At long last....

We welcome Jillian Alice Felt to our little family! She was born the afternoon of July 15 after a long 15 hours of labor. She weighs 8 1/2 pounds, is 20 and 1/4 inches long and has poofy dark hair. Baby is doing very well and Mom feels so good that it must be criminal somehow!

I know she doesn't look like a newborn here, she's only 48 hours old. She's not always this alert but she is an excellent baby so far. She appears to be her mother's daughter with an excessive fondness for sleep! I'm sure there will be enough future updates to make everyone sick of seeing them. Thanks everyone for your encouragement and prayers, they were needed.

You've been pregnant too long when....

....you ask your three year old son what's wrong and he grips his stomach and says, "I'm having contractions!"

....the teenage bagger at the grocery store actually lifts his eyes to look at you, the puberty induced fog momentarily clears, and he speaks..."Whoa, can I, like, help you to your car or something?"

....your Star Wars crazed sons generally refer to you as "Chubba-the-Hutt."

....every well meaning, oblivious, never-had-a-baby checker at Wal-Mart wants to know when your twins are due.

....your favorite food seasoning is "Tums," because even a glass of water gives you heartburn.

....your kids look up at you and say, "Mom, you're getting a little grumpy, maybe you need a few minutes to lie down."

....no matter how much water you guzzle, your bladder only produces urine one teaspoon at a time.

....you are actually looking forward to the experience of childbirth.

Josh and I started making this list together last weekend, I thought I'd post our best and see what other items you could come up with.

So Long Old Pal...

It is funny how I find myself being sentimental about such an unexpected item as a car. Our old Land Cruiser has finally gone to the car lot in the sky. Just before we hit this last week of record high heat (112 to 115 degrees) the air conditioner totally died. We had finally come to the point where the car was worth less than the repairs. And so, we traded in our old car. I am thrilled to have a beautiful new (used) car, but strangely, it was hard to watch them drive our old friend off to the scrap pile. We bought the old Cruiser a few months before we had Alex, who is about to turn 7.



When Josh and I were discussing the old car, we both had the same memory pop up. We had been hiking in the Grand Staircase with Josh's family all day and were headed home to Arizona. About 30 seconds after we left the trailhead, we turned around and both boys were out cold asleep. We have seen a lot of road, and a lot of off-road, together. In the immortal words of James Taylor, "Life's good friends are hard to find, and now one of mine is [gone]..." I hope the newer car will give us the same good run! Viva Toyota!

The Stuff of Life

I know, two posts in one day, but I have some catching up to do. I couldn't go without showing off my little niece. These are some of the pictures of little Jane Woodford and her family. So far Kate still thinks she's pretty neat, I keep wondering when she'll be ready to ship her off "to California." (This is what another of my neices decided was the appropriate course of action to solve the problem of a new baby brother.) Besides, Sunny looks so good for a lady who just had a baby that I didn't think she'd mind being shown off too. :)

These other pictures are one of the great moments of parenthood. I came in and found Alex reading to Ryan for the first time. I really love having them enjoy being together, it warms a Mother's heart. Just in the last little while they have really started playing well together. It's nice that Jedi knights usually come in pairs! It wil be especially important that they can entertain each other when their baby sister arrives to complicate their little world. Here's to being comrades-in-arms as well as brothers!

Josh, the King of DIY!

How do I love thee? Let me lay the tile! My dear sweet husband knew that eventually I wanted to have black and white tile in my master bath. (Our builder seemed to think that cheap brown carpet was a really nice option for bathroom floors.) So last week, Josh spent every evening, after a full work-day and finishing his church work, working on his hands and knees to make me this lovely floor. Anyone who knows anything about the state of Josh's knees will understand what a labor of love this was. Thank you, thank you to my HHBL!

Alex and Ryan, as you can see were oodles of help. Actually, Ryan is quite responsible with the shop vac, and Alex excelled at demolition. You can see him weilding the hammer to break out the old brown tile around the toilet. He worked with great gusto until a piece of tile flew up and cut his finger. I was limited to official gopher, tool fetcher, clean water getter, and sponge wringer-outer.

I do love working with Josh. I look forward to more home improvement projects when I am no longer great with child. We have a long history of working together. Our first few dates were spent painting the exterior of Felt Lighting and re-caulking the front display windows. (I guess he had to try me out to see if I could cut the mustard.) I love being married to a man who can do this stuff!

Welcome Baby Jane!

Hooray! I am an Auntie again! My sweet sister brought her second little daughter into the world today at 1 PM. Jane is a tiny, but very healthy 6 lb. 10 oz. girl with lots of dark hair. Welcome sweet baby. I'm sure there will be pictures forthcoming, especially if Grandpa Larry was around anywhere.

Random items

Ryan has discovered the joys of shaving cream. He must have spent two hours in the tub just smearing it all over himself and anywhere else he could reach. Now that it's getting too hot to play outside during the day, I may be more grateful for this discovery in the near future.

My boys have also found a wonderful use for pool noodles. They cut them in half and use them as lightsabers. They can beat on each other to their heart's content without causing any damage. It has become nearly a daily ritual. My sons are Star Wars freaks. They love to play with the legos and the transformers. It does this mother's heart good to see the boys play together and use their imaginations.

You may have noticed that Ryan is not wearing pants. He's very good about getting them on when we are leaving and when we have company, but as soon as we're home alone, off come the pants! With the weather heating up, I may be joining him. Today we hit our first 100+ degrees. It is going to be a long 8 weeks until I get rid of this little internal heater.

I also thought I'd post a garden update. Our garden has just exploded over the last few weeks. The tomato plants are about 5 feet tall, covered with little tomatoes, and the squash is as big as Ryan. As far as gardening in Arizona, I am a square-foot garden convert. This is the first time we have had any real produce to speak of. As a matter of fact, we had three different kinds of summer squash from the garden with our dinner tonight! There is just something deeply satsifying about that.