Welcome to our family!

Thursday morning the kids came in to meet their tiny little brother. It was so cute to see their facial expressions and hear their reactions as they finally got to see the little baby they've been waiting for. Special thanks to Andrew for snapping the pics!

Their very first reaction!

Benny came over to me and said "Ha, I thought he was a doll Mom!" So cute!

Lily was so funny, she said "Now I really believe you were pregnant Mom, and not just fat!" Heh. Nice tactful way of putting it...

Ben can't really believe it and keeps coming in the room to ask me if the baby is going to stay with us 'for the whole day'.

He's so happy. He'll stop watching a video or drawing a picture and come over just to look at the baby.

It's so cute to see Lily holding him. She does real well and rocks him gently when he fusses. I'm so happy they have a little baby brother and can learn how to help take care of babies.

Ben asked why the baby had a hole in his head, lol. Here Chris is explaining it to him.

Parent time is so much fun with a little baby.

3 days old!

The smallest Brownie!

Get ready for the barrage of pics. The little man is so handsome!

Getting dressed by the midwives. He was so calm & hardly made a peep.

Snuggling with mommy. Only 1 hour old.

So calm.

Meeting Abuela! Only 7 hours old.

First diaper change.

"I don't like my crib. Please put me back in the big bed with mommy."

Yes, we just wanted to show off Daddy's amazing photography skills.

It's a boy! And he's beautiful.

Thank you all so much for your prayers! Everything went very well and our beautiful baby is here. The Lord did so many miracles! Even though the umbilical cord was 20 cm shorter than average and wrapped around his neck, he was born perfectly healthy and there were no complications. PTL!

I have so many people to thank: Ginny, who thankfully was still here and coached me. She's so calm & took control of the situation so well. Agnes, who was in the room helping during the birth and took the kids the next day so Chris could help me with baby. My two wonderful midwives who helped make this birth experience so nice. My mom, who came all the way from Acapulco to help us with the baby & kids and everyone in my wonderful Home who each helped in their own way.

Chris deserves special mention as he's been an incredible help this whole time. He was with me during the birth and has taken over all the physical things that need to get done (cleaning, cooking, taking the kids, helping with the baby, etc.) so I can rest.

We also wanted to say a big thank you to the following Homes who sent us gifts for the baby: Activated Ministries Home, Coffee Shop Home, Jairo & Natalie, Amor, Pedregal Home and the CTC. We really appreciate your generosity and want you to know that it came at a perfect time. You have been the Lord's answer to our prayers and made the miracle happen! Thank you!

I'll sign off now but will post more pics soon.

The big day!

Today is my official due date. I've been having contractions on & off for a few days but nothing serious so we'll see what happens. Chris has been working extra hard cleaning & setting up the room.

In a way it would be nice if the baby came soon as Ginny (who is a registered doula) is leaving tomorrow for a few weeks and she was going to be my first option as a labor coach. Then there's Amber who was my backup plan but she's leaving today, heh. Julie wanted to be present at the delivery but she's gone too. Everyone is leaving! But it's ok, I'm sure things will be just fine.

The kids were just getting over some pretty bad colds/coughs but yesterday they had a relapse, so maybe the Lord will give us a few more days for them to get healed before sending the baby. Please pray that we'll all be healthy when the time comes.

Ok, I'll leave you with a few pics of this pregnancy:

3 months

4 months

5 months

5 1/2 (I don't have a pic for the 6th month)

7 months

8 months

Today! Due date!

PS. We still don't have a name for him so feel free to leave your suggestions or ideas!

Midwife visit

Yesterday the midwives came for our final visit before the baby is born. I have only been having checkups with one of them so it was nice to meet her partner. Apparently she is very well known in the world of midwives and has 20 years of experience so that's very comforting. They were both so sweet and made me feel very comfortable. What impressed me the most about them is how gentle they are whenever checking me. I think I've gotten used to the 'grin and bear it' kind of checkup with the doctors on my other pregnancies as they're very rough so I'm happy that it's working out to have the midwives this time.

Thank the Lord everything seems to be fine, baby is in the right position and all we have to do now is wait for that special moment. Please keep us in your prayers, that the baby will come in the Lords perfect time and especially that there will be no complications so we won't have to go to a clinic at all. I'm really looking forward to having this baby at Home.

Have a great day!

I love Agnes!

And this is one of the reasons why. One of the activities we had over Christmas consisted of giving 2 people in the Home a 'love token' with the promise to do a kind deed for them sometime throughout December or January. Agnes picked my name & offered to wash the baby's clothes for me which I thought was a great idea as just washing it all was a big job.

Today I decided to use rest day to sort through, fold & organize it all to see what I have enough of, what we still need, etc. Then I opened the suitcase and found this:

It was all done for me! I was so happy. Everything was washed, folded neatly, packed in separate bags and labeled already.

I love the way Agnes is like this with everything she does. She will never do a job halfway. If she takes it she does it perfectly. When she cooks dinner she turns leftovers into the highlighted meal of our week. When she teaches the kids you constantly hear them singing new songs, quoting new verses or telling you about some fun project/experiment they did. You don't ever hear her complaining, even when both of her kids are sick & she hasn't gotten sleep in 3 or 4 days.

Thank you Agnes! We're so blessed to live with you.

Vacation #2

Chris & I just finished a few days of rest & vacation without the kids. It was so relaxing & we're very thankful to those who took the kids & made it possible for us to take time off. We have a wonderful Home! Following are pics of some of the highlights of these days.

Thanks to this wonderful woman we were able to go out to a very nice Argentine restaurant for dinner.
Simona was so sweet & provisioned a gift certificate for each of the couples to go eat there on their vacation. Thank you! We got some pics taken at the restaurant but I look so incredibly fat in them (and I'm not being bashful, even Chris said I shouldn't use them, Ha!) that you'll just have to be happy with these.

Chris at the 'Meson Gaucho'.

Something very nice was that our vacation happened to include the day of our 6th anniversary, January 23rd, so we were able to celebrate that. I wanted to say a special THANK YOU and I LOVE YOU to a friend who sponsored a very nice meal for us but wishes to remain anonymous. I don't know who you are but I want you to know that I/we felt very loved and really appreciate your gift. Thanks for such a sweet gesture of friendship.

We love you!

Chris and I had originally thought of going out to eat but then he came up with the brilliant plan of including our Home in our special dinner. So instead of going out to eat we went shopping and Chris made a wonderful dinner of BBQed meat, Argentine chorizo (YAY!), Caesar's salad, bread, chips & dip and ice cream with peaches & cajeta for dessert. It was so wonderful. We had a very nice time relaxing with everyone and it was also a different way to celebrate our anniversary.

Almost everyone except for Cel who's taking the pic & Manolo who is hiding his radiantly handsome face, don't ask me why.

Something else I really enjoyed was a trip to Taxco which we've been wanting to do for quite a while now. We've been in Mexico for 7 years and finally got to visit the 'silver city'. Cuernavaca is actually very close to Taxco and I'm happy we did it before the baby came as I realized that it really isn't such a child-friendly place.

An outside view of Taxco.

I must say that I didn't like the town half as much as I liked the markets and town of Tepotzlan, but I'm still happy we visited it. The streets are all cobblestone and VERY slanted. The silver markets seemed to be hidden away in very narrow streets, or maybe it just seemed that way to me as I'm so big & everyone kept bumping into my belly, heh. I didn't take many pics as it was very hot, crowded and we were more interested in getting good deals on silver and making sure my belly wasn't in anyone's way which was quite a feat but in the end we got some beautiful silver jewelry at very affordable prices for some very special people.

Chris on the bottom floor of a 3 story silver market. It was incredibly crowded.

Aaaaand, I scored a very nice anniversary present from Chris. I'd been wanting some of these for a very long time and I was so touched by the fact that he remembered what I liked.

The silver bangles Chris got me as an anniversary present.

That's all for now. Just 10 days till the squirm comes! LY!