Fun with the Kids

Nicolas' new obsession: being a rockstar. He loves to jam on his new guitar and sing and bob his head at the same time. Not sure where he learned that one! No really, it's like he just new how to prop the guitar up and sing. We love it!

We thought this was too adorable not to capture on camera. Julia fell asleep sucking her thumb. She's never done this before so we thought we'd post some pics. She is now 12 weeks old and so much fun. We also captured moments of her first laughter. We will post it soon if we can ever figure out how to get it to work!

The next Tiger Woods!!!

So our son is obsessed with a couple of things. One of these things is golf. Everything is a golf club to him: his plastic broom and mop set, a crayon, a spoon, his wooden airplane propeller, etc. etc....pretty much anything that he can hold and swing. Maybe it's because he comes from a family of golfers (Jeff's side) and one of his first baby gifts was a real set of golf clubs (kid size). We never dreamed he would start using them before he could walk! He loves it! He grabs his clubs and practices his swing over and over again and it doesn't even matter if there's a ball to hit or not. If a golf tournament comes on TV, he watches it, mesmerized by the players and tries to mimic their swings! We went out to the backyard and got him to do one of his magic swings for us. We like to call him Nico Woods :)

First you have to make sure you select the right club for the right shot.

Then you line your club up with the ball like this (or your pretend ball).

Then you keep your eye on the ball and swing back like this.

Pivot your hips and follow through always keeping your eye on the ball.

Was that a good shot or what????

How Time Flies!!!

Julia Noelle is 2 months!!

Julia is now 2 months old and such a fun baby! She loves to talk, smile and play with her hair. That's the first thing we hear when people first meet her, "Oh my gosh! Look at all that hair!" We thought Nicolas had tons of hair but she definitely has more than him. We tried to get her to smile for the camera but this was the best we could do :)

Julia hanging out with some little friends. Notice how they're all wearing little green dresses...how embarrassing for the girls :)

Other exciting news for our family: Jeff has taken a full time job with the college ministry of Denton Bible Church as the college pastor. He will be officiating his first wedding this summer! Kathy just had a recent birthday and Nicolas will be turning 2 soon. How time flies!

Julia's Birth Story

So, I know this is about 8 weeks later, but things have been a little busy :) Several people have asked me about my birth story and I meant to post it weeks ago. I really wanted to make sure and fill people in on some of the details because they heard I ended up being transferred to the hospital with complications.

So as many of you know, I was going to have Julia at a birthing center here in town. Our experience there was so personal and wonderful. On Sunday night, we were at home and had put Nicolas down for the night. Jeff was working on some reading for school and we were going to finish up sanding and painting a glider that we had been given. I was on my hands and knees helping Jeff stretch the fabric to cover the footstool and all of a sudden felt a sharp pain. I remembered this pain all too well from 1 1/2 yrs earlier. I told Jeff that I thought I had just had a contraction but not to get too excited. A couple of minutes later I felt the pain again. I remember thinking that God had a wonderful sense of humor and that maybe He just wanted to show me that He was indeed listening! I had been discouraged earlier thinking I would never go into labor. So after a couple more of these, I grabbed a piece of paper and pen and asked Jeff to keep track of the contractions and their length. We called a friend at that time (around 10:45 p.m.) who was going to come stay with Nicolas when we went into labor and let her know that we were in the early stages of labor...haha...or so we thought. Not even 30 min. later, we called her back to let her know that we had already called the midwife and were on the way to the birth center. The contractions were at that point 3-5 minutes apart! We didn't know they were going to progress that quickly!

When we arrived at the birthing center, I was 80% effaced and dilated to a 7. The midwife informed me that if she broke my water at that point, I would probably be done in about an hour. As appealing as that sounded (to be done in an hour) I was definitely in pain and didn't want to be messed with at the time so I told her I wanted to just labor for a while and think about it. Well, after several more contractions my water broke. I was now at a 10 and ready to push. I remember looking at the midwife and saying, "I don't think I can do this!" But she looked at me and assured me that I could. When we took our birthing class, they had told us that usually when women get to the point where they don't think they can do it, that's when it's time to push. It's that last part of the labor where the adrenaline kicks in. So after pushing for about an hour and 15 minutes, Julia was still not here. She would descend and they would tell me she was almost out, but nothing. I looked at the midwife and birthing asst. and was wondering what was going on. At that point, the midwife informed me that the baby was a lot bigger than Nicolas and bigger than she had originally thought. Apparently she was getting stuck on my pelvis and wasn't able to turn so she could come out. They told me if she wasn't here in another 15 minutes, I was going to be transferred to the hospital for an emergency c-section. I pushed for a while longer but nothing happened. So, in what was the longest 5-10 minutes of my life, I was transferred to the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital, it was pretty much a whirlwind from there on. They took my blood, started an IV, asked a million questions, etc, etc as I continued to have back to back contractions. I was so terrified that I was going to have a c-section. After hours of active labor, pushing and no pain meds, I decided that if I was going to have to wait until they got my lab work back and wait to be prepped for a surgery, I would take a small amount of narcotics. The nurses walked out and it was at that point that I had the urge to push. I had heard from other women who had gone through labor with no pain meds (including my mother) that there comes a point in labor when you are ready to have the baby that you get an overwhelming feeling to push. Your body takes over and you can't stop it. When the nurse walked back in the room, I told her that I had to push. She told me very nicely that I had to wait for the doctor to come in and check me and he would then tell me what to do. I'm sure they have their reasons for making you wait, but at that point I thought, "Are you kidding me???? I can't wait!!! I can't NOT push!!!" The doctor came in soon after and informed me that the baby was still in an awkward position. I told him that I wanted to try and have the baby naturally and he said they would give me the narcotics, give me a very small drip of pitocin to intensify the contractions and see if the baby would reposition herself. If she did and everything seemed to be going well after that, then he would let me push. He said that if that didn't work, he would have to perform a c-section. At that point, I was still in so much pain and overhwhelmed. All I could do was ask Jeff to pray. A couple hours had elapsed and I had received medication and pitocin. The doctor came in to check me and said in a rather surprised voice, "Wow. There's a baby. It looks like we can have you push. After 2 contractions, Julia Noelle Wiesner arrived into this world. The doctor announced her arrival with, "Wow. She's big! And look at all that hair!" She was 7 pounds 15 ounces and 20 3/4 inches long....2 1/2 pounds bigger than her brother and almost 4 inches longer!

So that is our birth story! It was a lot different than I had envisioned and expected but isn't that how things normally are? We are still a little perplexed as to how and why things ended up the way they did but we know that God was not surprised.

Introducing Julia Noelle Wiesner

Julia Noelle Wiesner was born at 6:38 a.m. on the morning of March 9, 2009. She was 7 lbs. 15 ounces and 20 3/4 in. long. Mom and Julia are both doing great! Thank you all for your love and prayers!

More to come...

Baby Update

No baby yet! That's the update :) While we are officially past our due date, God is teaching us every single day to trust Him more and more and about patience. It's not easy to wait but we have decided to wait until Kathy's body naturally goes into labor and not induce at this point since she and baby are healthy and there's no immediate need to do so. With the last pregnancy, she was induced 2 weeks early because of low amniotic fluid. This time, we are having our baby at a wonderful birthing center here in town and everything looks good so far. The fluid is sufficient and baby and mom are doing great....just waiting. We had a check up yesterday and Kathy is between a 3 and 4 and 80% effaced for those of you who like details :) The midwife seems to think she will have a quicker labor this time around since her body is already preparing but we'll see. No guarantees right? That's definitely what we're hoping for though. We will keep all of you updated and will post pics as soon as they're available!

Theology of Suffering

Last week, Jeff's mom called us to pray for her friend, who's grandchild has suddenly been stricken with a genetic, degenerate disease...

...at the age of 1.

There are times when all of us are forced to stop and question God's role in the midst of such grief and suffering. For these questions, we commend you to a recent Dallas Theological Seminary chapel message by Joni Erickson Tada on the theology of suffering.

Her message begins about 5 minutes in and is worth 25 minutes of your day.




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When is she coming?????

The most frequent comment we've heard this past week, "You look like you're about to pop!"

And that's how I feel. She's still a little over a week away from her due date but I think we were wishfully hoping that she would come early like her brother....2 weeks early. Oh well :) Everyone also keeps asking us if Nicolas knows anything is going on or if he's excited about having a little sister. We don't really think he totally understands but he does point at my belly often and say, "Baby," while smiling. We've also had a couple of embarassing moments where people have been over and he walks over to their stomachs and tries to pull their shirts up and says, "Baby!" To which we have to reply, "No, no, that's a belly, Nicolas. Baby is in Mommy's tummy. There's no baby in there." So we'll see. We hope he's as happy as this when he meets her for the first time!

Baby Girl Shower

A couple of weeks ago, my mom and sister threw us an amazing shower for our little girl. It was such a blessing and the people there made it a blast! Here are some pics from the shower.....2 weeks left to go! Maybe less :)

With the party hostesses

It was different getting girl clothes this time around!

We played a game where everyone had to guess how many squares of toilet paper around I measure. Apparently, I measure 10.

Some fun guests pictured below: