Finally some blue to go along with all the pink

Carter Dean Miedema arrived at 8:56 AM today. He has ten fingers and ten toes and is doing very well. He is 7 lb and 14 oz. Multiple nurses have complimented him on his "nicely shaped head", which is pretty good as far as baby compliments go. Mom and dad are tired but doing well. Hailey and Taylor have met their brother and Taylor was quite shy for about 10 seconds ... she attempted to poke him in the eye within the first few minutes. Overall, mom and dad are overjoyed. We thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers.

Guessing Game

We thought that it would be fun for our family and friends to all take a crack at baby boy's birth weight. Just post a comment in response to this post and come Thursday morning we will see who is the winner! Mike's guess: 7lb 10oz. Hailey's guess: 1lb. My guess: 8lb 6oz.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It is the night before Thanksgiving and all through the house not a creature is stirring, not even the como squirrels. Mike is at the hospital tonight staying busy and hopefully able to get some sleep. The girls are just down for the night after yet another jumping spree from the couch arm rests to the cushions on the floor (thank goodness we don't have anyone living below us anymore.) Baby boy is bouncing back-n-forth with-in my tummy, but obviously finding himself content to wait with his grand entrance till the 29th. I'm finding myself stirring with emotions tonight as I reflect on my thankfulness to God. Who am I to be blessed as I have been with such a wonderful husband, two beautiful girls, and expecting, in less than one week, a baby boy? Who am I? Our health, our finances, our family, our friends--I am so thankful.

Tomorrow we will be celebrating our first ever Thanksgiving alone with our little family. We traveled back "home" last weekend and celebrated with our families. The trip went great. It was odd to think that when saying good-bye to everyone we would be returning for Christmas in just a month with a whole new addition to our family. I try to speculate what that means exactly and I just don't know! One would think that by the third time I would be calmer about this, but nooooooo! Anyway, we are going to do a turkey tomorrow and put up our Christmas decor. (We'll see if Taylor will do better with the tree this year). It seems appropriate that we had light snow fall today with dropping temps. I dont' have any new pictures to post this time, but don't worry I'll make up for it next post.
To all of you that keep up on our blog we wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!

Special Week

It was Hailey's "special week" at preschool this past week. This involved her bringing a bulletin board of pictures, special things, and stories about herself. She had to answer questions about her favorite things from the class, bring snack & drink for the week, and had to take the class stuffed animal home. Hailey's favorite part of the week was that she got to pull off the toy curtains for play time (I'm not sure what that meant, but it must have been the cool thing to do.)

At the end of the week we were blessed with some northwest Iowa visitors! Brad, Pam, and the kids got a hotel on Friday night so we all did some swimming. On Saturday the boys went to a Gopher's BB game while Pam took the girls to the "bee movie". The girls had so much fun with their cousins and the adults even went out on the town Saturday night! Time is ticking with the pregnancy and we really needed a fun weekend before baby arrives.

Our little Taylor continues to impress us with "personality lately. She was pretty excited about us setting up the bassinet for baby, but once again I shudder as to what might happen once there is a real baby in it!

Trick-or-Treat

Trick-or-treating at Como Student Housing is about as easy as it gets. Everyone living here gets a orange sign and if you tape it outside your door this means that you welcome trick-or-treaters. Mike took the girls door to door and Taylor's hesitancy quickly disappeared after the first person dumped candy into her bucket. Hailey, at the age of 4, considered herself an expert, often notifying other treaters how many signs were up in each building: "hey guys, there's 3 in this one". At one point Taylor's bucket broke due to the weight, but she didn't allow us to assist. She tried to wrap her arms around it as she stumbled down the sidewalk, straining to protect the contents. We ended the night at DR & Jenn's, where they posed for a picture with the adorable little lamby and the twin Elvi. Hailey did manage to stay in character most of the night "meowing"at most everyone she saw.

On a different note, today is November 1st. Nothing is really too significant today other than that now we can say "I'm due at the end of the month!" YEAH! I did go and and purchase some slip-on shoes for winter today; ones that require no bending or tying. Pathetic or smart, I can't decide. Up until now I have been wearing flip-flops.