Stateside

We have been back in the good ol' USA for a week now. We're in Colorado and will be here for 2 more weeks before we go on to Kansas, then to OKC for 3 weeks. In so many ways it feels good to be home. On the other hand, a strange thing has happened, I find I am missing certain aspects of our life in Vienna. I am pleasantly suprised by this. It means Vienna has become home to us also. When we landed 2 years ago "over there", I didn't think this would ever happened. It is nice to know going back will not be so heart wrenching.
We are having a great time here in God's country as Jake calls it. Some of Jake's cousins who we haven't seen since we got married are also here. It has been great seeing how much the girls have grown and talking to their parents. I'm not sure what we have planned for the rest of our time here, but I know I will be doing some sewing.
Jake and Abby had a wreck in the wagon last night and now Abby has a nice case of road rash on her face. I'll try to post a pic if she'll let me take one. Everyone escaped seroius injury and Abby was proposing a new method for riding the wagon down the drive way today. I guess she's over it.

Happy 4th of July

Today is the day more than any other of the year that I miss being able to drive up to my Mom's house. I always love going there on the 4th. Today I am missing homemade ice cream and fried okra, taking in all the excitement of small town America on a national holiday and just hanging out with my Mom. So, enjoy your holiday everyone, and eat some homemade ice cream for me. Love you, Mom.

Still Here

We are still here and doing good. Getting used to two kiddos is a challenge, but I think we are getting the hang of it. Katy is 5 weeks old today and this is unbelievable to me. It goes so fast!!! She is growing well, thanks to adding some supplemental formula in addition to her breast feeding. I'm workin' on trying to increase my milk production so maybe we can cut out the formula all together. I had a similar experience with Abby and quite frankly am still amazed I am able to nurse at all after my surgery. I'll try to post more regularly. Here are some pics, just because a post without pics is boring, right? Don't let these fool you, we are mostly all smiles around here these days. Katy has started giving me some pretty sweet little grins. The real kind, not the ones associated with you know what. Precious days. (sigh)

Katy Elizabeth has arrived

Katy Elizabeth joined our family at 12:04 CET May 23. She weighed in at 3640 grams (8.02 pounds) and was 51 centimeters (20 inches) long. We are all so thrilled she is finally here. We've been lovin' on her like crazy. Abby is so excited to be a big sister and has been such a good helper. So far no extreme signs of jealousy, hoping that lasts. We are settling into a semi routine and awaiting the arrival of Jake's parents on Monday. I have to say here how great my husband has been the last few days. He has taken such great care of all of us, including the dog (more on that to come). I know he has been so tired, but he continues to do such a great job!! I love you, Jakie!!!

So, for those of you interested in the entire sage, here goes. My due date was May 20, but nothing exciting happened on that day. However, Thursday morning I woke up with small contractions around 6am and these continued to grow in strength so I woke Jake up and told him that Katy might be coming that day. We got around and made a few last minute preps and Jake took Abby to Brian at the office. He came home and we timed contractions all morning long. Around noon everything slowed down, so we went for a long walk to try and rev things up again. It worked, but not for long. We timed contractions for a couple more hours, but they were lessening in intensity and growing further apart. I called the midwife and she thought the baby might come in the night, so we left Abby with the Hensals. I had a few more minor contractions in the evening, but we went to bed at normal time hoping I would wake in the night with more. No luck. I woke up Friday morning feeling "normal". So, Jake picked Abby up and brought her home and then went into the office to help get ready for our big Open House that the team had been planning for weeks.

Abby and I hang our at the house playing, watching TV and doing our own thing. Enter the dog saga....Daisy was acting very lethargic and not being her usual self. About mid afternoon she starts throwing up, lots of throwing up. We weren't too concerned at first because she has a history of eating foreign objects and this is one way she gets rid of them. Friday, though, she just kept getting sick even after she did get rid of part of rope toy we hadn't seen in weeks. Around 3:00 I call Jake and tell him I think we should try to get a vet appointment, because I'm afraid she is getting dehydrated. He makes the appointment for after the Open House, 6:15pm. He comes and gets her and takes her in with instructions to call when he knows something. Abby has gone over to our wonderful neighbor's apartment to play by this time. I go over to bring her home, and end up staying and talking for awhile. I am starting to have some minor contractions again by this time, but don't get excited about anything. Jake calls and says they are doing X-rays and giving Daisy an IV because she was dehydrated. He'll call when he knows more.
I go back to the neighbors to give them an update and bring Abby home. More contractions. Abby comes home I put her in the bath and get her ready for bed. Thankfully, she had eaten a little something at the neighbor's. I am putting Abby to bed and Jake calls and says they are going to do surgery on Daisy. He said it should take about 2 hours and then the vet would call with an update and Daisy could stay at the office over night. He's coming home and asks me to order a pizza for supper. I finish up with Abby and call in the pizza. It is close to 9:00pm by this time. Contractions growing in intensity and becoming closer together. Jake gets home and Abby is up waiting to have a piece of pizza, too. My contractions are quite strong and painful by this time. I tell Jake to start timing as soon as he walks in the door. 3.5 minutes apart. WHAT!!! Let's do that again. Same thing. I call the midwife and she says to head to the hospital. It is about 9:30pm at this point. Jake runs next door to tell the neighbors we are headed to the hospital. He calls Josh and meet us to drop off Abby, again. Pizza arrives and we rush to the car with pizza in hand. It is 9:55pm as we are pulling away from our apartment. We meet Josh, drop off Abby with a piece of pizza in her hand and head to the hospital. I should interject here that it takes us about 30 minutes to drive to the hospital when there is little traffic.

We make it to the hospital about 10:30 and go up to meet the midwife. She does a check and says I'm at a 5 and the baby will be coming that night. We walk down the hall where the delivery rooms are and since no one else was there I had my choice of rooms. We go on in and settle in for delivery. As we are entering the room the doctor who will administer the epidural is waiting and I say I think I can wait a bit longer before having it. The contractions continue to come, growing in strength. I just walk around and breath through them.
A little before midnight I had a very strong contractions and my water finally breaks. At this point I say I would like to have the epidural, if it's not too late. The midwife, who was awesome by the way, want to check and see where I'm at. She does and I was at an 8. She informs me with the next contraction I can start pushing. It was all happening so fast. The contractions keep coming and I start pushing. It doesn't take long before I see my sweet baby and am holding her!!! About mid point through the pushing Jake's phone starts buzzing in his pocket. I think he is trying to answer it and tell him to ignore it. He was only trying to turn it off though. So, once baby and I are a bit settled he checks his phone and it was the vet saying someone needed to come get Daisy because she would be too lonely to stay alone by herself. Jake calls our neighbors, after midnight, and they say they will go get the dog. What a crazy, wonderful day!!!! Now, we are all at home and doing well. Katy is nursing well and Daisy is on the mend.
Just after Katy was born.
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Up to the minute, well not really

So, it has been a long time since I posted. Let's see what has been going on around here. Of course, we have all been on baby watch, hoping Sister would make an early debut. No luck, no luck at all. In fact, she is now two days late. We really thought yesterday would be the day she arrived. I was having contractions for the entire morning, but then around noon everything came to a screeching halt. So, instead of sweet baby pics, here a few of the latest happenings.
The only thing we have been waiting for with more anticipation than the baby coming was our residence permits. These are the special little papers/cards that make it legal for us to stay in the country beyond a 3 month period without having to leave. We were denied last year and have been waiting since January this year to find out if we would get them this year. And praise the Lord, we did. A couple of weeks ago we all went down to the proper office to pick them up. We are elated to finally have these. It relieves such a burden mentally and even physically--think big, fat prego woman traveling in the car or train for six hours to get her passport stamped. For anyone interested in all the details, email me and I'll fill you in. For the normal people out there, here are a few pics of our celebrating afterwards. And a few bonus pics of what we have been doing.

We stopped off at Starbucks for a cup of coffee and Abby enjoyed a donut.



Then we had lunch at one of our fav places. If you visit us in Vienna, we will be happy to take you there.


Abby also began riding her bike without training wheels. These are the best pics I have so far.




For Mother's Day we went to one of my favorite Austrian food restaurants. I was so excited to get my Schweinmedallions mit Mozerella und Salami, I didn't take a picture before eating. I didn't get a picture of one of my favorite things in Vienna, an Eiscafe.



And finaly, here is the latest belly pic. It was taken just a few days ago. Yes, I'm huge and am not wearing any make up. You're just lucky I have pants on. Hopefully, in the next day or so, I'll have some really cute new baby pics to post.

Belly Pics

Here is a belly pic, finally. Can you tell which ones Abby took and which ones Jake did? I'm 32 weeks in these. I'm now in my 37th week. It is getting so close!!!

Life with Abby

Here are a few pics of life with Abby. She never fails to entertain, amaze and dazzle us.

First off, entertaining the crowd at Starbucks.






As I mentioned in a previous post, we made a trip to Croatia in early March. During that tirp we were walking around a park area (sorry, I don't remember the name) and there was a group of older school kids having some sort of recess. They were gathered in this gazebo and we could tell Abby really wanted to join them. After a day of touring Zagreb, I guess she had all the fun she could stand with just mom and dad. She seemed a little timid about just going up to them, but with a bit of encouragement she soon ran right into the group. I think the kids didn't know what to think of her at first. She was speaking a mix of German and English. Finally, one of the kids picked up on the English and recruited a fellow student as translator. Before long they were all gathered around her talking. We were so proud of her for jumping right in there.







She also spends a lot of time like this. We have tables, I promise.



We also go through assorted outfits and personality changes each day. I never know when I'll have a barking dog, hissing cat, princess, mommy or whatever else she can think up. Sometimes even combo of two or more.