Inquiring minds want to know...

Dear friends,

Thank you a million times over for every Spirit-prompted recollection and inquiry about our soon-to-be growing family. I am so sorry for the lack of details. This Christmas has been wonderful for us as Cooper and Dylan participated like never before in celebrating the birth of our Savior. Which basically means they ate cookies, wrote out lists for Santa and anxiously awaited Christmas morning and the great unwrapping event of 2008. We did manage a brief reading of the Christmas story, decorating a birthday cake for Jesus and displaying the nativity scene. They played with it just like thier figurines from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I hope reverence will be a learned trait. Then again, child-like affection for the wisemen, shepherds and baby Jesus was just too sweet to correct. I tell myself there will be time for that.

So all that to say we spent a lot of this Christmas in the here and now enjoying the newness of the season when seen through the eyes of a three and almost two-year old. It really was magical. Ryder was the ever-present gift of the advent season reminding us not-so-gently that he would be making his entrance soon. I've been contracting pretty regularly for more than three weeks now. We were able to get the contractions to slow, but not stop completely. I spent most of the week of Christmas on semi-induced bed rest. Our goal was to make it past Christmas day...and we did. According to the doctors my body is simply ready (likely due to the fact that this is my third pregnancy in four years) even if Ryder is not. As of Sunday we were at 37 weeks so there won't be any need to stop labor now should it progress on its own. So now we wait.

All of this is made increasingly difficult by the fact that Dylan came three weeks early in very quick fashion, roughly three hours of labor and twenty minutes of pushing. Also we now have two children to make accommodations for while we are in the hospital so we can't exactly dart out the door unexpectedly in the middle of the night. Finally, we are about 40 minutes from the hospital with no traffic. So it would be awesome if we had a little head's up that Ryder is ready to join the world. But that's all the bad news.

Here's the good news. We are all healthy. According to all ultrasounds, Ryder is perfect. I feel 37 weeks pregnant which is to say not great, but not terrible. The boys are excited and ready. And Chad...well he has been simply more than I could ask or imagine. He spent four hours at Wal-Mart the other night stocking up on groceries. He even went so far as to ask for the brand of popcorn I was looking for and searched out the exact kind of mushrooms I needed. He has done laundry, cleaned the kitchen, honored every silly craving and request, tucked me in at night and gotten up with the kiddos so I can sleep in a little late. And he tells me regularly how beautiful he thinks I am. How ridiculously blessed am I?

So sweet friends that is our long belated update. After two trips to the hospital only to be sent home we now wait for baby Ryder to join our little family. My heart leaps at the thought. Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of Lights. I am a woman overwhelmingly blessed.