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.

Baby Update

Do you like the pic? Hailey did the camera work for me and this was our third try. Anyway, this is baby boy at almost 35 weeks. All is going well. I remain on a low dose of antibiotics daily until the end of the pregnancy to prevent any repeat kidney infections. Baby likes to sit primarily on my right side and gets the hiccups at least twice per day. I must say that I predict him to be the biggest of my babies, but hopefully not to the extent of his 10+lb daddy. Heart burn and fatigue are my most recent complaints, but overall I am feeling great. We are pretty set on a name, but this will not be announced till his birthday. (I know that it was really hard on some of you already knowing that he is a boy.) So the count down is on! I am so excited, nervous, thankful, amazed, and anxious all at the same time.

Fall Fun

Fall is probably my most favorite time of the year despite it seeming like the shortest season. We have been making to most of our time outside outside by making leaf piles. Poor Lily didn't know what to make of the girls and their wild behavior in the leaves. We were also invited to a Pumpkin Party on Friday night. I had grand schemes of the girls being Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, but Hailey had lots of tears about Peter Pan being just for boys--whatever. I'm just so tired of the princess obsession! We did manage to make them both happy and cute I must say by pulling together things that we already had in the house.

I also have to share what else we got to do today. Today was garden closing day at CSCC. This involves everyone who had a plot in the garden. We clean up all of the plants, dig up soil, and spread what they called "farm post". Well, the "farm post" was a proper name for "_____!" There was pile higher than my head that we were to spread with wheel barrels and rakes over the soil. The smell was awful and the worst part was that they paid for it. Kind of ironic considering where I came from.

Break in the Action

Wow, so it has been a while since I have done some posting. It may be due to several different things, but mainly my desire to have everything just so before this baby arrives. Some people call this nesting but I call it reality. The reality is that if it doesn't get done now it surely will not get done after baby is here.

It has not been all work and no play. The girls and I took a trip to SW Minnesota last weekend due to Mike's work schedule. ( Don't say "poor Mike" quite yet, he did get to golf 18 holes on Saturday and the weather cooperated beautifully.) We headed "home" on Thursday because Hailey had the day off from preschool due to MEA. The trip home was a bit challenging due to the relentless rain and impatient travelers. Once arriving we always have a great time. The girls got Mike's old "There's a Monster at the End of this Book" book from Grandma Miedema. (I have since limited it to being read twice a day.) I enjoyed a good old $11 hair cut in Leota--that included free babysitting from Grandma, wash, and style. Stephanie & Makenna joined us at Grandpa & Grandma because of pheasant hunting. Ginnie visited from Sioux Falls, the Zeinstras' visited after school, and we were surprised by the Vis family coming to church with us on Sunday morning. Taylor again made it through an entire church service in Leota--it may have been due to the fact that she is deathly afraid of Uncle Brad. Every time he looked at her she crawled up on my lap and buried her face.

The trip home went well; Mike was ready for his girls to return home. I always get a bit spoiled by Mom's cooking and being able to relax. We hope to go back before baby boy arrives, but we will see!