Hannah's 5th Birthday Cake

Elijah was finally born and so Hannah finally got to have her birthday. Her birthday was last Friday. She seemed to think that her birthday was connected with the birth of her brother. The longer it took him to come the longer she thought she had to wait for her birthday. He was due the 10th and born on the 19th. Her birthday was the 26th. She only had to wait one week after he was born to finally get to enjoy her birthday.

I let the kids pick their birthday cakes each year. The cakes were usually fairly simple Chocolate, Strawberry, etc. I think last year Hannah wanted a Banana cake. But even that turned out fairly simple. This year she wanted a Vanilla, Chocolate, Vanilla cake. That wasn't the hard part though. I had two round cake pans and so I was able to make the 3 layers out of two cake mixes. The chocolate one being rather thick, since she only wanted one layer of the chocolate and I didn't want to waist the batter. She originally wanted "up-down, up-downs" on it. Those being zig zags but when we went to buy the specific cake mixes she saw the candy decorations and wanted the pink letters and the soccer balls instead. The hardest part of the cake was that she also wanted the icing to be vanilla, chocolate, vanilla. Most people I have described this cake to at this point are picturing a mess. But as you can see in the picture I was able to pull it off and she said the cake was, "Perfect!"

So score one for mom with that cake. Of course now the kids have the idea that they can come up with just about anything. They did decide that 3 layers were way to thick. So they decided to be satisfied with two layers at this point. I just don't know how difficult some of their cakes are going to get. I think I'm going to have to practice making cheese cakes, because I've already had one of the older kids talk about wanting a two layer cheese cake for their birthday. At least I have until June and July for those cakes.

The pictures above are from Hannah's birthday party. It was just our family but we had fun. Hannah wasn't feeling 100% herself that day and even ended her evening with a slight fever. The fever broke during the night and she was all better by morning. I did feel bad for her having a fever on her birthday. I think she had just worn herself out. We have all been suffering from sniffles and coughs this week. I think it is because of the pollen that has come out. It's been pretty thick outside. I also need to do some spring cleaning and will be washing all our curtains to get the dust out of the house. I hope that helps.

We are looking forward to visiting my parents on Friday. We don't have much time to see my brother's family before they go back to France. So we want to take advantage of Scott having this Friday off. I'm glad that the kids got to spend a week with their cousins at my parents while we were waiting for Elijah to be born.

I know everyone is looking forward to getting to see him. We need to plan a visit with my grandparents as well. At least my grandparents are a little closer and we just need to pick a Saturday to visit them.

This will be a pretty busy weekend so keep checking back I plan to post more pictures this weekend.

Elijah

I just wanted to post this quick blog to let everyone know that Elijah has finally arrived safe and sound. He was born yesterday at 1:09 p.m. He weighed 9 lb. 3 oz. and was 21 inches long. He has a full head of dark hair.

It was probably the hardest labor I have been through. I hope to never have to be induced again but I was able to make it through even though it was hard. I'm just glad that the Lord helped me when I thought I wouldn't make it. My husband was a real blessing. He watched my contractions on the monitor and held my hand and told me when they were about to go down. He could see them lower before I felt the pain lessen. It was a big help to me to have him say, "It's about to go down now."

I actually found that the contractions didn't seem to last long but they were very intense and fast. Also since I was on Oxytocin the contractions were coming faster than I had ever felt them before. I felt a bit out of control of my normal pain management. It made for a very tough time, but my doctor was very good and arrived as soon as I hollered, "I need the Doctor now!" She was running in the door.

But the real blessing is that after such an intense moment it was an even greater relief when it was all over and they handed Elijah immediately to me. They even let me hold him while they cleaned him. I was even allowed to feed him before they took him to the nursery and moved me to another room. I was so happy to hold him. It made the whole experience worthwhile.

My parents and the kids came today to see Elijah. My parents went home and Scott took the kids to the house. They will be picking me and Elijah up sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening. I am looking forward to our all being home and getting back into a routine again. This time with our newest family member.

I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful, beautiful family.

Psalm 127:3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

Not Yet...

This has been the start phrase of all my phone calls to my Dad. He warned me whenever I call someone that they are going to think I'm in labor. He recommended that I start my phone calls with, "Not yet."

I actually have been saying that a lot lately. Everytime I get a phone call, I answer and of course their first question is, "Is the baby here?"

And I respond, "No, not yet."

I had a Doctor's appointment Monday and she separated my membranes hoping that would start me into labor "naturally". I'm not actually sure how natural that was but it did start contractions. After my appointment Scott took me shopping and then around 8 p.m. we decided to go to the hospital again since my contractions were steady. I arrived there and after about 3 hours of monitoring they told me I wasn't in labor yet and again they sent me home. I never blogged that I had false contractions last Friday as well.

My parents were sweet and came as soon as I called Friday with contractions. After it turned out to be a false alarm they offered to take the kids home with them, so that I wouldn't have to worry about who will watch them. So my other 4 children are at my parents along with their 4 cousins and my brother and sister-in-law. I know things have to be hectic around there. It's too quiet around here. But Scott has been off this week for Spring Break and so we've been trying to get as much done around the house as we can before the baby comes.

My Doctor told me that she does not want me to go beyond 41 weeks and so we've agreed to go in Friday morning to induce labor. I'm not very excited about being induced but I am glad to know that I'll definitely have the baby this week. Waiting can be so hard. I will probably be pretty nervous Thursday night in anticipation of Friday. But maybe my nervousness will bring labor on by itself and I won't have to be induced.

Pray for me and baby Elijah this week. I just want everything to go smoothly and to soon deliver a happy, healthy baby.

I know our other children are anxious to see him too. They will be coming to see us either Friday afternoon or Saturday. I have a 9 month picture of me but it's on my camera which is still in my bag in the car. I was not wanting to forget to bring it to the hospital. So I'll have to post that picture later.

In the mean time I'll do like my Dad and post a random picture. The above pictures are of Joshua and Jonathan wrestling. Jonathan loves to wrestle with his big brother. Joshua will be 12 in June and Jonathan turned 2 in November. It won't be long and Joshua will have a second little brother climbing all over him too.

I love to watch him wrestle with his two year old brother because he's so careful not to hurt him. They just have fun. I worry more about Jonathan hurting Joshua. Just because 2 year olds don't know how to be as careful. But Joshua is good and manages not to get hurt while keeping his brother from getting hurt as well. You know his two younger brothers are really going to look up to their BIG brother. He's a good big brother too.

I may not post again until the baby comes, but I will definitely post as soon as he does. And I'll post more pictures soon too.

Ultrasound Picture

I had an ultrasound done today. My Doctor ordered it since my fourth child, Jonathan, was a big baby at birth. When Jonathan was born he weighed 11 lb. 4 oz. I asked my Doctor if there was any way we could know the size of Elijah. She asked me again how big my last one was and when I told her 11 lb. she decided to order me an ultrasound just to see.

This is the picture with some of the measurements the ultrasound machine took. The technician told me that it wasn't 100% accurate on getting the exact weight. This picture is the best we were able to get. You can see his nose squished up against the placenta. The other pictures we got, we can barely make out his face at all. The technician also assured me that he was very much a boy. I'm glad because it would be incredibly confusing for our children if there had been a mistake and we had a girl instead.

Now according to this ultrasound, my due date would be March 13. But I'm still considering it March 10. Of course all of my babies have been late so I wouldn't be too surprised if he was born a few days late. It also set his estimated weight at 7 lb. 4 oz. I kind of think he may be a touch heavier than that. I'm guessing he'll weigh around 9 lb. at birth. He doesn't feel quite as big to me as Jonathan did.

I felt good about the measurements they took. I have my twinges of nervousness about the approaching due date. But then I'm excited that I will finally get to see my baby and not just feel him kicking. Only a week or so left to go!