And The Baby Poll Winner Is...

Natalie from Pittsburgh, PA!

Nat is a good friend of mine and Steve's from college, and she correctly chose August 15th PM as Leah's birthday, edging out Steve and overthrowing his dreams of victory by a good 11 hours.  Way to go, Natalie!  Enjoy the fame this distinction will bring you.  

I have a lot of great photos of Natalie from our Grove City days, mostly ones of us at those awesome GCC campus dances and several of she and I freezing to death taking stats at Steve's lacrosse games.  I decided instead to give my Ode to Natalie with this picture of her with Grace taken in Pittsburgh last May when we made a visit.  They're so cute together.  And Nat made us some amazing eggplant parm for dinner that night.  So this picture brings back lots of good memories.  

Thanks for playing, Natalie.  Leah hopes to congratulate you in person sometime soon.

Zoo!

This picture is quintessential "Grace".  When she sees something exciting, she always takes this stance and makes that face!  Grace took her first trip to the zoo on Tuesday!  My mom and Aunt Becki took Grace and three of my cousins to the National Zoo in DC, while Leah and I stayed home for a restful day of eating and sleeping (that's all we did).

Here's Grace with her MomMom and her Great-Aunt Becki:

With my cousins, who absolutely dote on Grace.  It's so cute.


Thanks for giving Grace such an exciting day!

The Beginning

Steve and I are so happy to be a family of four!  We are grateful for the help from grandmothers and friends during the past week-- bringing meals, doing laundry, changing diapers, letting me nap, and most of all giving Grace lots of love and attention!  She is one active, active, active, and did I mention active little bundle of girl these days, and I'm so blessed to be able to recover with some help in the toddler department!  Steve and Grace are out on a daddy-daughter shopping trip right now, and Leah is sleeping peacefully in the other room, so I've finally been able to sit at the computer for a bit, edit some pictures from the hospital, and post them for you to see.  I start the post with the picture of Steve holding Leah, because I just love how little and protected she looks when Steve cuddles her that way.

After her bath.  We've already caught her sucking her thumb a few times.

The first time Grace met her little sister. As soon as this picture was taken, Grace lost interest and wanted to play with the buttons on the hospital bed!  She did give a sweet kiss and pat on the head first, though.

After a short but intense four hours of labor.  We headed to the hospital at 8:30 Friday night, and surprised even the nurses when I declared by 11 pm that I HAD to push!  The epidural didn't have enough time to kick in all the way, and I'll leave it at that!  What a precious, perfect little gift to hold at the end of it all.

Grace got an "I'm a big sister" sticker.

If Grace has one expression to call her own, this is it!  (It was in response to the buttons, not the baby!)

Mmmm, we just love her.  She has a family resemblance to Grace but has her own pretty little features and HAIR!  Any thoughts on who she might look like?

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

With love,

Steve, Heather, Grace, and Leah

She's Here!

We praise God for the safe arrival of Leah Anne Deterding!

Our little girl was born on Friday night at 11:32 pm.  

7 lbs. 7oz., 20 inches

We're all doing well!  

With Heartfelt Sympathy

Our sincerest condolences to those who have guessed Heather's delivery date incorrectly so far in our BABY POLL.  Trust me, we were rooting for all you early birds~

Grace Deterding-- nice try, sweetie, but 17 days early was a little ambitious.  

Poppy Wilson, a.k.a. Heather's Dad-- two weeks early would have been nice.

Mom Mom Wilson, a.k.a. Heather's Mom-- doing our laundry more than made up for our disappointment that you were wrong.

Katie D., Heather's cousin-- thanks for playing, better luck next time.

Great-Aunt Becki, Heather's Aunt-- apparently I wasn't ready to pop on the 13th.

No one chose today, but Steve and our friend Natalie are betting on a delivery tomorrow.  Good luck!  I just had a contraction, it's not too late for either of you to win...

Two Firsts

Yesterday Grace rode on a bike with Steve for the first time, on the way to the park on the property next to ours.  I walked (to try to induce labor, of course) and got some pictures of Steve and Grace on the bike ride and playing on the slide.

Those of you who know Grace well, know that she likes to suck her thumb while stroking her hair.  That's hard to do with a bike helmet on.

Pregnancy Update

Stocking up on the essentials.

11 days and counting until the official due date.

I just returned from my OB appointment, and here's the report:  unfortunately I've only dilated HALF a cm since my last exam a few weeks ago, so now the grand total is 1.5 cm.  I thought it was nice of the doctor to be generous and give me that extra half cm!  I'm 50 percent effaced and the baby is in a good position.  It was also predicted that I have another 8+ pound baby.  Hopefully she won't have another 2 weeks of growing before I go into labor!  Phew.  I thought that Deterding babies were supposed to be tiny!

The doctor said that I could be in labor tomorrow or not for another 2 weeks-- you just never know...

New Room

Let's look around Grace's new room...

Here we are going in one of the two doors.  We're not sure why this room and the master bedroom in this old farmhouse have two entrances, but I suppose it adds architectural interest and two means of escape for Grace.  The picture says "Each day is God's gift to you.  Make it blossom and grow into a thing of beauty."  It hung in my childhood room for as long as I can remember:

We think it's a pretty fun and spacious place for a toddler!  The walls are painted pale, pale green and the curtains came from Aunt April's room.  The string of pink japanese lantern lights above the windows are a favorite of Grace's.  Can you picture her eyes getting big, her mouth stretched into a huge "O" and her gasps whenever we turn out the lights and light up the lanterns?!

She's still sleeping in the crib, but the toddler bed is all ready to go-- when we're ready to tackle having a toddler who is potentially mobile during nap and bed times.  Scary.  Grace loves to climb into the bed, though:

The dresser belonged to Grace's Grandma Deterding when she was a girl!  A fresh coat of paint and some new hardware did the trick:

This is the quilt from Pottery Barn Kids that became my first-ever eBay buying experience.  It's colorful and cute and I love it:

Speaking of Pottery Barn Kids, they sell cute pictures of birds made out of fabric, for much more than I was willing to spend.  So I got my mother-in-law's quilt scraps out and made my own!  I'm really pleased with the way they turned out, and some of the fabric I used is actually scraps from the baby quilt Steve's mom made for Grace when she was born:

Hopefully I'll get around to sharing some more of what our home now looks like (something I've been meaning to do since we moved in), including the nursery a..k.a. Grace's old room.  There's no guarantee that I'll be in labor any time soon, so maybe I'll be able to do it before I have other things on my mind.

Well, to be honest I really hope delivery day happens too soon for me to get around it.  

The next visit to the OB is early Tuesday morning...

37 Weeks + 2 Days

Ouch.

Ughhhhh.

OOOOh.

GRRR.

Just a sampling of the happy sounds Steve and Grace hear from me every now and then when I try to do things like stand up, roll over, climb stairs, or get out of the car.  Part of the miracle of God's creative design is that little unborn babies know just how to position themselves to get ready to come out, and our second little daughter is no exception.  She is ready.  I am ready.  Steve is ready.  Grace is oblivious but is enjoying her new room.  

I went to the doctor today and things continue to look just fine.  No exam, but I got to hear that little heart beat again.  I never tire of hearing that comforting swooshing sound!  Contractions are continuing to come in very irregular patterns and I'm taking as many naps as possible-- got to conserve that energy!  Still on the to-do list are actually packing the hospital bags and getting all the baby stuff out of the attic and washed in Dreft.  We're working on it-- and we will have pictures of new Deterding girl bedrooms and baby preparations and big sisters to share soon!  Thanks for stopping by to check in...and don't forget to place a guess on the BABY POLL while you're here!