Madeline Kate has arrived!!!

Our little girl arrived April 19 weighing in at 7 pounds and 9 ounces. I know it has now been 6 weeks since she has been here and I am just now posting about her arrival. There are two very good reasons for that.... 1. our computer crashed on week 3 and 2. life with two kids is much harder than I expected!!!

Everything went great with her birth. It was such a better experience with Madeline than with Noah. Joe helped deliver her and caught her as she came out! It was really amazing! He was smitten with her from that moment on. However, after we left the hospital things got really interesting. Without going into all the details, suffice it to say, one ER visit, four doctor visits, jaundice, phototherapy, and acid reflux we have survived to this sixth week!

Noah took to her pretty fast as well. He immediately gave her kisses and hugs when he saw her for the first time. He has been very sweet to her, almost too loving!! I have to watch to make sure he doesn't squish her from all his lovin'! The hardest part to adjusting to two children has really been with Noah, who is going on two and his favorite word is "no"! We knew it was going to be a hard transition, but I don't think we were prepared completely for it! Noah has shown his adjustment towards us in his behavior, thankfully not towards Madeline. It has gotten so much better and for that we are thankful, but he is still a toddler! He loves his Daddy and when the weekend comes, you can forget about Mama! That has been hard for me, but come Monday morning he is back to normal. Joe really has been terrific and took care of Noah the first few weeks while I was busy with Madeline. I think this explains his obsession with Daddy now! But I love that Noah loves his Daddy so much.

People keep asking me if I would do this again so soon or if I will have another one.... to that I reply that it entirely too soon to ask those questions! We all know that the first 6-8 weeks is the hardest, and it's all about survival!!! We are almost there! We are very thankful for our two children and pray daily for strength, grace, patience, energy and love to be a parent to them.

(You can pray that our pictures will be recovered from our computer and then I can post some of our precious baby girl!)