Grandmom

I don't know where to start in writing a post to thank my mom for everything she did while she was here. She is leaving this morning and she will be greatly missed! I thank dad and Luke for letting her be gone for so long and I know they are ready for her to be back. Before she even got here she helped us so much by taking Wagner and helping get him ready to travel over here. From the minute she walked in she wanted to be put to work helping get our house organized and for the next month felt guilty whenever she sat down for a second to rest. She came with such a servants heart that we had to force her to relax some! Words are not adequate to express how grateful we are for everything but I will try. Maybe pictures will help...


Even before Chase was born she helped get our house clean, weeded and cleaned up our garden and planted flowers and kept me walking (trying to bring on contractions). She was a huge support during labor and sat in the waiting room for the hours I was pushing praying constantly for me.

Making phone calls after the little man finally decided to arrive!
The biggest help was my mom taking over after the early morning feeding. I would hand Chase over and turn off the monitor and go back to sleep. I could sleep so much better not having to listen for him. I also don't think I did a load of laundry while she was here! She even made a clothesline and hung clothes out to dry to save our energy. She watched Chase so we could go out for our anniversary 4 days after his birth and then even made us a nice dinner with candles and flowers from the garden!

Walking is what she did best though! Wagner got out several times a day and my mom made friends with the next door neighbor who also has a golden retreiver and they went walking almost every morning. We think Wagner might miss her the most. She encouraged me to get out and walk too!

She was so helpful but not overwhelming with all the baby advice. She would bathe Chase and took care of his diaper rash. She made Chase do tummy time - not his favorite thing though -and was always interacting with him.

It was so nice to have her help running errands on base and going to the doctors. One funny story - Chase had an appointment a week after he was born to check his weight. I wasn't supposed to drive yet so hubby took her out to give her driving lessons. He must not have trusted either of us because we get a call the morning of the appointment that he is able to make it home to drive us. I guess that meant she failed the driving test!

During my bible study she offered to watch all the kids and when friends would come over she would help out with their kids so we could have some adult conversation. She encouraged me in ways that I could serve my husband during this time and kept my eyes pointed towards Christ.

She got to feed Chase his first bottle! Whenever I would feed him she would take him from me to burp and change him and whenever she fed him she would still burp and change him!

I think this is the first time that I cried more than her when we said our goodbyes. I told her there was no way I could thank her enough for taking a month out of her summer to serve us and she said that she had such joy in doing it. We love you so much and miss you already. Thanks for everything!

Chase Week 3

This past week Chase had his 2 week appointment and weighed 9 lbs. 13 oz. So we are happy he is gaining weight well. With grandmom and mom he gets a lot of walks in the stroller but there are a lot of paths here that you can't really take a stroller on so we tried the baby bjorn for the first time this week. I am starting to fit back in some of my clothes but after looking at this picture realize I still have a little ways to go! Look at that stomach pooch!

Dad normally has him swaddled when he sleeps so when he does break free he loves sleeping with his arms up. Waking up must be a very hard job for a 3 week old. It takes him sometimes 30 minutes from when he first starts stirring to actually wake up. I've learned that if I get him up before he is ready it takes him a while to eat so I just him go on his own. He will stretch and grunt and poop before he is ready.

It has been nice weather here and ventured out to Ely to walk around. Here we are in front of the cathedral. We have tried to show mom a little bit of England but it is amazing how hard it is to get out with a newborn!
We had another photoshoot with our neighbor and I finally ordered birth annoucements. I just got an email that they shipped so hopefully I can get them out soon! Had to throw in one picture of him awake though! We are very sad that grandmom is leaving on Friday but then dad has 2 weeks off so we are excited for him to be around more after a busy past couple weeks.

Chase Week 2

We have had another fun week with our little guy. We are still trying to figure everything out but realize time goes fast so we want to enjoy every moment. It is amazing how one outing a day can really wear you out! We tried to go watch dad play cricket after church on Sunday but it was pretty windy so we couldn't stay long. We missed dad's batting debut. They tried to pitch a couple to him for practice and he kept on missing but when it was time for the real thing he did great. They were all making fun of his baseball stance but it worked for him! He scored 22 runs. We will try to get pictures next time. Here are some other pictures from our week.

Sleeping with dad. Dad thinks this needs to be a mandatory part of every day!

With my friend Emily and her son Asher. Asher is 2 months older than Chase and they will be friends! Emily has been here a while and was a huge help answering all my questions about the hospital and doctors here, helping me get in a birthing class, telling me what to buy before moving over and tons of other advice. Thanks Emily for everything!

Chase got his first bath this week. We got the bathroom all nice and warm and put him in the tub. At first he was not happy but calmed down and afterwards he was just as content as could be. We think he will learn to like bath time.

We also had our first playdate. The weather was nice so we invited Will and his mom over and went to the park then played back at our house.
Julie and I with our boys. We sometimes can't believe we are both living overseas and have kids! Seems like just yesterday we were living in Texas, newly married and training our dogs!

Chase Pictures

We have been trying to get a picture so I can order some birth annoucements but have been having a hard time. We finally went outside today to try some better lighting. Our neighbor came over with a better camera and I really liked a picture but his skin is still peeling so I might hold off another couple days and try again.

With Grandmom, we are so grateful for her help we are keeping her for two more weeks! We have been talking about her staying off and on since hubby has a pretty busy week. I had a mini meltdown on Saturday and when I came downstairs they were on the phone with Virgin Atlantic seeing what date to switch the flight to!

Chase Week 1

Hard to believe it has already been a week! Things are going really well. We've ventured out to 2 doctors appointments. He lost a little more weight at first so we had to go back after the weekend and he gained almost 6 oz over the weekend so we are good to go until the 2 week appt. Dad had to go back to work this week and we miss him a lot! I am so grateful that my mom is here for another week. Here is what else we've done...

Hung out with Wagner...

Got bundled up for walks (yes we know it is July)...
Chilled with dad...
Started filling out KSU application for class 2030...

...and attempted a family picture. There are very few times when he is awake and I don't have comfy clothes so we will have to try again this week.

Thanks to everyone for the congrats and nice comments. We love reading them!

5 years

(My parents have all our wedding cd's so we had to scan a picture - hence the poor quality)

We are home!

We made it home early afternoon yesterday and survived the first night! During our discharge brief they said they wouldn't let us go with a US carseat and a UK car. So we went back and forth about taking him home in our US car (the front seat of a truck, with airbag off of course - not ideal) or borrowing a friends US car or buying a new carseat. We finally talked to more nurses and just had to initial that we understood the laws over here regarding UK carseats. I never thought we were going to leave the hospital!

But we were finally cleared to go. It is fun to finally have him wear his clothes - here he is wrapped in the blanket his grandma made!

Wagner has done well since he came home. He still gets out quite a bit though with grandmom here so that is nice. In the middle of the night he kinda checks to see what is going on when we are moving around but he is making sure he is getting his sleep!
Here is Chase's friend William giving him his first bible. We have also gotten a couple cards from some people in our village. We made it out for a small walk yesterday when the weather was nice.
My friend has been so helpful giving my mom rides to the hospital, letting everyone here know, being a great support and decorating our house to welcome him home. Knowing her definitely gave me peace about coming over early to have the baby here. Thank you so much for everything!

His first 24 hours....

Both mom and Chase are still doing very well. It's been great having Grandma here to help out with all the little things. The little man is sleeping a couple hours between feedings so Mom is able to get a little rest. The whole feeding thing is coming along with lots of learning on both sides. Speaking of learning, I changed my 1st diaper ever today......we both had to suffer through that one! We're hoping to be able to bring him home tomorrow morning if all of his checkups are good and I installed the car seat correctly (I'm giving myself 3:1 odds). Thanks again to everyone for their comments and prayers! [Mom should be able to take over the blogging role tomorrow since there's no internet at the hospital]

Welcome Chase William!!

At 11:00PM London Time we welcomed Chase William into this world. The Lord blessed up with a 9lb 2oz baby boy that was 22.5 inches long! Mom and baby are both doing well (Dad's making the post so standby for typos and things not working). The little guy was born face up so that made the labor and pushing last a lot longer since he was so big! I'll try to post more pics and news tomorrow! Thank you all for your prayers!

41+ Week Update

Well nothing happened this weekend so as long as the hospital isn't full I will be going in tomorrow morning to get induced. I've been asked if there was 2 in there and one guy from our village said the boy will be born and just walk away. My maternity shirts aren't really covering my belly anymore so I guess it is time for him to come. We've have still been unpacking the house but also trying to show my mom a little bit of England. It was a beautiful day on Saturday so we went to market and walked around the gardens.

This is in our backyard, my mom did a wonderful job pruning the garden!

At the market on Saturday. We got some delicious strawberries and a vacuum because ours started smoking on the transformer. My blow dryer also died so that is why my hair is back in a wet ponytail.

I still can't believe that we could be parents tomorrow!

Well he waited!

Our household goods arrived Tuesday and my mom and Wagner arrived today so baby boy waited just like we wanted him to. Now he can come anytime! I had an appointment this morning and things are progressing (slowly though) so she wanted to give him one last chance to come on his own. I am scheduled for an induction on Tuesday if he doesn't come before then. We've had a lot of fun putting together the crib and baby room! Unpacking the rest of the boxes wasn't as fun but my friend Julie came over to help and my mom was willing to be put right to work when she got here so things are coming along. Here is a picture of the dad to be putting together the crib and a few of the nursery. They say over here if you have a 3 bedroom house it is really like a 2 bedroom and 1 closet. The room is definitely small but everything fits!