Merry Christmas!

Our wish to all our friends and family is for you to have a blessed celebration of our Savior's birth, and high hopes for a happy new year.

Blessed

Here is a photo of the girls with Lisa (Jackson) Randolph, my dear sister in Christ who came by for a visit in the hospital. Those of you who go back as far as my Kirksville days will no doubt remember her. (She attended Mid-County briefly as well.) We left a day earlier from the hospital than had been reported, so we hope nobody came up empty looking for us.

Thank you, everyone, for your comments and replies to my e-mail inviting you to see this blog. We're doing quite well under the circumstances, although Isabelle is having to overcome quite a bit. Healing from abdominal surgery is no picnic, nor is breaking in a ravenous newborn in terms of nursing.

Today, I managed to get around to some Christmas shopping. We thought we'd have plenty of time after Chloe came sometime around December 3. So we lost about two weeks there. Before any one spends any money on any newborn or infant toys or other paraphernalia, I recommend Once Upon A Child across from Walmart and Target in Kirkwood. I got all kinds of toys and books for less than the price of one item that was tempting me at Target.

Another bit of news I have is that Isabelle's sister Medge's husband was able to get a visa to visit the US, and he is due to arrive on Friday. Thank you all for your prayers for him. Something else also, in terms of prayers for me, is that it turned out that my hip condition was some kind of muscular-skeletal tweak that just needs some recovery time. We're mighty glad I'm not headed for hernia surgery as we had been told, here in the early days with Chloe and during Isabelle's recovery from surgery.

I feel a rant coming on, so stay tuned...

Chloe Pix

When Julia arrived, we had signed up for Yahoo! photos just prior, and so we could upload and make public every last photo that we took. We took so many and so many similar that people wondered if something was wrong with Yahoo! photos because it appeared to be showing duplicate photos. It was faster and easier to upload everything than to wade through it all. Since Yahoo! photos has closed up shop, we now have to pick and choose what we want to show. We'll do our best to pick some good ones so far. We have something on the order of one-third as many photos with Chloe as with Julia.

Speaking of Julia, here is a photo of the sisters. Julia has been working hard on all the concepts and vocabulary that come with her latest new role in life. She figured out somewhere along the way that Chloe was only in Mommy's tummy and not also in her own tummy. And she was saying "sister" with great sincerity, but little indication if she knew what it meant exactly. On the other hand, Julia has taken to saying, "Rosie, too!" which is a common quote from the television show "Caillou" that we let her watch almost daily. Caillou is a four year old boy and Rosie is his two-year old sister. So we think this is a good sign that she's getting some idea of what's happening.

Meet Chloe!

Here is Chloe in one of the happier minutes of her first hour or so. She came out ready for action, crying, flailing about, and pooping. She measured 21" and weight 7 lb, 14 oz, but we figure she could easily have lost the 4 oz. she needed to match Julia by failing to wait until after the official weigh-in to poop.

Dad appreciates the numerical convenience of having a daughter born on 12-14-07 who weighs 7 pounds and 14 ounces and is 21 inches long. Having multiples of seven only in the stats was plenty, Dad being a football fan as well, but then matching those up to the date with only the transposition of the month and the length was cool.

Here She Is!

Chloe Michelle Burkholder is here! She came via C-section at 6:30 pm and was 7 pounds 14 ounces and 21 inches long.

We are in room 2119 at St. Joseph's Hospital in Kirkwood. Chloe is nursing like a champ already and favors Julia quite a bit. Check with us Saturday before visiting. We'll probably be here until Tuesday they tell us.

Thank you for all your prayers! Please continue to pray for Isabelle's recovery. Our girls just haven't wanted to keep their heads down.

Holding Our Horses

Yes, it's Thursday. But it's not necessarily big, we decided. Julia came on her own five days after the estimated due date. Isabelle is feeling good, and so, three days after Chloe's estimated due date, we agreed that we could wait some more.

Stay tuned!

Big Thursday

December 6 looms large. We had an appointment with Isabelle's doctor today, and decided to schedule Isabelle to be induced early Thursday morning. Of course another possibility is that baby Chloe may arrive before then (her due date is Monday). And today we were disappointed to learn that she seems to have turned since last week and is now breach. So we may be heading for a C-section again. Please pray for us.