Sarah's third week

Another good week at home. Sarah's about the same: still eating well, sleeping well (enough), and pooping. The life of a three week old. She's having more awake time and tends to resist her 4pm-7pm nap (which was always the rough time with the other girls too). Naomi and Annika are still the doting big sisters--lots of holding and hugging and kissing.

Naomi had the week off of school for Thanksgiving, so we've had a lot of family time. The older girls alternate between laughing and playing beautifully together and perfecting pushing each other's buttons. It seems to depend on how much Annika is willing to play by Naomi's rules and how much Naomi is willing to tolerate Annika's two-year-oldness. We're continuing to adjust to our family of five--as expected, Annika's having the hardest time with the changes. A new sister and learning to poop on a potty? Now that's asking a lot. 

(By the way, Annika's making great progress on the potty. She's mostly accident-free and Mama couldn't be happier to only have one kid in diapers!)

Opa was here for his 69th birthday, so we went out to dinner and had pumpkin whoopie pies to celebrate!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It started with Clifton and Naomi "running" a 5K Turkey Trot with Uncle Dave, Jeremy and another friend and his four year old daughter. I wasn't sure that Naomi would complete it without help, but she trudged on through the 3.1 miles of it all by herself. Their finishing time was 1:10, putting them in 608th out of 614th place. I'm pretty sure that a little piece of Clifton died with that result. :) We told him he should've run under an alias. (The good news is that if you google "clifton railsback turkey trot" it brings up race results from one he ran when he was 15 years old....)

The rest of Thanksgiving day was spent with Dave and Val, Jeremy and Timothy, Oma and Opa, and joined for dinner by another family with their three children. It was a great day of resting and football and food and family.

This year we feel especially thankful. Last year at Thanksgiving we were recovering from our second miscarriage and had no idea what God had for our family. We didn't dare dream of another child. When we got pregnant, we were afraid to hope that this pregnancy would work. When it worked, we wondered if we could be so fortunate as to have a healthy baby. When it appeared that we were having a healthy baby, we felt like we couldn't have been more blessed. Don't get me wrong--Naomi and Annika are amazing gifts to us; but Sarah feels like a miracle. We are thankful.