Welcome Melanie

Jeffs turn again...Quite the last couple days. The Lord blessed us to day with the birth of a beautiful baby girl, Melanie Grace Westra. After some bleeding, the doctors here at spectrum decided they needed to do a C-section to make sure we both stayed as safe as possible. Melanie was born at 3:23 this morning at 2 pounds and 2 ounces. Shes pretty little, however, every time I go down to look at her, Im more and more at peace with the talented people that God put Melanie in front of. What an amazing group of people. Shes got tubes and IVs, and all kind of things going on, but she is sooooo beautiful. Every part of her body is perfect. Being this small, I didnt know what to expect when surgery started, but every finger and toe, nose and ears are developed. Shes gonna have to fight, but I cant imagine her being in any better place. Keep an eye here, we'll keep everyone posted on whats going on here. Gonna be minimum of 3 months in this hospital if the Lord wills her to make it through all her battles. Love you all!!! Thank you sooo much for the prayers, and support. We'll never be able to repay everyone for the care and thoughts we've recieved already at this point.

Coloring

Jayden has had several runny things this week. We have been trying to stay at home as much as possible which has made mom a little stir crazy and the kids are needing a change of scenery. Thankfully today is warmer and dry; hopefully we'll be able to get outside for awhile. Maybe we'll have some pictures to post later. Here is a video from a couple weeks ago of Miya and Jayden coloring. One of Miya's favorite things to do (before her new bed) is color. We leave the colors and papers out all day/night long and Miya will sit and color for 10 min here and there throughout the day and evening. The problem is that trouble (aka Jayden) thinks she has to color too and she only likes to eat the colors and bit off there tips which makes Miya very upset. Hopefully soon she will develop a desire for coloring too.

New Bed

We decided to have the girls share a room upstairs since the baby will need the bedroom downstairs. We thought bunk beds would be a great idea and made the purchase last week. We picked up the beds, bedding, and mattress and Jeff put them together last week Friday night. We really thought the girls would love sharing a room and were excited to start Jayden upstairs that night. Well...she had a different plan. Jayden loved climbing into Miya's top bunk, but wanted nothing to do with sleeping in her new "big girl bed". When we first switched Miya into a big girl bed upstairs she did great. She fell out a few times the first couple of nights, but still enjoyed sleeping upstairs. I guess we figured it would be the same with Jayden, especially since her big sister was up their to keep her company. Jeff laid down with Jayden for about an hour until she fell asleep. I woke up around 2:30 to a crash and crying...she had fallen out of bed. So Jeff ran up, tucked her in, and laid with her for awhile again. He said she was stuck in her sheets hanging off the bed....a little scary. Around 4:00 I woke up to some pitter-patters on the ceiling above our heads. Someone was walking around. So Jeff once again went to check it out, and was surprised to see little miss Jayden at the bottom of the stairs. After that she won and has been in her crib since. Miya asks her every day and night if she wants to sleep with her upstairs and she always answers "un-ah!" with a shake of her head. On the positive side, they both enjoy playing upstairs despite the temperature of the room. And Miya said "My bed is cool, and my daddy is really cool too". We'll try Jayden upstairs again in a month or two :)

Riding Bike

I know it's been awhile. I was looking through the very few pictures we have on our camera and found some of Miya riding her bike. The lawn is green (and not wet) and the leaves on the trees are still green...hmmm it's defiantly been awhile. So here are some pictures of the girls riding bikes with dad. Dad decided to spoil Miya (while Mom was laid up for awhile)and buy her a new bike. She still is a little hesitant and won't ride it unless someone older is nearby to help her over the bumps...she has fallen several times.

The following is a video of Jayden picking up a toad and trying to feed it to Charlie. This child has no fear! She picked the toad up right away and tried bringing it Charlie...even though the thing kept squirming in her hands. She dropped it a couple of times and would just catch it again. I couldn't get more on camera cause my battery died :(

Picking Apples

It's been a long time since I posted...sorry about that. Things here have much improved over the past couple of weeks. I had another ultrasound last week. The baby is healthy and growing as should, the placenta has not yet moved so I still have the same restrictions as before. We have another ultrasound in about 3 weeks which will be our 28 week mark. Our Dr. thinks the placenta will have moved up by then due to the growth of the baby. I am so thankful that the baby is healthy and that I no longer have bed-rest. I want to thank all of our friends and family for the thoughts, and prayers, cards, visits, meals, and help with girls. We have been truly blessed with amazing friends and family.

The girls are back on a routine and doing well. They had so much fun playing at friend's houses over the past few weeks and having their Grandma Westra visit for a week. It was wonderful having Grandma out. It's not very often, we as mothers, are taken care of, I had that opportunity when Jer was out here. She was amazing! Helping with the girls, meals, cleaning (our garage has never looked better) and my favorite...having someone to talk to all day long (and tell you take a nap!!). I soooo wish we lived closer, but also know this is God's will at this time!

While mom was out here we were able to go to Crane's Orchard for some apples. Here are some of the pictures (the only pictures we have over the past few weeks).










The funniest part of all this was, I did not know my girls even liked apples. We have found a new snack (that takes a very long time to eat)! Yeah!!!!