pictures

sleeping at the hospital

the famous position...this really is sophia this time!

daddy at home with his girls.

big brother loves to hold his sister, and has this look just about every time. i kid you not.

after a bath and getting all dolled up this morning, alaythia took a turn.

alaythia was concerned that sophia didn't have any 'friends' to sleep with. she came out and told us that she had put some in her bed. daddy went in to make sure they weren't on her face...this is what he found.

after a good eat.

sophia hope

as i type i have a bundle of tightly wrapped pinkness at my side.

thank you for your prayers. everything went fantastically. not one hiccup. and i can honestly say that sophia's birth was peaceful and joy filled. thank you for your prayers! the LORD is faithful.

stats: our smallest! 9lbs 8 oz. 20 inches long. (i get a newborn stage!) born at 12:43pm with jet black hair.

i'll let the pictures do the talking even though there is so much to say.

taken as we were leaving for the hospital

if i didn't KNOW it was sophia, i would think it was isaiah.

my first look

my first kiss

daddy and his youngest girl

sleepy time

the godshall women

finally getting to hold her

and kiss her

big brother was a pro. and he was just that...big!

auntie rose

uncle jake

big brother can't get enough

my world

today

today is the day. we will be at the hospital at 10am EST. we have the operating room reserved for 12:30. if we don't get bumped, and all goes smoothly, sophia should be out in the world by 1:00-1:30ish.

if you feel so inclined, i would love your prayers.

-for the spinal. that they would get it in the first time.
-for sophia's safe arrival.
-for sophia's health.
-for skill in the doctor's hands putting me back together.

the kids are in great hands. jake and rose are 'it' right now. consistently trumping mommy and daddy. auntie rose put a lot of thought into their time. the kids each have a bag of treats that they can pick out of each day. included are cards for each day. a fun activity is on each card. alaythia carried hers around all day yesterday. uncle jake and isaiah have been rocking out, playing basketball and laughing hard. i can't say how much it means to know that my kids will be well taken care of and very loved.

auntie rose is also lending us her iphone, so we should be able to update everyone fairly quickly.

thank you in advance for your prayers.

fighter verses

john piper gives his congregation fighter verses. they are for all sorts of things in life.

i claimed my own for this time coming up.

'I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.' Psalm 16:8 (NLT)

and a friend shared these these with me. i think i'll write it out and have it available to read in the those hours leading up.

'Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.' Phil. 4:6-7 (The Message)

amazing huh? the Word of the Lord is powerful.

where to put it all

oh the thoughts. my brain just won't shut off. all the thinking, all the processing, all the preparations. one night i told matt, i just need to go to bed so that my brain will shut off... then when i woke up to roll over at 3:30, i suddenly was wide awake, unable to fall back asleep. my brain kicked into high gear again.

some of the things rolling around in my head...

I'M GOING TO HAVE A NEWBORN IN 2.5 DAYS! it is still shocking to me. don't ask me how, it just is. soon i will see little sophia. the name won't be so mysterious. i will see who will bear the name. will she look like her siblings? will she be healthy? will she be dark haired, or will she posses the random, yet long awaited, red hair? i'm ready. ready to have her on me all the time, ready to feed her and comfort her and breath in her sweet smell. ready to slow life down, be calm, enjoy her. but to get to her, i have to do this scary thing.

c-sections are just plain weird. having a day and time. it so....messes with your brain. it's been a battle. as i was telling some earlier this week, i think most women that have c-sections mourn. the thing you have thought about doing, what you are made to do as a woman, you weren't allowed, or couldn't do. there's a sense of mourning in that. but earlier this week that mourning turned to anger as my fear and anxiety of the actual surgery took over. as i laid in bed and sobbed i suddenly found myself pissed. angry that this is my lot. that i have no choice. it didn't feel fair. i felt defeated, scared and trapped.

i shared how i was feeling with a few, they spoke in with truth and the fighter in me emerged. i claimed a verse that i've been chanting in my head all week when i feel the anxiety come. and i look to the day with resolve. yes, it sucks that this is how my birthing experiences are. it's not how i ever would have chosen to do it, but i will make the most of it. i will push my womanly fortitude as far as it possibly can go. i will look to it with joy, not fear... (can you hear 'eye of the tiger'?)

...because this is most likely the last time i will do this. and that freaks me out too. i have looked, with anticipation, for most of my life to being pregnant and having children. it has always been a deep desire of mine. and while i am SO UNCOMFORTABLE. and SO DONE. there is a part of me that thinks 'i only have 2.5 days left of ever being pregnant!' soon, i will be done with my child bearing years. how in the heck am i on THIS side of things? you don't imagine being done. you imagine doing it, wonder what it will be like, look to the day when it will be your turn. you don't think about it being done. but my turn is done. i get that it's my choice, i've always felt that i could only be responsible for 3 souls. but still, it's an ending. and i'm not sure where to place it.

and yet, while this thought is disturbing to me, it has been a blessing. despite the uncomfortability and the pain, i have been enjoying these last days of pregnancy. trying to savor them and burn them into my mind.

two and a half years difference

he's getting his practice in. this is matt's favorite position with his newborn children. i snapped this picture on sunday, but couldn't help but be reminded of another picture taken two and a half years ago.

our very own hygrometer

if you want to know how humid it is outside, you don't need a hygrometer, you just need alaythia's hair.

not humid at all

or like today...very humid.

an accurate picture

i've been hit hard with the reality of what things are like around here.

i got the kids lunch, they were sitting at the table eating. matt walked out of his study and came into the kitchen. before i set in our lunch i stopped and gave him a hug. we stood there, enjoying the moment. we tend to have nano swarmers (as we like to call them) as soon as we touch they are like magnets at our feet and legs. anyway, we were hugging and my back was to the kids. alaythia says, 'mommy, why are you crying?'

yeah, apparently, they have seen me crying and hugging daddy a lot lately. reality number one.

we were given a shower last night by our community group. (more on that to come). i took my time getting ready, doing my hair and putting on all my make-up. when i was done, isaiah walked into the room and stared at me. he got a smile on his face and said, 'mommy, i like your eye lashes...your eye lashes look good.'

oh dear, how bad have i looked if my 4 year old can notice how different i look when i put make-up on? reality number two.

i bless you mommy

we haven't been great at this, but recently we started with renewed commitment, blessing the kids with scripture before they go to bed. matt does it primarily, i fill in when he's away. he holds their face with this hands, looks into their eyes and blesses them. it's amazing to me how much they have come to love it. alaythia specifically asks for it. isaiah's big brown eyes seem hungry for it.

last night i was snuggled in with alaythia on her bed as we were singing songs. all of the sudden she rolled over and put both her arms around my neck for a hug. then she put both her hands on my cheeks and said, 'i bless you mommy.' i laid there next to her and looked into her eyes...

'Lord is good to you. peace, peace, peace.' then she gave me a kiss.

the thing is, i needed to hear that. i'm not feeling much peace lately. i worry about sophia, her health and her arrival. i feel extremely anxious and upset about having a c-section, a surgery, and all the mental game that goes into that.

the reality is, the Lord is good to me. and i need three times the peace right now. and she spoke those truths to me. i was so thankful for her blessing last night.

it always catches me by surprise, although i shouldn't be anymore, just how much you are given as a mother. you think you give and give and give, and at times it feels one sided, but then something like last night happens, and you realize just how much you are given through these little lives.

random thoughts..can you cut my food?

i'm not much for trying to type things out these days. the pregnancy brain has really taken over. i can barely get out what i'm feeling to my family, let alone make it readable for...whoever is out there.

in two weeks sophia will arrive. there is a lot going on in my head about that. the beauty of the third, i've found, is that you're not really stressed about it. you know you can handle multiple children, you have mostly everything you need, and so you just wait. sometimes life feels so normal and then i feel like we should be frantic, and when we're not, that freaks me out.

don't get me wrong, i'm not saying that sophia's arrival will be easy...i know it will be quite the opposite actually. but what can i do? one week from today matt will start his 3rd semester of a PhD program...two weeks from tomorrow our daughter will be born, and three weeks from tomorrow he will start teaching latin. BUT we have a whole team of people flying in to help to get us through those first REALLY hard weeks.

i long to hold sophia. to look at her and talk with her. to take in all her smells and enjoy every last drop of her baby-ness. i can feel her being the 'baby' of the family already. with isaiah and alaythia i was freaked out to 'do it right'. with her, i just want to keep her a baby as long as i can, and not rush anything. take it all in. so far, i'm keeping with all the sterotypes.

my hands are so sore from not getting circulation and are so swollen, i can't really grip anything. i drop things and spend most of my day trying to wring them free of ache. tonight at dinner i had to laugh, as matt cut isaiah meat, alaythia's meat...and then mine. at one point isaiah complained that his was not cut small enough and i had to start laughing. poor matt....

the flood & anniversary

i must admit i did find it a bit ironic that while i was peacefully typing about a tea party, outside we were having one of he biggest storms and flooding in over a decade... i would pause in my typing to watch the weather channel's national overage of the flooding in my city. strange actually, now that i think about it.

in my defense, i did think about typing about it, but decided to stay focused on the tea party. when my grandparents called yesterday to see if we were okay, and then an email from our aunt, i thought, well, i better address it.

we are fine, and apart from some minor leaking through our roof we have seen no signs of flooding in our neighborhood. the downtown area has been hit the hardest. with ike coming through last summer, and the ice storm last winter, and now the flooding, i would say we have been very blessed in our little pocket of the city. we seem to be relatively spared each time.

thanks for those that checked in... the weather has definitely been exciting since we moved here, 1 year ago today actually.

read with perspective

i was talking to a friend the other day after looking at her flicker site. i told her how fun it was to see her kids and see what she had been doing with them. but then i confessed that seeing it made me feel like a terrible mom. i'm not as creative as her, i'm not doing enough with my kids... she then said, 'oh you know i just put all the cool stuff i do with them up there! i don't post about all the screaming i do or how frustrated i get in a normal day.'

so true. i'm not posting about how tired i am or how i just can't do much anymore. how my husband has totally picked up the slack and i'm just counting down the days.... nope, not that.

keep that in mind as you continue to read.

-----

i don't know if i'm just feeling the girl hormones right now, or i'm starting to miss alaythia as my only girl, or if i'm freaked at how little i will be able to do in a few weeks. but i decided to throw a tea party for alaythia and her neighborhood girlfriends. she excitedly hand delivered invitiations last week and the day was set for today. she asked every day after that if today was the day for the tea party.

when she woke up to real tea cups on the table, not her plastic set, she picked them up and clanked them together, inspecting each of them. 'tea party today mommy?' yes, the day is here. i'm trying to let go of the fact that her friends will soon be using tea cups from italy and romania... they need to be used, make memories. what good does it do for them to sit in the cupboard unused...

i gathered and cooked, cleaned and prepared. she wanted to put her 'twirly princess' dress on at 8:00 this morning, even though the tea wasn't for 3 more hours. we got all ready, in our dresses, hair done, finishing touch was jewelry.

we went to my jewelry box and i let her go through it, looking at everything, picking what she wanted to wear. she wore her gold necklace from her great grandparents, and then picked up some beads of mine from college i think. one was wrapped on her wrist several times, others served as ankle braclets.

she opened the door eagerly for our guests when they arrived, and was quick to help them find their place at the table.

the girls loved pouring the tea and juice, and mixing with their little spoons. they laughed and ate, as the mom's tried to explain to them what to do. the little ones lasted all of about 30 minutes, which was longer than i thought they would, leaving to go play in the other room. the mom's took our time and talked uninterupted. having tea is a big waste of time. it's supposed to be slow, unefficient and lingering. it was all those things, which was wonderful. here's some pictures of our time.

waiting for the guests to arrive

she was SO excited.

the girls on the strip, as they've been affectionately named. :)