Checking in! :)

We are all doing real well!

HUGE PRAISE- Hope is doing great eating and is nursing like a champ! Praise God!!

We carried Hope in a couple times this past week to weigh her as she wasn’t gaining as hoped over last weekend! And she has done great, gaining 2 ounces a day when what they’re hoping for is an ounce a day! I have been trying to feed her each time, but then just pump and give her the bottle.  Over the week, she just began to have more and more success and today, by God’s grace, I haven’t pumped at all and she happily and correctly nursed every 3 hours! Praise God! Sorry for the nursing details, Liesa , but seriously what a blessing! For those of you who will find this funny, it was actually the very night Liesa and her fam were here for dinner that Hope had her first successful nursing at home- I told Liesa she had brought a good nursing vibe with her!! Too funny!

OK, the rest of us are doing great! Kat has been such a help and has watched the boys for us as we keep weighing Hope! One morning, she even told us to stop in and enjoy a Starbucks before we came home- and we sure did- yum!! She and Caleb are playing cards every day and he is enjoying getting a ton of attention from her!

Lukey is still pretty smitten with his baby sister.  He asks to hold her a lot and just checks in on her all throughout the day! It cracks me up because as he’s cooing over her, I often hear him saying, through his little gritted teeth, stuff about Hope being “so chunky” which is just too cute since she’s just trying to tip the scales at 7 pounds!!

Elijah has been the hardest hit by the transition, which was to be expected! Does any of our Union Grove family remember Lukey bursting into tears EVERY time we had a visitor when Elijah was born?! It’s tough not being the baby anymore! He loves his baby sister, though!  Last night, at a despedida for some our our teammates heading back to the States, I heard him tell someone, “Baby Hope at home!” real authoritative like he says a lot of things! They said, “Oh no, she’s here!” He looked all around like, “Wait- how did I miss that?!”

Here’s a couple of my favorite pics from the past few days! Thank you so much for praying for us! We are just so happy and blessed!!

After her first bath at home!

Yum- Starbucks! Thanks, Kat, for watching the boys!!

Look- I have eyes!

Sweet brothers!

I love this one!

We’re Home!! :)

Praise God- we’re all sleeping under the same roof tonight!

Thanks for being so excited for us and for praying for us!

Hope all dressd up to go home with her new earrings!!

Mindy with the kidlets- THANK YOU, MINDY!!!!!!!

Kat and the kids- THANK YOU, KAT!!!!!!!!!

We could not have done it this week without Kat and Mindy being such amazing help with the boys and Luz, our house helper, keeping everything straight! God has provided for us so well! Thank You, GOD!!

Night, Night!

Meet our precious little girl!!

Well, Hello to you, Baby Girl!!

Isn’t she precious? Still a little mucky here in the pic, but just perfect! One of the doctors said after a moment of checking her, “Perfecto!!” Oh, she so totally is! Praise God! What a gift! I am just so thankful!!

Things are pretty slow around here- we’ve hardly had our hands on her- hopefully we’ll get her back soon!  My mom is here with me and John and sweet Brave! Mindy is bringing the boys over shortly to meet their baby sister! Fun times!!

(I started this post a few hours ago – Mindy made it over! and John and Kat took the boys to McDonald’s for dinner, Mindy stayed and looked after me and John came back after laying the bows down to spend the night here and Mindy and Kat will hold down the fort- wow- what blessings of help- God is just taking such good care of us!)

Thank you so much for your prayers! Please join us in praising God for a perfectly safe delivery and a perfectly precious pink little bundle!!

Proud papi!

John has put up a lot more pics on our Dropshots page, so check those out if you like!

Thanks again for praying!

I CANNOT WAIT!!!!!!!!

Wowzers! I am so excited, I can’t stand it!!

My mom got here safely- PRAISE GOD!!!

Mindy got back from her mountain trip- PRAISE GOD!!!

We are ready to go!!

We all went to Benihana’s (the Japanese steakhouse) to have one last hoorah! Fun times!

Thanks so much for praying for us all tomorrow!

We’re scheduled for 10:00 AM (EST).

Can’t wait to show off our newest pink blessing to you all tomorrow!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELIJAH!!!

Good morning, birthday boy!!!

Our baby boy is 3 today!!! Fun times! We had a fun day today! We had a party this morning with some missionary families over at our house.  All the kids had fun playing, pulling the piñata, and eating pizza, cake, and ice cream! Elijah also loved talking on the phone to his sweet grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in the US, too!!

Here's his "race car, race car" cake!

Here are my top 3 things I love about our Elijah Jackson McLamb:

1. He is our “always up for anything” kid.  He has so much joy about life and is always up for a game of “chase” or “can’t get me” or “Batman get Robin”- ok, those are really all just forms of chase!   I just love his joy for life!
2. He’s left-handed! I don’t know, but it just melts my heart every time I see it! Of course, I love it because it’s “just like Daddy” since John is a lefty.  I just love seeing that physical sign of John in our son. Like his fingerprint on him, claiming “this one’s mine.” Although, seriously, have you seen the kid? I mean, that is a mini-me of John Morgan if there ever was one!!
3. I am absolutely in love with his speech right now!! He is so in the “telegraphic speech” stage and I love the really long sentences he says, all separated out with that little pause:  “Ijah . . . get . . . bad . . . guys . . . balls . . . hurt . . . Robin.” You get the idea.  I mean, I just think it’s adorable! He is a really good communicator, I think!

Not from today- but one of my favorite pics!

Well, thanks for enjoying our Elijah! And thank you for praying for our health! We are so close to back to 100%!! Praise God! John is preaching tomorrow, so I would ask you to pray for him tomorrow!

Sure hope you all had a wonderful Saturday!

OK, maybe that was too optimistic!

So, my last title used “was” in reference to this bug and maybe that was more wishful thinking.

We are ok, but this thing is definitely going through the family.  Elijah has been pitiful all day and had a fever, Lukey had some diarrhea this morning and that was really it for him thankfully, Caleb was fine all day then complained of a headache about 30 minutes ago and just threw up! And John has definitely gotten worse over the day, too.  We did all get some medicine for the diarrhea and the painful cramps, so that is a blessing.  Sorry for the details, but we would really appreciate your prayers!! Of course, we want to be well for Hope next week, but also we are having Elijah’s birthday party this Friday that I really want us all to be well for, and there’s always the last-minute preps to be done for the baby.  No worries, I mean, it is what it is, just hoping that it will quickly be over!

This afternoon, Elijah and I were sitting in the chair in our bedroom just feeling bad together, watching Hope move around.  Lukey came boundin’ in and got interested in Hope, too and started calling to my belly, “Come out, Hope!!!” A few minutes later Elijah leaned over and hollered, “Wake up, Hope!!” Too cute! This has been so fun to have big kids to get excited with about having a baby! That’s a first for us- before we’ve felt accomplished if the bigger sibling could even say ‘baby.’ No, that’s exaggerating, a little! It is fun, though, with these big boys- they are so ready to meet their sister!!

Thank you so much for praying for us!!

Whew- that was rough!

Well, I started off feeling kinda gross yesterday and it just got worse- apparently I picked up a stomach bug! Not fun at all to be sick, feverish and 9 months pregnant! But, thank God it appears to have run its course.  At least, that fever with the horrible body ache seems to have gone! Please pray for all of us, though, as it seems everyone else but Caleb is having some diarrhea, too.  Poor Luke asked me last night if you DIE from DIarrhea- I assured him that you usually don’t, you just have to take care of yourself and drink more.  He was worried about his Mama.

OK, so the monitoring all went fine and Dr. Del Riego was real pleased with Hope’s weight gain! He was doing the belly check and started to shake his head.  He said, “I don’t know, but she just feels like more than 6 pounds.” (According to the ultrasound, she was 6.1 pounds.) He said, “Don’t you?” I said again that she felt just like all my other babies.  And he said, “Well, I’ll take your word for it over an ultrasound tech. any day!” I thought that was nice.  Only God knows really how big this one is, but she is acting just like an extremely perfect and healthy little baby! So, everything is set up for next week- I’ll go Tuesday for some pre-op stuff- more monitoring, blood and an EKG.  Then, Wednesday morning is the big day!!

Thank you for all your prayers and please do pray for this diarrhea thing to quickly leave our house so we can all be well to meet our Hope!

What a gift!

John is just simply the BEST!! He mentioned a while ago that he wanted me to have some time for a Spiritual Retreat before Hope comes.  So, he set it up for today and I had such a nice time.  I dropped him and the boys off at a cool park nearby and headed to McDonald’s to eat lunch outside and linger for awhile, reading, listening to my iPod.  Then, I headed over to another McDonald’s near my ultrasound appointment and enjoyed a yummy ice cream cone and enjoyed some more time with God and His Word.  It was SO NICE to have that chunk of uninterrupted time to just listen and be quiet!! I am just ridiculously blessed by God to have such a wonderful husband.  I have been trying to look at John more often lately- that may sound funny, but as parents, we can be so busy looking at/ dealing with little people, that we forget to look at each other! Well, it has been so fun, just to notice his facial expressions more, how his eyes crinkle when he smiles,  and how he delights in his children, and how stinkin’ handsome he is!! I am so thankful to God for my John Morgan!!

Hope did good for her ultrasound, she had gained a tiny bit more than a pound in 2 weeks.  So, we’ll see what Dr. Del Riego says tomorrow after her monitoring. We’re praying she can just stay put until the 13th! Oh, and a huge praise- my mom was able to change her ticket (THANK YOU, KAT!!!!) and she will be here next Monday night (11th)!! AND, God just loves to show off and take care of us so good- a JourneyGirl, Mindy, has also Graciously offered to help out during the hospital stay, helping with the boys and helping my mom argue for a taxi fare, and just being an extra set of hands- how sweet!! We are so blessed to have my mom and Mindy to help us welcome little Hope into this world!!

God is just so good in providing for us! He loves me so much!! May His lavish love cause me to love Him lavishly in return!!

First Post of the New Year!! :)

We had a nice night last night bringing in the New Year- John and I were watching Food Network (gotta love Slingbox) when it turned midnight and the explosions fireworks began.  It was even more intense than Christmas Eve and actually woke up the boys- poor guys! So, John came down from checking on them and said the solution was to open the curtains so Caleb could see the fireworks and let Elijah cuddle up with Lukey in his bed (where he stayed for the whole night- sweet)!

I forgot to tell about Hope’s monitoring this past week- she did just fine and gave a great show!! Praise God! So, I’ll have an ultrasound this coming Monday, another monitoring and OB app’t. on Tuesday just to double check, and then the week after that- we meet her!!!!!!!

Also, I have decided to pierce Hope’s ears! It’s t-totally Peruvian to do so and a friend told us that they’ll mistake her daughter, dressed in pink from head to toe, for a boy because all they look at is the ears!  So, I’ve started paying attention and literally every baby girl has her ears pierced- I talked to one mom in a store about how to do it- you bring the earrings to the hospital and they do it for you there!!- and John was explaining how in our culture, we just don’t really do that and she kinda jumped in and was like “well, here you have to!!” So, anywho, we decided- why not? I mean, way better than a circumcision and she’ll never remember the momentary pain!   OK, so I went to the jewelry store with the boys to buy her earrings and really liked the “shiny” ones, so asked about the price- 294 DOLLARS!!!! Oh, right- real DIAMONDS do tend to shine!! I told her my husband would die if I bought those and could I please some others! So, I ended up buying these adorable tiny pearl studs- too cute! I got tangled up with my Spanish trying to explain the concept of a birthstone (pearl is mine) which is apparently not a universal concept and next thing I knew she was showing me these lovely strands of pink pearls for me- I quickly explained that I didn’t need anything today, thanks, and paid for Hope’s earrings and headed home!

Oh, and I FINISHED ELIJAH’S BABY BOOK!!!! Yesterday afternoon! I am so happy and loved showing it off to John- can’t wait to show the grandparents when they come!!

Last, here’s a couple pics of a typical night around here- I have the most amazing husband and these boys are so blessed to have such a wonderful daddy!!

Our Christmas Update

I wanted to share with you all what a wonderful Christmas we had this year!

Christmas Eve, we made a ton of goodies:  white chocolate covered pretzels, sugar cookies, buckeyes and I made my pecan pie for the Christmas gathering the next day.  Our good friends, the Penningtons, came down to Lima for Christmas so we got to enjoy all this with them.  It was so fun, with kids (they have 2 boys- 7 and 10) running around, good stuff to munch.  For dinner, we had Shepherd’s Pie which I’ve decided has to be a new tradition for us because- how cute is that- Shepherd’s Pie on the night the shepherds met Jesus so many years ago!!

Hope helped, too, getting covered in flour!

Enjoying our cookies after dinner- yum!!

Christmas Day was wonderful.  We had a sweet time with fun presents in the morning, cooked a bit more for our gathering (John helped out a TON as I was feeling a bit done- sweet husband!!) and then we headed over to a school to have lunch with our missionary family.  It was so nice to have the whole playground and all that space to enjoy! There was some Delicious food there, too!  We came home form that good time and all had Christmas naps!

This was the first year the boys picked out gifts for each other!!

Christmas morning with Toy Story characters!!!

It’s been real difficult this year, more than ever, to teach about Christmas, as the boys are getting older and more aware of all the “extra” of this holiday.  Lukey in particular has been so excited and will sometimes answer (to “What is Christmas about?”) “PRESENTS!!!!” and sometimes he’ll just spontaneously shout out, “Christmas is not about presents, it’s about GOD!!!” He’s working it all out! Also, Lukey said on Friday, “Yesterday was Christmas EVE and today is MERRY Christmas!!” I had a lot of fun teaching Caleb’s Bible time as they (Bob Jones) did an excellent job with the Christmas unit! Caleb memorized Luke 2:11 and he always reminds me of Linus in a “A Charlie Brown Christmas” when he recites it! Sweet!

Well, I truly hope you all had a wonderful Christmas celebrating! It hit me more this year than ever what an amazing, time-dividing, full of GRACE, event we are celebrating- what people had hoped for, for YEARS AND YEARS, finally came to pass in such a non-eventful way.  WOW- God is just amazing and so worthy of our lives lived out in daily adoration of HIM!! Merry Christmas!!