of our family. What more can you ask for, right?

John is a great BIG brother and loves his sister to smothering. He always wants to hold, kiss, hug, lie next to, play with, feed, and inevitably love to pieces our little princess. John is also discovering a new love for forgotten toys that his sister now enjoys. The baby swings have resurfaced and he seems to think they are still his. I guess it can be confusing for the little tyke having until recently been an only child. I definitely have to watch him more now since he doesn't seem to care if his sister is already using it or not, he just plops right in. Poor Miriam:(

Getting used to having two kids has been fun, and all I can say is that I can't afford to be too unorganized with my time anymore.

Goodbye for now SLCC

Well, I finally did it. I finished my sojourn for now at SLCC and got my associate's degree. WOOHOO!!! It took long enough, but it feels good to have accomplished something. Next stop....bachelor's degree, and probably at the U (sad face cause I'm a total Y fan but who can commute with crazy life happenings?). Anyway, for now it's helping Ben finish his degree at the U and get to where he wants to be.

So goodbye for now SLCC it's been fun and maybe we'll see each other again sometime.

Hippity Hoppity Easter's on its way....

It's weird to think that it was Miriam's first Easter and only John's second. I can't believe that only a year ago our little boy was about to turn one. It seems like we've had him forever and for no time at all at the same time. Miriam is a week old.  Her clothes are still so big on her and she could have worn her easter bib by itself and been almost completely clothed ;) On the aturday before Easter we put little candies into plastic eggs and hid them around the back yard. It was a lot of fun to see John with his basket gathering up the eggs and Ben leading him around at first to get him started on what exactly he was looking for. Miriam just sat there, of course :)

Above is a pic of John's haul. A full basket of bright eggs and as you can see, he has already discovered the candy inside and is sharing it with daddy and miriam. To the left is a pic of pretty much what Miriam did the whole time. She's pretty cute if I do say so myself.

Here I am chilling with my wonderful and gorgeous kiddos. Miriam looks so tiny. 

We went to visit great grandmother Gerstner (my grandmother on my mother's side). It's always fun to see her and we don't go as often as I would like to. I'm so glad that she got to hold Miriam as a newbie newborn.

Here's our little boy enjoying what the Easter Bunny left him. Lot's of candy  and some bubbles. As you can see, he was not confused as to what was to been done with it all.

Closer look at Mr. Monk's Easter basket.

Miriam's first Easter basket. No candy for her (for obvious reasons). Cute Easter hair accessories and a bib. Yay for having a girl!

We went to visit family on Easter Sunday. Here's a pic of Grandma Sara (me mum).















It's always fun playing with Grandma's toys.

An attempt at a family picture. Ugh, I'm in it.

Here we are again. I wonder if I actually looked into a mirror that day.

The wonderful boys in my life.

Look at the talent and the reach that he has!

I wanted to add that Easter for us isn't just colored eggs, candy, and bunnies with baskets. It's really important to us as parents that our children learn about why we celebrate Easter religiously. We did talk to our kids about it this year though I'm not sure how much of it actually registered. But, we'll keep doing it every year. I'm grateful for a reminder of the Son of God who died for us and was ressurrected that we might also live again and live together with our families after this life. What a great weekend to spend remembering Him and being with family.

Fantastic four

Well now that I have less than 3 months of this pregnancy, I guess I should probably document the coming of our second child.

Around April 18th, we'll be welcoming a baby girl into our family and John will be a big brother and no longer an only child.

I was pretty sure that this one was going to be a girl since the pregnancy has been SO different from John. With John, I didn't have any of the unpleasant symptoms, but this little girl just loved making me nauseated during the first trimester. Thank goodness that is over.

We ended up having 3 ultra sounds during this pregnancy since at my first doctor visit he couldn't find the heartbeat. MUCH to my relief everything was fine and we went on to have the second Ultrasound a month later (finding out that it was a girl) and a third a month after that because she was hiding her face. John did this too at his first Ultrasound so it must be that our teasing personalities have been passed on to our kids even before they leave the womb.

Because I'm a girl I don't feel bad about saying that I love the idea of getting to dress my girl in pinks and pastels, flowers and bows, cute shoes and tights, and all that jazz.

John can now say baby and we try to explain what's going on, but the fact that he still likes to jump on me and looks at my expanding belly as a new trampoline tells me that he doesn't really get it yet. He's only 18 months after all. Oh well, he'll learn eventually and I'm sure he'll be a GREAT big brother.

I'm not sure how we're going to handle 2 kids, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Just more craziness for our Roe clan and more fun for our growing family.