Laughing with Sarah

Eleanor Ann - 1 Year Old - December 27, 2017 Life with two kids is rich and full and wonderful and tiring...and some of the little luxuries, like blogging regularly and taking monthly pictures, have fallen by the wayside. The Type A part of me minds a little bit, because now Ellie won't have twelve matching monthly pictures in her baby book, and sometimes I feel guilty, because I managed to do all this for Sam...except that it was only Sam, and even then, it was a hard enough struggle to try to do all the things I wanted to as far as marking and celebrating his milestones. Ellie, we have been enjoying you (and trying to catch up to you!) so much that we haven't stopped to mark all of your milestones. We take lots of pictures and videos of you, but we are hardly organized, especially with some computer issues that have meant re-importing all of our photos, and so these days, we have doubles and triples of photos, stored in many and various places, and nothing is lost, but...

It's been a heck of a week and a half, so apologies for the tardiness of this post! Here are some pictures for you. 39 weeks - December 23, 2016 - My last regular weekly belly shot! December 27, 2016, 5:00 a.m. - The very last belly shot before heading to the hospital for baby day! December 27, 2016, 8:00 a.m. - Welcome to the world, Eleanor Ann! A cute, chubby-cheeked GIRL, born 8lbs 8oz and 21 inches long. Our beautiful sweetheart. December 27, late morning - Mama gets back from recovery and gets her first real snuggles with Eleanor December 27, evening - Sam gets to hang out with his baby sister. He is immediately smitten. Enjoy the pictures for now. There's a lot more to the story! Still to come are a write-up of Eleanor's birth story (boring for her, a little more exciting for me), and then an account of the last couple days, which have found us up at Mayo Clinic with a sick baby needing emergency surgery at a tender nine days old. We're still...

Twelve months - November 21, 2014 Well, then. Here we are. One year, already, little man. You woke up happy on your birthday morning, and cuddled in bed with us and snuggled with Emme. You love the kitties so very much. They love you, too, in their own way. The way that you hug and pet and snuggle with the kitties is the way that you hug and kiss and snuggle with your stuffed animals. These days, your neon green puppy is one of your favorites. He rides in the car with you. When we get into the car, I hand him to you and you give him a big hug, snuggling against me and smiling. I usually sneak you into your car seat while you are hugging puppy. :) You continue to be such an affectionate little man. A few weeks ago, you were sitting in my lap while I was reading you a book, and you all of the sudden stopped paying attention, leaned back, looked up at me, and leaned up for a kiss. Nevermind that you give kisses by lunging forward with your mouth wide open. It is still the sw...

All evening, I've been playing the "what was happening a year ago?" game. At this time last year, I was mostly lying on my side, propped up with pillows, hooked up to IVs in both arms, trying to read magazines, getting groggy from the meds they gave me, waiting for my body to get going on the whole labor thing, and trying not to worry as my blood pressure kept creeping up. At this point in the night, they'd given me a sleeping pill, and while I tried to rest, Matt, too, tried to rest in the uncomfortable chair under the window. I remarked tonight that the passing of this year is baffling to me. It's not so much that I can't believe Sam is turning one, it's that I cannot believe that another year of life has passed by so quickly. Another year here in Decorah. Another year of pastoring. Another year of marriage. A year full of extraordinary highs and lows. Perhaps I feel so tender because I'm scared for my dad's scan results tomorrow, which will tell...