A few more pictures...

This is me and my mom and Charlie on our first grand adventure out of the house.

We went to the mall and Charlie was the perfect gentleman and slept until our shopping was done before he demanded his lunch.

Then he only cried for the last 5 min of the car ride home. Success!
Though he spends most of his time sleeping, as he should,

Charlie does vary things occasionally by trying to stare down whoever is holding him.

There's really nothing that beats snuggling with Grandma!

Introducing.....

CHARLIE!

Charles Connor Marzinke was born February 14th, at 7:15am, weighing 7lbs 15oz and was 21 inches long. Labor turned out to be just that, labor! And the three of us have spent this last week recuperating as best we can.

Now that we are home from the hospital, Charlie sleeps hanging from the ceiling,

prefers being rolled up like an armadillo,

has very long toes, has already smiled at each of the important people in his life, and finds most conversation topics an occasion for solemn taciturnity.

Theology really seems his thing. This makes his father and grandfather proud. (If you listen carefully you can hear his comment close to the end of this conversation)

In the past six days of life he has acquired several vital skills, including a suck reflex strong enough to plaster his mother to the ceiling, being able to fill three diapers in quick succession before leaving the changing table, and the ability to sleep for 5 hours at a time, for which both his father and mother are profoundly grateful.

It is such a mysterious thing that God does bringing these little ones into the world and into life. Half the time Jonathan and I feel like we are waiting for his parents to come pick him up after a week of babysitting, and have to remind each other that we are actually Charlie's parents! The other half of the time we are blown away and so humbled that we have been given stewardship of this precious and beautiful gift.

God is Good, All the Time
All the Time, God is Good.

Nest-Craft-ing...

All righty now, here's the scoop on crafts around here.

The nursery corner...
Because we needed our second bedroom for Jonathan's office and guest bedroom while my parents are staying here after the baby is born, we decided to set up the end of our bedroom as baby land. This actually worked out even better than we hoped. Here's Jonathan bringing in the glider chair. It was a really big box!


This corner has become my favorite spot in our house. The chair is so comfortable, and I could spend many hours in it...which I guess I will be doing soon!

We moved the baby dresser into our room too. (Also pictured: the little radiator that could, the diaper pail from the diaper service, our bag ready for the hospital, and our changing pad, which will go on top of a table my Dad plans to build to fit the space where the suitcase is, once he and my Mom get here in a couple weeks.)

Thank you for the toys and books you've sent our way!

We put the baby basket on an antique traveling trunk for now. My Dad has promised to figure out how to hang it from the ceiling when they get here!


The baby basket.....
I sewed the sheets with elastic around the ends so they just fit over the mattress. We sleep with a duvet, which meant that I had all sorts of flat sheets hanging around from our sheet sets that we never used. I just cut up the ends of two sheets and now the baby has four of the softest jersey knit sheets to sleep on. I think there is enough left over to make sheets for the crib too, when we set it up later. And they match our bed. Though I recognize that the fact that this excites me is really corny, I just can't help myself! As, my friends Amanda and Sarah decided, we're all dorks anyways...so might as well enjoy it!~

There are a few soft friends waiting to become acquainted with the baby. Thank you Hartmans, and Cheryl and Judy! The beautiful quilt was made by my friend Jen.

Moby wrapping....
This is me trying to explain how a moby wrap works to Jonathan. Unfortunately, I only had about 3 feet of fabric to work with at that point. What with the size of my belly, I'm afraid the demonstration did not really go too well.

Things went much better after I had all 18 feet sewn together.

Mama Bear and Baby Bear were kind enough to demonstrate the baby's role in this.
(Mama Bear and Baby Bear are very special, by the way. The Mama holds onto Baby with Velcro paws, but when I was growing up baby got lost for about 12 years. We miraculously found him two houses later, in a fold of a suitcase when I was packing up to move to the US for college. They have been together ever since!)


Thus ends news on nest-crafting for now.
I do have a few more things on the sewing machine...but the essentials are taken care of.
I guess that means we are ready! Yikes!

Making Cindie Proud--39 weeks and one pound of rasberry leaf tea consumed

One of the very sad things about leaving Seattle during this pregnancy was having to leave behind our midwife Cindie. We love her very much and I've had to work hard at letting go of my desire to have her at our birth. She is kind and wise and knows a lot about natural preventative remedies. So, she sent us off to St. Louis with a few such suggestions, one of which was to drink lots of raspberry leaf tea. It helps the uterus in many ways which I don't have the expertise to go into here, but you can look it up if you are interested!

Today as I am celebrating using up an entire pound of rasberry leaf tea during this pregnancy ! (which, if you know how light the stuff is, is a LOT of rasberry leaf tea)

As I made this pot of tea with the end of the bag, I thought "Cindie would be so proud of me!"--a happy thought to have in sunshiny morning before breakfast.