Let the Healing begin

Here's his face today.  His eye just keeps getting droopier and droopier.  Probably bothers me more than it does Josiah.  Hes just so pitiful looking, but it's kinda cute :-)

An one of little sister

A Rough Day

Some Days are just Rough!

Josiah fell off the stairs of our deck onto the cement and got a lovely goose egg on his head. Today his little eye is more swollen and like most bumps an bruises it's only gonna look worse before it looks better.
Dad and Grandpa came to the rescue after Josiah went to bed last night and put up a brand new railing to ensure no more falling off the stairs! Big thanks to Brian and Larry for all your hard work last night!! :-)

First of Many

Ok we must share the traditional first bath pictures :-)  When I pulled out the baby bathtub Josiah said, "pool, pool!"  and so we went with it,  "yes this is Grace's pool". So for Grace's first swimming experience Josiah definitely had to "help" out. It was really really cute!  He wanted to wash her, which meant get water all over the kitchen.  After her bath, he quickly ran outside to his own pool :-)

Grace's Birth Story

Grace was due July 25th, 2010 and didn't come until August 2nd.  We had a scheduled induction which I wasn't really excited about, but either way it was time, Grace needed to come out.  Brian and I drove to the hospital at 7:30am Monday morning feeling excitment, nervous, a little unsure of what lay ahead but over all so ready to meet this little girl.  We check in, which was odd, kinda like going to a hotel and saying we're here to check in for the night. We show up and say, "Hi we're here to have a baby today..."  WIERD! They get us into the birthing room and settled and my doctor comes in and the first thing she does is break my water.  Once she broke my water contractions started up pretty quickly on their own.  I was most nervous about having to start labor with Pitocin, but thankfully things were already under way before they gave me a small amount of Pitocin to keep things moving along.  Let the laboring begin! I was able to labor how I wanted comfortably in our room. We had a wonderful nurse, Bethany, with us who took great care of me throughout the whole short process. My best friend Johanna was nearby at a doc's appointment and wanted to stop by and say Hi. So she came around 10:45am and at that point I was dilated to a 6. I decided I'd like to get an epidural soon so I could just chill out and "enjoy" the rest of labor.  I threw up which dilated me to a 7 :-) then the anithesiologist shows up around 11:15 and asked Johanna to leave the room while I got my epidural.  She gives me the epidural and it's just starting to only work on my right side. All of the sudden I'm in so much pain I can't think straight and I'm just wondering when this epidural is going to kick in and then my doctor is there telling me it's time to push! WHAT?! but I'm still in pain? is this normal?? I dont' think I can do this.  9 minutes of pushing and then I hear this beautiful baby cry and they are laying this baby on my chest.  Grace immediately poops all over me (which Josiah also did that to me when they laid him on my chest).  And all I can think is Praise God we have another miracle.  They take her away and call out that she weighs 9lbs. 3oz.!!  I just can't believe I was carrying this large baby around last week. No wonder I was so uncomfortable! So after just 4 hrs. of labor I am oh so thankful for a nice big healthy baby!  Things calm down and I realize my friend Johanna was asked to leave a little bit ago. I wonder where she is and what she's been doing? Brian goes to get her and she comes in and I'm holding Grace. HAHA! She'd been waiting outside the door wondering what all the yelling was for if I was just getting an epidural.  It was so fun having her be part of the experience.  Grace is now 4 days old and already I can see changes in her and how she looks.  She is doing a beautiful job of nursing and she is becoming normal for us to have her here.

Johanna (due Aug. 23rd) and I right after Grace was born

Can't get enough Grace

She is already changing our family for the better in many ways.

Martin feels the need to be by her side and "protect" her.  He did this when we brought Josiah home as well.

We tell Josiah to give Grace a hug and he gently lays his head on her. It's one of the sweetest things to watch as he is trying to adapt to this new little baby being around. 

She's Here!

Welcome to our family

Grace Diane Ulrich

Born August 2nd, 2010 at 12:06pm

9lbs. 3oz. and 21.5 in. long

Ok one last post before the big one

Well, this evening marked our last evening as a family of three (four if we include Martin) so we went on a walk.  A neighbor gave Josiah a sucker and made our walk much shorter since he was more focused on the sucker than walking.  I can't count the number of times I'v been on long hard walks trying to get this baby girl to come out and I'v given her 41 weeks in the womb, but alas she did not come out on her own. Tomorrow morning at 7:30am I will be induced and hopefully baby girl will join us within a few hours.  Please pray for us tomorrow!  (yay last belly shot for this pregnancy!)

Our walk ended when Josiah got to the middle of the sucker and didn't like it, then his fingers were all sticky and he couldn't handle that either, so we had a little meltdown in the front lawn and ended our walk :-)