My darling Matthea is two weeks old ( and a couple of days!) I cannot believe how time is flying. She is a cuddle bug and only ever wants mommy to hold her.Which on one hand is amazingly awesome. I don’t want to give it up for anything, but on the other hand it is getting a bit hard, especially through the night. Every night. My dad’s business partner got Matthea a swing, and yesterday it was delivered! I put it together this morning in the wee hours while she was fussing. SHE LOVES IT. Oh my goodness. It puts her at just the right incline so that she can breathe and not spit up all the time. She can’t be put flat for very long at all.. (like maybe a few seconds at a time) as she gags and chokes so hard she cannot breathe. So a slight incline, and a constant rocking motion is just right for her! It sure is a blessing to find something that makes her feel good.
We’ve entered the month of September, which is one of the busiest months of the year for our little family ( and our bigger extended family.) Mike’s and my anniversary is coming up on the 8th! Our birthdays are the following two weeks after that. My brothers birthday, my fathers birthday, my grandfathers birthday, my cousins birthdays all fall within two weeks of each other.
Other than birthdays we have several court hearings for Elizabeth in the next three weeks. One of which we ( Mike and I) were served with subpoena’s to testify as witnesses. Lots of stress around those. Trying to get everything for the adoption in order. We also have a psych eval for her ( on our anniversary, none the less.) Numerous visits from caseworkers, assistants to attorneys.. mediation and dentist appointments. Its all crazy this month. My prayer for this month is just to allow myself to sit back and Let God take over.. cause I know I’m not in charge. Truthfully, I am Thanking God daily that I’m not in charge of all that is going on. It feels better knowing that He is taking care of things that need to be done in the hearts and minds of judges, attorneys, doctors and dentists.
Matthea passed her hearing test with flying colors the second time around! We were so pleased with the results. She is doing really well, her jaundice is going away, she is gaining weight and she is getting a tiny bit more sleep at night. Notice that I did say tiny bit. I do mean TINY bit. But hey, any little bit of sleep helps when you have a newborn, right? Right.
We gave Matthea her first bath on Saturday evening. 
She was less than pleased. The big girls thought it was a riot though. Mommy got out a kitchen bowl and washed their little sister. The truth is, Matthea is just a tiny bit too little to put even in the baby bathtub. So she had a little bit of a bowl bath.
How did that happen so quickly? I remember when Zaeda was this little. In fact, Matthea and Zaeda look so much alike when they were that age that I keep calling Matthea by Zaeda’s name!
So the recap. Last week at this time I was still being super sick from the medicine they gave me during the csection. Gotta love those drugs that make you puke. Gotta love those drugs that make you STOP puking is more like it! I had this perfect new little love to oogle over, so it was all worth it in the end.
We have decided that Matthea is a little too vampire-esque. She enjoys waking as the sun sets and goes right to bed as it rises. This makes for lots of fun nights had by all. in fact she is sitting here blogging with me right now!
Now that she is a tad bit older Daddy gets to help with the feeding. Matthea is doing really well with bottles, but REALLY prefers the other way.
Grandma Laurie with Matthea. My mom is so excited about having a new little granddaughter!
She does have dark brown eyes and hair, just like her daddy! She is really becoming more and more alert, which is so awesome!
The big girls have been spending their days with my mom recently so that I can sleep and recover. They cant wait to get home at night to sing to and hold their baby. Zaeda did ask me today if she and Lizzie could still be my babies even though they are “really big girls” and I almost cried! I let them know that of course, they would always be my babies!
We went to Matthea’s first doctors appointment with our regular doctor today. Here’s how the rundown went.
Kiddo failed her first hearing test at the hospital. She now has to be scheduled for a full hearing test at St. Vincents. The doc at the hospital said not to worry, that a lot of babies have fluid in their ears the first day they are born. We have seen her react to loud noises, so we are praying that everything goes well with this hearing test. However, when a doctor says "dont worry, but we need to schedule more tests" that doesnt bode well for the mommy heart. This mommy heart starts to worry and pray.
Matthea is up an ounce from the weight she left the hospital at. Which to me is amazing, since she eats like a little piggy ( said with the utmost love.) She is now 6 pounds and 15 ounces.
We are waiting to hear back from the doctor about her jaundice levels. She wasn’t born with jaundice, but yesterday she began looking a little yellow and her eyes now have a definite tint to them. Today I put her near the sunlight in the window and she is beginning to look better tonight! woohoo for sunlight!
Here are a few pics of Miss Matthea and her daddy. I am just starting to feel like I can do things once again. Which hopefully means I will be taking a lot more pictures! We are going for her first doctor appointment this afternoon.
Matthea is learning how to chill.
Daddy and his newest little girl! 
Yeah I thought I would just throw this one in for good measure. Our big girls are doing so well! They are so very helpful and are willing to do anything they need to for the baby!
Mike and I went to the doctor today for our weekly checkup for the baby. My doctor is the kind that doesnt really share info unless I ask, which is actually good because I tend to worry or overthink about whatever she chooses to share.
Well.. last week I had a doctor who wasnt my regular doctor. When he measured my tummy he said
” and just how big was your last baby?” and as I told him 7 pounds even he said.. “oh. hrmm” and it scared me. This week my doctor said “do you feel like this baby is very large? much larger than Zaeda was?” and I told her that yeah I felt that this baby is probably a good bit larger, I feel larger at least. She said that I measure several weeks ahead and that the baby is BIG. Well, dang. I dont know if I like that info very much. So now is the wait knowing that the baby is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. EEK! I just want her to already be here. Sometimes waiting can be so hard.
Oh the joys of having the whole family sick. Yep, it’s been one of those weeks. Where even mommy can’t keep the days straight. Where the t.v. is on endless hours because I can’t seem to find my way off the couch. Luckily yesterday and today the girls and I have spent the days at my moms where my mom very graciously has provided some entertainment for the girls ( who are already on the mend.)
I think the horrid cold combined with my body to work in tandem with the fact that I am almost 38 weeks pregnant and it’s just holding me down. Ugh. Hopefully I will be back to being better oh so soon, and Matthea can show up healthy and safe.
So my girls and I were able to attend my friend Tammie’s baby shower the other day. We had a lot of fun. The girls got to play with their first ever water balloons. Wow. That was a blast. Lizzie didn’t realize that breaking them would mean getting wet, and she was pretty frustrated with the end result. However, Zaeda was completely pleased as punch that she could 1: throw something at another person and get away with it, and 2: throw something at someone to achieve the end result of getting someone else wet and get away with it. What a sweet kid.
Most of the time lately we have just been hanging around home. We walk around our neighborhood, meeting new people and hanging around at the basketball courts. The girls love to watch guys play basketball and cheer them on. Zaeda loves to get pictures taken and decided to be ever so sweet and allow me to take a few last Saturday.
Otherwise, Michael and I got our room set up to also work as Matthea’s room, whenever she should choose to appear. She can get here anytime now, even though my due date isn’t until the end of August. We just can’t wait!
I dont think I can formulate a complete blog entry currently. So, here are my thoughts. This is how it goes.
*I got to go out to a movie with my sister in law. That was pretty tight. We saw the new Batman flick. I loved it. Then we went home and at our seperate houses got COMPLETELY sick. Food poisoning? Who knows. Not fun though.
*The kids are really going nuts this week. It’s hard because I just dont have the energy to do all of the things they want to do right now.
* I am almost 36 weeks pregnant. I am so ready to be done. I cannot WAIT to welcome Matthea. Neither can her sisters! They are so excited.
* Tonight I took a mommy time out and went to borders and read “The Shack.” I can honestly say that I both hated and liked that book. The place where the book is set has a lot of emotional meaning to me already in my life. It was a bit much to handle for tonight, probably helped me for the long run though.
* This week with our daughter Elizabeth has been hard. Some real big heart issues are being attacked, it’s hard, and will most likely get harder before it gets easier. If you pray, please pray for my patience and that God can give me the words and actions to give to her to comfort her and our family when the going gets tough.
* Mike is out with his guys so I get the house all quiet to myself. I really respect a quiet time at home now. I used to not understand what my mom meant when she said she just needed some quiet. Now I sure do.
I had the privilege of heading down to Frisco, TX for the Fellowship Technologies Dynamic Church Conference 08 or DC08 for short. Now I could just recap the entire thing for you…I did take notes but what kind of fun is that? Here are some of the things that stuck out the most for me.
1. I think there were more people there this year than last. And the content was dumbed down a bit (Keynotes specifically) so that it wasn’t so technical. Last year this was a pain point. Most of the people there couldn’t care less about AJAX, Platforms or Frameworks. This year I think people began to understand what F1 is trying to do…really empower the church to use technology.
2. I attended not as many technical sessions as last year because Sunset was either not implementing those features or we already had the knowledge to do so in the first place. Instead, I attended more “process” oriented and communication specific forums.
3. I had the privilege of rooming with Bill Hill, Sunset’s money man. He is truly a unique individual. Better though was that I got to really sit down and talk to Mike Matousek, the new Minister of Operations and my boss. Every single night the 3 of us were talking ministry @ Sunset and had some meaningful discussions…it was simply awesome! Good bonding experience with Mike also.
4. I got to see this guy. We happen to take a lot of the same sessions as we both share a passion for engaging church ministries in using technology.
5. I got to have dinner and hang with Terry Storch, Jeff Pelletier and his wife, and Matt. Afterwards we saw an amazing Lincoln Brewster concert. So sweet. My only regret is that I hadn’t of stayed up till 3am the night/morning before…wanted to be a little more engaging with Terry @ dinner.
6. I got to meet with Jared and Jill Still! Unfortunately again…I was up till like 3:30am the night before and I was just mush for lunch…I was so dazed it wasn’t funny. Matt got some footage of me eating sushi for the first time though…that was…interesting.
This conference helped me realize that ministries in general are missing an entire generation of people who communicate differently. Online activities, web sites and social media are here and now. In the end, in a small away I left disappointed. Not specifically about the conference, but how most churches deal with this “problem” of technology and communication. I think Terry put it best in his session on social media:
It’s no longer an opportunity to engage the community with technology, it’s a responsibility.
That really resonated with me. I often focus on the negatives rather than the positives. After getting back and thinking about my approach and really what I think He has called me to do, I’m much more happy since relying on Him rather than my own ability. There is just too much opportunity to get discouraged.
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My darling Matthea is two weeks old ( and a couple of days!) I cannot believe how time is flying. She is a cuddle bug and only ever wants mommy to hold her.Which on one hand is amazingly awesome. I don’t want to give it up for anything, but on the other hand it is getting a bit hard, especially through the night. Every night. My dad’s business partner got Matthea a swing, and yesterday it was delivered! I put it together this morning in the wee hours while she was fussing. SHE LOVES IT. Oh my goodness. It puts her at just the right incline so that she can breathe and not spit up all the time. She can’t be put flat for very long at all.. (like maybe a few seconds at a time) as she gags and chokes so hard she cannot breathe. So a slight incline, and a constant rocking motion is just right for her! It sure is a blessing to find something that makes her feel good. 
