Look what she did...

I wish i could take more time at this moment to sing praises of the photographer (and now friend, sister in Christ..and midwife stand in) who freely gave of her time and encouragement and support and prayers and gifts in photography..to spend tuesday with us as we delivered Elizabeth Hope.  Miss Linda....may you be richly blessed..in this life and in the one we live for!
Here are a couple she let me sneak at peak at.  We're so blessed!!!

Never a dull moment

Travis is apparently not going to allow his new baby sister to overshadow him.  On friday morning, the first morning home with our 2 babes, around 1030 am, i jumped in the shower to get ready to take miss E for her first pediatrician visit to check up on her jaundice. Travis was going to stay home with Lola.  I heard a very loud thump.  I hurried out of the shower, opened the door and asked, kind of half pleading that nothing drastic was wrong, what had happened.  Big E was here and she very calmly stated that travis had fallen in the kitchen and his front tooth fell out.  SERIOUSLY?!  I could hear lola and mitch asking travis to spit in the sink while he was screaming and saying "my tooth...my tooth!"  My poor boy.  I got upstairs as fast as i could and saw the damage.  Ugh...my sweet baby boys smile....

So we got in touch with the dentist who saw travis when he was 14 months and had crawled up onto a chair and then tried to climb across the window sill, only to come crashing down ON the window sill and push his two front teeth back up into his gums.

 1st tooth injury: july 4, 2008

This newest injury/loss is a result of the root of those teeth being weak and so the break was clean..  Dentist said he will most likely get his big boy teeth in sooner than normal and that they may be weak at first too.

 1st tooth out: April 25, 2010

My fragile emotional state just can't take another accident.  I think there is a blue moon beer in the fridge calling my name. :)

so much more to share with you all.  How God moved so clearly in the room as miss E was being born.  How Big E was affected by her new goddaughter's birth and what she did with that new experience.  How "everyone poops" has become a joke within a story.  How i can see a little bit of Cana when i look into the face of our little girl, finally in our arms.

Elizabeth Hope is here

It's the morning after we welcomed Elizabeth Hope into our arms and right now i am watching her daddy feed her some formula because, like travis, she is not latching...as if she knows her main milk supply won't come from mommy.  (mommy had reduction surgery in 2000 and there is lots of damage to the milk ducts so they have not learned how to produce entirely enough..yet.)  But it's all good.  We are holding our 2nd baby girl, our 3rd baby, travis' 2nd little sister.  And just wait till you see the pictures of him meeting her for the first time.  I can hardly write it out without getting all misty.  :)  it was just as we'd hoped.  too beautiful for words.  And until we see the pictures that this amazing woman gifted us with, i joyously introduce:

Elizabeth Hope Milbrandt

8 lbs. 19.5 inches.

thank you Lord for your faithfulness & mercy & enduring love & sacrifice.

& Hope.

Your Mom!

So i had come catching up to do, i know!   (5th post today!!!)

Enjoy a little misc. catchup post from the last 2 weeks...

April 1st, i had my 36 week appt and found we had dilated to 4.5cm.  Stricter bedrest and just 5 days till Lola would be here, praise the Lord!  Elizabeth had watched travis for us that afternoon and we came home and visited on the deck with her for a bit before she went on her way..quite abruptly, but sometimes she's weird like that. :)  So after letting travis get nice and dirty with the sand and water tables, we decided to get him in the tub.  He stripped himself down on the deck because hey, who wants sand all over the house when you can't vacuum!  As he ran down the hall to the bath, mitch and i noticed...something was just a LITTLE bit different about our boys naked bum.

Can you tell what it is?

Then just a couple from the last few days of "celebration Lola" as we rejoice in her return visit,

3rd summer, 3rd great grandbaby from this growing family.  Thank you for all the love and service and guidance and support you give us all, Lola!  Travis and Lola have such a special bond.  The first night she was here, he would just grab her over and over again and say "i love you lola"...and "give me more hugs, Lola."  Mitch and i would laugh in awe at this neat connection travis has to his great grandmother. 

Easter Saturday and Sunday

Egg coloring saturday afternoon 

 

 and one casualty became....

 

a snack!

Easter Morning!

 

This is how we look for eggs at my house!

Resurrection Weekend

Being on bedrest had just gotten so old as i looked out the window on that beautiful Easter Saturday...so i fluttered my eyelashes as best i could and Mitch let me talk him into all of us (mema included) going to the little area "spring celebration", as long as i kept my butt on a blanket.  Most of the pictures i take lately are from the view from my couch, a chair on the deck, or, as was the case this saturday, my view from a blanket in a park.  :)   We only stayed long enough for me to be uncomfortable.  and satisfied.

 

mema tried to get travis to do the bunny hop

Do you have..."ice ice baby?"

You are my sunshine

Yesterday afternoon, i was finishing up travis' bathtime fun and he had left this easter card one of our adopted mom's had given him in the bathroom. One of those cards that you open up and it sings to you...
So it sang "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy....when skies are gray.  You'll never know dear, how much i love you......"  And i just LOST IT.  I tried to sing it to him, but then he started singing it to me.  I think I sat there with him while he opened it and closed it over 20 times, just learning the song and singing it back to me, while i tried thru garbled throat and tears streaming, to join in.  Elizabeth poked her head in to see if I needed her help getting him dressed and she saw me crying and laughing as travis was holding this card. I'm sure it was a strange sight for her.  :)  but I told her i was ok, and i was.  I was just so overtaken by this emotion of praise...that God let us have this little baby boy to come home to after we lost our Cana.  That during those gray sky days, he really was our only sunshine.  And now that we are about to become 5-1, and travis is going to get to love on that baby sister he's only heard about, i just reflect over the last 18 + months and my heart is overflowing with gratitude for this little life that brought us a little sunshine in our darkest days.

You'll never know, dear, how much I love you.....

 

Thank you Lord for this beautiful life, full of sorrow, full of joy.  I'll gladly take both.  Because without the sorrow, it might be harder to recognize the joy.  and the promise of Hope.

THIS is what bedrest does to me....

A few weeks ago, i browsed THIS blog, and she mentioned THIS wonderful woman.  Then I was at THIS friends house and she gave me half of her dough from THIS recipe.  So that inspired me to make my own and it's all i can think about now.  What can i top our pizza with next?  It can only get better, honestly.  Elizabeth and I were probably more impressed than were Mitch and Lola.  *thank you for affirming me, E!  And so i guess i'll take it as a challenge to impress them more next time.  Maybe they can at least be impressed with the picture?  :)

please pray for us...

Here we sit (or lay) on bedrest for week 6 and i'm dilated to 4.5cm as of holy thursday.  5 days later and i'm pretty certain we are progressing along at a pace faster than my heart desires. But let me be clear...i'm not AFRAID of losing her. I'm not fearful of the what if's and believe me, there are many.  That's one of the catches of attending a support group (MEND) and hearing about all the other things that can go wrong.  But what i'm most concerned about and most need your prayers for is my heart IF we deliver her so early that she has to spend any amount of time in NICU.  I just don't want to be back there again.  I don't WANT to come home empty handed....again.  Even for just a night, a week, etc.  And what hurts the most is that one of the most important members of my family...this just doesn't seem to cross his mind.  It's more about "well, if that's what God wants..."   I'm sorry but i have to disagree.  We are under the laws of this world and i can't believe that God WANTS her to be born early.  Yes, good comes from all things...esp. if we submit to the Lord and surrender our wants to His.  BUT...if the reason i deliver early is because i had to do more because, hey, let's face it....stuff gots to get done!because that one family member couldn't be here...to offer anything...well, then yes, i guess you need to believe it's God's will.
Here i go, venting again.  Lola comes in today.   But i worry she isnt going to be able to keep up with travis like years past.  Please pray for her. Please pray for travis to listen better, be more obedient, to be safe in whoever's care he's in.  Please pray for us as we ask God for clarity (if we should induce early so we are in the hospital when she's born)...for all the things we missed out on with Cana (normal delivery, family able to hold her, no time in nicu)...but especially for us, just our strength in dealing with family who doesn't get it, who thinks a tear shed for the life we miss is some sort of weakness in our faith or belief that God moves in all things, esp. in our suffering.  For me to surrender this cross and to surrender the hope that this person would be all i want them to be..to just accept them and to see Christ in them.

please pray for us.