Merry Christmas!

Praise the Lord for sending little Jesus to this earth, what an amazing sacrifice He gave for us all!

We are thanking God for bringing us back together for the holidays! Merry Christmas to you and your family, we hope you are enjoying your day together :)

Here we are on Christmas eve!

Norah in her Christmas day apparel (thanks Ter!)!

Mom and Dad on Christmas morning opening stockings with the Moselle family.

Norah "met" Santa last night! She slept through the meeting but it was cute anyway.

Visiting Cali

Last weekend we had the chance to visit some of our good AF friends! They are stationed at Vandenberg AFB and live in Santa Maria, CA. The base is beautiful and is located on 40 miles of coastline. Here's a sneak peak of our trip!

Here is David and Norah after our late flight. We were back in Denver a little after midnight and then drove back to the Springs.

This is David after we had a day visiting some vineyards, sleepy David!

The whole group at the first vineyard, it was beautiful!

Kelly, David (and Norah), Shay (wine tasting expert), Brandon, Mary & Stacey (who drove us around!)

Kelly & Mary

Visiting the beach... it was cold!

The JAGs

Our family (sans Wrigley)

Norah was a GREAT traveler and was very relaxed. We had some loooong days in the car seat.

And, David is back! He loves to take the camera and play with it :)

R&R in Vail

We went to Vail for about a week when David arrived home. We relaxed and got reacquainted. We are so grateful to the condo owners and David's parents for opening up the condo to us again! We loved every day we were there :) Here are a few snap shots from the week together.

Both kiddos playing with Daddy

Norah looking mighty cute!

She's really starting to get her smile on :)

LOTS of snuggles with Daddy in Vail

We tried to cook a few dinners... it was fun to be back in the kitchen together (not that we've experienced a lot of kitchen time together before but we're working on it).

Snuggled up for a walk!

Home, Sweet Home

Thank you all for your prayers, care packages, thoughts and emails while I was in Iraq. I really appreciate it. I know that your prayers paid off and that God was watching over my colleagues and me during my time there. Please continue to pray for those that are over there still. It was an incredible feeling to walk off that plane and greet my beautiful wife and meet my precious daughter. However, it pains me to know that many servicemen and women did not have the opportunity to walk off a plane to their loved ones. While I was deployed, 298 US military personnel were killed in action (55 in Iraq, 243 in Afghanistan), and many more were injured. Please keep those families in your thoughts and prayers during this Christmas season. Thanks again for your support (to both Kelly and me) during these last 6 months....it's great to be back!

Wrigley Greets Daddy!

We Are SO Better 3gether :)

Welcome home my Love. We all missed you. We are all so grateful for your service and we appreciate your sacrifices. SO GLAD YOU'RE HOME!

First hug with a few tears

Norah meets her Daddy!!

Getting aquatinted in the first few minutes

LOVE!!

Norah's first feeding from her father :)

Since David left I have...

*Been waiting 4,296 hours for his return

*Paid six water bills and six electric bills

*Been to the airport 16 times

*Cried countless times and laughed a lot too

*Had a baby :)

*Made some new friends and really cherished the old ones

*Taken out the trash about 23 times. What can I say, I miss a few weeks!

*Learned how to use the weed waker (see this post!)

*Had a lot of company both out of towners and locals - thank you everyone!

*Tried to "cook" for one - it's really not easy

*Gotten really close with my mom!

*Joined a new small group for mothers and I love it!

*Took trips to MN, IL, Vail & Denver

*Learned that I am not in control (it's funny it took me this long to get that. I'm not saying I won't struggle with this later on)

*And gotten really attached to both Wrigley and Norah as my housemates and companions!

Okay David... I'm really ready for you now! Can't wait... only 12 hours and 10 minutes until his airplane arrives!!!!

Trash Day!

I know it seems strange that I'm excited about trash pick up day huh? It's more the fact that next week when the trash gets picked up my man will be here too!!!!

As I've been going through the last few days I keep thinking things like this :)

Yeah for David's homecoming in less than a week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Birth Story

I've been wanting to share my birthing experience with you since it's a wonderful testament of God's faithfulness to us... and I'm very proud of it too! Here it goes...

On Saturday night (the 19th) my body had a few sudden changes concerning my fluids. I knew it had to do with the pregnancy and was excited to tell David things were progressing. I didn't think this progress meant I was actually in labor just that my body was coming closer to delivery! I emailed David knowing he was at work and told him to call me if he had a chance. During his call to me, around 12am, I had my first contraction. I knew it was a contraction but I thought that it was definitely false labor pains since it was way to early to have my baby!

As the next few hours went on I continued to have contractions and feel sick. I timed them and tried to go to sleep hoping they would settle down. I talked to David on the phone around 2am and he encouraged me to call the hospital. I knew they would tell me to come in so they could monitor what was going on. They did tell me to come in and I was very unenthusiastic about it, mostly because I was afraid.

I woke up my cousins and told them what was going on. They seemed way too excited considering the fact that I was in pain :) They were both so encouraging throughout this whole experience and again, God's hand in the timing of them being at my house was amazing! Jessica drove us to the hospital on the Army base which is about 40 min from our house. Once we got there we got to the labor and delivery triage and they checked a lot of things including fetal movement, my contractions, checked to see if my water had broke etc. After all these exciting tests and many more contractions they said my water had indeed broke. This baby girl was ready to meet me, I on the other hand wasn't so sure!

Since Norah was going to be born soon and I was only 35 weeks along they had to transport me to a hospital with a NICU. I was brought by ambulance to a hospital near down town for a safer environment in case of emergencies. When I arrived at the other hospital it was about 5:30am and things continued to progress quickly! Norah entered this world at 7:16am and was obviously perfect (there's no bias here :)). No breathing problems or oxygen needed. There were a lot of concerns because of her early arrival but again, God's timing was amazing and she was perfectly healthy!

(I just had a baby!!! Welcome to the world Norah Linn, you're our miracle girl!)

Throughout the night my cousins would call and update David on my progress. He was probably pacing around his office in Baghdad! I talked to David within a minute of delivery and told him we just had a baby!!! I was overwhelmed with excitement and disbelief as I'm sure David was. After I briefly talked to him I had to go cut the umbilical cord and focus all of my love and attention on Norah.

Even though I went into labor so early the hospital staff was very accommodating to my requests. I wanted to have a natural birthing process, hold Norah for as long possible after birth, cut the umbilical cord myself and a few other important things to us. I was able to have all my wishes and again God's perfect timing in everything made this possible. If there were complications I probably wouldn't have been granted many of my desires for the birthing process. Praise God for his faithfulness to me in this trying situation.

(Cuddling with Norah a few hours after delivery)

Here's the rundown of the night:

12:ooam Water broke

12:30am 1st contraction

2:15am Leave for Evans Army Hospital

3:15am Check into triage at labor and delivery

4:00am 2cm & 90% effaced

5:00am Ambulance ride to Memorial Hospital

5:45am 4cm, 100% effaced & +2

6:20am 7cm

6:50am 9cm

7:03am Start to push!

7:16am Norah was born!!!!!!!

(Norah Linn - 4lbs 13oz and healthy and strong!)

My labor and birth story is so special and I'm very proud of it! It was intense but such a wonderful and amazing to experience. I am so thankful for God's timing with all my anxieties about birth, not having to deal with my gestational diabetes for very long, having my wonderful cousins in town, and meeting my baby girl earlier!

This Makes Me :)

David will arrive back in Colorado December 2nd!

He will have been "deployed" 178 days and at training another 25 days.

What a day of celebration we'll have on December 2nd - only 13 days away!!!!!!

Norah's Guests

Thank you to everyone who traveled so far to see Norah and myself. I am so grateful for your support and love during this transition without my Hubby. I know time is precious and flying and driving is not cheap but please know that words cannot describe the support I've felt through your days here in CO with us.

In order of appearance, here are Norah's already faithful family and friends visiting her during the first two months of life!

My AMAZING cousins Kyleen and her baby girl Joy (not pictured) and Jessica! They were in town from MN when I went into labor - more to come on my labor and delivery later. Ky and Jes were obviously an amazing support and really just a gift from God. I'm so grateful for their support and love, especially through Norah's birth!

My Mom was able to fly in on a whim and arrived the day Norah and I were discharged from the hospital. What a special three generational picture!

Nana lovin' on her 1st grand-baby.

Auntie Kim and Papa drove through the night from MN to meet Norah. Their 14+ hour drive each way was so sacrificial and they could only stay for a day and a half. That's love!

Papa REALLY excited to meet his 1st grand-baby too.

Thanks for coming to see us!

Auntie Kristin was planning on visiting me before Norah arrived! She came a week before Norah's actual due date and Norah was already 3 1/2 weeks old.

Grandma came to visit during Kristin's week here to meet her 1st grand-baby too!

My mom made her way back over my due date and enjoyed a little more granddaughter love.

My Dad and brother then drove in from MN (Dad, you're crazy to do that again!)!

Of course uncle Aaron brought Norah a Wild hat! She's working on growing into that now :)

My wonderful friend Polly and her one year old flew in from Rapid City. They were able to stay a week and show Norah and I what life will be like in a year from now! Scary.

Grandpa Chuck FINALLY got to meet Norah! He was psyched to arrive in the Springs to hold his 1st granddaughter just like everyone else :)

It was hard to get him to look at the camera since he was usually just staring at Norah's beautiful face :)

Auntie Kim and my college roommate Ashley arrived after the grandparents. We had a great time doing girly stuff.

Thanks for making time to visit Ash, it was so special to have you.