Emerson Claire Wiebe is FINALLY HERE!!!

To all of our fellow bloggers: Here are all the details. I (James) now have not one, but TWO beautiful daughters. And one very excited wife! Emerson Clair Wiebe was born at 6:21 pm April 23rd. She weighs 8 lbs 4 oz., and is 20 3/4 inches long. Amy started having contractions Tuesday night around midnight and continued on into Wednesday morning. As of Tuesday, she was scheduled to go in at 7:30 Wednesday morning to have her OB break her water, and so kept that appointment. After that was done, she had contractions all afternoon, which ended with a super successful delivery. Mom and baby are both doing excellent. Below are some pictures. Thanks for all of your thoughts, encouragements, and especially your prayers. We had dozens of people praying that Amy would go into labor Tuesday night, and out of the blue, with no other indications that that would happen...Poof...she went into labor without being induced. God is good! We were so happy to have so many friends and family members come for a visit last night! It was a special occasion. Amy had a decent night following delivery, and Emma is feeding very well.

Can you tell that Amy is delighted here?
The new family of 4.
Emerson Claire
Check out this hair...

Tomorrow is the Big Day!

Well, after much praying and agonizing, James and I agreed with my doctor that we'll go in tomorrow and let them break my water. We're hoping and continuing to pray that everything will proceed naturally after that (or better yet, before). We go in at 7:30 in the morning, so we'd definitely appreciate your prayers. Specifically, we'll be praying as follows:

1) Above all, that baby is healthy and remains as such throughout the delivery process.
2) That I remain healthy throughout the process as well.
3) That I go into labor before we even go in tomorrow
4) That if I haven't gone into labor before tomorrow morning that the breaking of the water kicks me into a fast easy labor.
5) That we can avoid needing pitocin or a c-section.

Thanks so much, and we'll keep you posted on our new little girl!

A Baby-Less Birthday

Well, I won't be sharing my birthday with our second daughter. I think this is a good thing. I want for her to have her own birthday for her sake and not have to share with one of her parents. That said, now that I'm in the clear for today, she can come ANY TIME!!! HEAR THAT, BABY??

So, Mom and Dad took us to Red Lobster to eat tonight for my birthday. A young hostess sat us, and she and I had the following conversation. Thought my blog audience would get a kick out of it:

RLH (Red Lobster Hostess): When are you due?
Me: A week ago
RLH: (Astonished look...pause...and then): Have you had it yet?
Me: Umm, no. No, I haven't.
RLH: Wow, are you nervous?
Me: Nope, just ready (trying to hold it together)
RLH: Well, I guess if I look over here and you look stressed that I'll know why.
Me: Yep

Seriously - I'm the size of a house. HAVE I HAD IT YET? REALLY? I was crying I was laughing so hard.

Still Pregnant Version 2

Just wanted to confirm that I am still indeed pregnant. I'm feeling fine physically and trying not to get too frustrated emotionally. Some days are better than others! :)

We just got back from this week's doctor appointment. I'm 3cm dilated now, which is a good thing. He said he'll let me go pretty far into next week before he'll want to do a c-section. He also said that since I'm already dilated a bit, that he'd even try a mini-inducement before going straight for the c-section. He'd break my water and give me just a little pitocin to see if that kicked me into labor. So, I'm encouraged that I still have a decent chance of avoiding the c-section. Obviously, the hope and prayer is that I go into labor on my own before next week and that I can have her without a c-section. So, we'd certainly appreciate your prayers in that direction.

In the meantime, life has been pretty quiet around here while we wait our on newest addition. I did go to the mall with my friend Shelley and her daughter Brylie yesterday. Her mom and nephews joined us, so here's a pretty cute picture that her mom took:

Yep...STILL Pregnant

Just in case you're checking and wondering if we're in the hospital holding our newest little bundle, we're not! We had a busy weekend...lots of walking and activity and hanging with friends and yet there's still no little munchkin. I'm feeling well, but we're definitely ready when she is! We will definitely keep you posted, so stay tuned!

Still Pregnant....

There's no news yet, but we'll be sure and keep you posted! In the meantime, here's my last pre-hospital belly photos and our last pictures as a family of 3! Enjoy!

37 Week Ultrasound

Went very well. Baby is measuring at about 7 lbs. 2 oz. currently. That basically means that if she comes in the next two weeks (early or on time) that we'll probably stay under 8 lbs. That would be nice! Her head is measuring just slightly big but nothing major like Ellie's was. So, we're definitely on for trying to go natural again. Please be praying that we can!!

My maternity leave has officially begun! Not sure what I'm going to do with myself until this baby comes. Hopefully get some rest since that's not happening too well at night...

Here's a little 3D video of her. Both of her arms are up by her face. That's her left hand up top by her eye and her right arm is going across the bottom of the picture. Watch the right side of the screen - the 3D part.

Easter 2008

Hey, everyone! I know it's shocking for me to post again so soon, but we got some pretty cute photos and video of Ellie's Easter 2008 that I wanted to share.

In other news, many of you have heard that my grandfather (Dad's dad) passed away last week. I will definitely miss him, but he did live a good long life and we're grateful that he's whole again in heaven. The services will be this Tuesday afternoon, so please keep our family in your prayers.

We also moved my ultrasound to Thursday morning since it conflicted with the funeral time, so please keep that in your prayers as well that baby's head will be normal sized and all else will look good.

Enjoy the video and pictures! Video is a little over 2 minutes.

The baby swings were full, but does that phase our kid? No sir! Big girl swing suits her just fine!

And here she is going up the ladder in the bounce house. There were probably 15-20 kids ranging in ages from 2-10 in there with her, but she held her own!

After some work in figuring out that ladder, she made it to the top!

Our girl LOVES slides!

Pretty girl in her Easter dress

One Month to Go!

Hey, everyone. Just wanted to post a quick update. We got a cute video of Ellie saying her ABC's after us, so check that out below. It's a little under 3 minutes long. Baby is doing well. I had some pain and weird stuff going on early this week, but the doctor checked it out and everything is fine. I've been contracting a lot, so my body is already starting to get ready. I think she'll stay put for a few more weeks yet, though. We have a super busy but super fun weekend lined up. We have a birthday party and our Pinochle card game tonight. Then tomorrow, some sweet friends are throwing me a shower after church, we'll teach our FPU class at 4 and we have our LifeGroup at 6:30! Looking forward to all of it, though. UPDATE: I wrote that on Saturday and then had some issues loading the video below, so now it's Monday. Our day was long but went really well. The shower was lovely, and I'm super grateful to my friends for all their hard work. Check out how beautiful it was below!

Ellie is doing great. We did a bit of udpating to her room, and she seems to like her dots (check out the photos below). She's still really affectionate and generous with her kisses and loves to play at the park and watch Elmo. She still has Daddy's curls, so we've yet to cut her hair! Oh - and speaking of her hair, I must report that she spent the night with Cookie and Crouchburger again last weekend and had BEAUTIFUL hair now that they understand the process. :)

Lori pointed out that I haven't posted any sonogram pictures and not too many belly shots either. The sonogram picture thing is because we really haven't gotten any good pictures like we did with Ellie. We have another sono a week from Tuesday so we're hoping for some good pictures now since she should be plumping up pretty good by now. We shall see, though. In the meantime, you'll see my growin belly in the shower photos below. Here are a few new photos of Ellie as well.

She may not have a happy face, but doesn't she look cute??

We added the circles and the letters up top.

Don't you wish you knew what was under that pink blanket? Well, I'll tell you. It's new baby's name. That's what.

It looks a little lopsided since we had to partially disassemble it to get it home, but believe me - it was perfect the way Shelley did it. This was the "diaper cake" I got at my work shower. How cute is THAT?!

Our little cutie patootie at the park

Ellie going down the bounce slide at our friend Noah's birthday party

The beautiful table at my shower.

We're so blessed!

See?!

If You Want it Done Right....

you have to SHOW them how to do it. And don't leave anything out!

My parents have kept Ellie overnight twice so far. Both times it's been on a Saturday night so James and I can go out and then they just bring her to church on Sunday and we meet them there. The first time (in December) she was dressed cute, but her hair looked like she'd just rolled out of bed. I learned that my dad is the one that gets her ready, and he said that I hadn't sent anything to fix her hair - that was his excuse. (I did send her comb, and other than that you just need water, but evidently I wasn't clear!) So, this time, I sent the water bottle we use to wet her hair down, her comb, and even the Bedhead goop we use to keep her curls looking lovely. (We don't use it everyday, but I wanted them to have no excuse to fix her hair for church this time!) So, I told them that I'd packed all that stuff when I dropped her off on Saturday night. Well, she shows up at church and her hair looked like this:




And the pictures don't even do it justice. So, I asked them what happened. My dad comes up and says, "That goo was GROSS! I'm never touching that again!" They go on to explain, and it turns out that they tried to put the Bedhead in her hair whlie it was DRY! That, of course, just made her hair sticky and more tangled. Then mom thought she'd put the Bedhead stuff on the comb and try again. Oh my word..... And the thing is, you only need about a dime sized amount each time you use it - at the most. Heaven only knows how much they used, but let's just say that we could have not bathed her for a week and there would still be enough of the stuff in her hair when we wet it down to keep it curly. So, anyway, we got a big laugh out of that and told them they were supposed to wet her hair first. They were like 'Oh, so THAT'S what that water bottle was for!" Ummm...yes. Yes it was. Anyway, for contrast, here's what her hair looks like when I do it:

In other Wiebe news, all is humming along. The pregnancy continues to go well, and Ellie is tons of fun. Here's a video where she shows how much she loves the bath and some of her new words.