It's a Girl!

We are excited to welcome Georgia Kay Johnson to our family. She was born Thursday May 26, 2011 at 6:15 PM. She was 20" long and weighed 8 lbs 4 oz. We're so grateful for her safe delivery and for all the support we've received from our family, friends and neighbors.

Georgia Kay Johnson is named after some wonderful people. Her first name is after Nick's paternal grandmother, who passed away several years ago. She was a wonderful woman, who exemplified devotion to her family, love for the Lord and an enterprising spirit. Baby Georgia's middle name is the name of Nick's late stepfather. Additionally, the name Kay has added meaning for my family. Our friend Rebekah passed away three years ago, and Kay is also her middle name. I can't hear the name Kay without remembering the wonderful influence both of these people have had in our lives.

The Robin and Me

This planter, that currently functions as a bird's nest, is on the front of our house, sheltered by our little porch. It hosts a robin that spends almost all her time sitting on three bright blue eggs. I try not to use the front door too much because it spooks her, so I wait until she's not on the nest to grab my mail.

I think that she and I are a lot alike right now. We're both sitting around waiting for our offspring to appear. We should savor this time before the real work begins, when babies cry and need things and wake you up several times in the night. I want to savor this time, but the two-year-old woke up at five this morning, which feels more like newborn hours than toddler hours. And since the birds start chirping outside my bedroom window at about that time, I'm guessing the robin didn't sleep in either.

Oh Baby, Where Art Thou?

My due date is Monday, but we have no expectation of having a baby here anywhere near that soon. Henry was a post-date induction, and I won't be shocked if this baby has a similar birthday in store. On Monday we finally got the baby furniture out of the attic. I still don't have my bag packed for the hospital. Maybe I should work on that this weekend. We do have the car seat, some diapers, a few onesies and a blanket. The rest is just fluff anyway.

So, loyal readers, both of you, in the comments give your best guess for when this baby will show up, what gender it will be, what size it will be and suggest a name appropriate for the predicted gender. Actually, suggest lots of names. I'm worried we'll leave the hospital with the birth certificate filled out as "Baby Johnson."

Birthday Bash, Several Times Over

Click on photo for better view.

At the end of March, we traveled to Utah and Colorado for Nick's vacation time. In addition to getting near adequate amounts of sleep for the first time in months, Nick was able to spend a day skiing, go see a couple movies, and see lots of family. We were also traveling for Henry's birthday, so we turned it into a traveling birthday party. We had birthday candles and cake at each of his grandparents house. His favorite part was the noisemakers that unroll when you blow on them. He now knows how to blow out a candle.


For his actual birthday, he spent much of the day strapped into his car seat driving from Utah to Southwest Colorado to visit Nick's grandpa Buddy. (Henry's middle name is after this grandpa.) We did get him ice cream in Moab to celebrate. It was a bit reminiscent of his first birthday, when he spent all day in his car seat, first driving around Chicago neighborhoods looking at houses and then making our way back to St. Louis. But once we arrived in Colorado, we made up for the drive by having fun on an awesome playground and visiting Nick's aunt Reba.

Our family was very generous with presents. He loves the cars, trains, balls, and puzzles he received.

To All the Women in Our Lives:

Easter Family Fun

Henry has a thing for sunglasses now and wears them a lot. He seems especially drawn to wear them indoors, in the evening during low-light conditions.

We had a special visitor for Easter weekend. Katie came for about 44 hours, which is about her average visit. She took her last final for the semester and hopped on a plane from San Diego to Chicago.  When she got here, it was raining so heavily, we could barely see the planes taking off very nearby. I don't know what her rush was for leaving: I thought we were more fun than that.

Nick was post-call and didn't get home until 12:00, but luckily he had slept a little during the night. We forced him out of bed at about 3:30, had a one-kid Easter Egg hunt in the backyard, then had a delicious dinner. During the egg hunt, Henry found a lot of eggs (often with help) but each egg had the tiniest amount of candy possible. His bucket looks full, but it's really only about twenty jelly beans.

 

As soon as dinner was over, we quickly sewed a button back on Kate's jacket before rushing her back to the airport. I was doing it, but apparently I've never learned to tie a knot properly. Nick insisted on taking over and finishing it off with a surgeon's knot of some kind. If his surgical career doesn't work out for some reason, perhaps he can go into tailoring.