Laundry Soap, Hummingbirds, Baby Fingers...

I just spilled laundry soap all down the front of me and all over the floor.  I'm not sure how to clean it out of the carpet now...it's in big blue splotches. Anybody had this happen before?


Talk about a crazy month. Earlier this month we made our way up to Rockford during Quinn's spring break to visit with his grandparents. They're awful special people, and I love it that we've gotten to spend so much time with them in the last year! It's always fun.

This time we took his 13 year old sister, Tabi with us. She was a blast to have along. The three of us went over to Chicago for a morning while we were there. Visited Willis Tower and got a traditional Chicago deep dish pizza.

Came home to school, school and more school...


Tuesday I turned 20 years young. Makes me feel like such a baby to actually think about my age, but nevertheless, it is my age, so we celebrated it. My sister-in-law and bff, Becca was in labor Monday night, so I was up repeatedly throughout the night to pray and check my phone for texts. Quinn had class Tuesday morning, so he was gone by 8am, and I managed to sleep past 10, but was still waking up at least once an hour to check my phone, so I got up. Snacked on chocolate and orange juice. Got on facebook. Read a wall-full of birthday wishes. Munched more chocolate.

Right around 11am I got a message from my Mother-in-law, and seconds following it, another from Becca's husband. Sweet little Ella was born around 10:30 am, weighing 6 pounds, 10 ounces, 9 days early and perfectly happy and healthy. 19 year old Becca had an all-natural birth. No pain meds or oxytocin inducers, even though she was in the hospital and had a Dr. catch the baby. I am *so* proud of her! Her labor was long and hard, with no breaks between contractions once she hit transition and nearly on hour of pushing, but she stuck it out. She wanted Ella to be born how God had designed for her to be born, and gave her sweet first born (and her own self) a precious gift by fighting it out.

I was giddy. I wanted to cry, but didn't. Half an hour later, when pictures started showing up in my inbox, I was crying. I couldn't stop for 2 hours. So I made chocolate cupcakes. A couple hours later they texted and asked if we could come meet the baby several hours later. By that time Quinn was home and I was getting ready for my 18 week prenatal visit. We had to laugh at the fact that we were going to be able to walk from my ultrasound to the maternity ward to meet Ella.

We finished getting ready to go,  then Quinn gave me my birthday card and gift from him. He had written the sweetest love letter in the back of the card, and he gave me the most beautiful, hand blown glass hummingbird feeder. I am absolutely in love with it and can't wait for the humming birds to show up next month! It's hanging between my two windchimes on the back deck. I am a little concerned though, 'cause the apartment complex is planning on re-roofing our  building the end of this month, so I can't leave it up, and if the project takes more than the two weeks that it's supposed to, then I'll miss the birds' arrival. :(

We made it to our appointment in good time, only to be chewed out by the obnoxious u/s tech for being late. Seems the u/s was scheduled as a separate appointment, 30 minutes earlier,  but when we rescheduled over the phone we weren't told as much. So... after being all annoyed and short with us, she squirted the cold gel all over my tight little tummy and started digging around with the doppler. It took no time at all to determine that our sweet little somebody is a sweet little man, which thrilled me, heart and soul. (Quinn is thrilled with a baby, I'm not sure he really had a preference...) The sweetheart measured out perfectly on schedule, is about 10 oz, and had no signs of spine, brain or heart problems. We got to see his precious face and I got to watch his kicks show up on the screen slightly behind actually feeling them. It was really amazing.

The appointment went wonderfully and we moseyed towards the other end of the building where Becca and Ella were napping in their room. Got there and sat in the waiting room until nap time ended and went to stand outside the door until they were ready for us.

I can't even begin to describe how perfectly gorgeous that baby is. Or the pride and adoration I felt towards Becca when I walked in to see her exhausted, pale little self grinning away and hear her say "I've got my woman card, and I can't wait to do this again!" 

I am so glad that we're sisters.

After an hour spent in the room with far more people than I myself could handle graciously or patiently, (so I sat on the bed with Becca and emotionally "hid" from the crowd. lol) and a few beautiful minutes of watching my darling husband hold his new niece, and a few even more wonderful minutes of holding her myself, we said good bye and left the new family in peace and quiet.

Went out to dinner with some old friends of the family and Quinn's brother Tim, who all insisted on treating us to the meal in honor of my birthday, then went home to crash early and sleep deep.

It was an amazing, happy day.

God is so good.